Kingdom Come: Obey 2

Happy 4th of July Weekend!

Many of us will spend the next few days savoring the freedom to be with our families, grill delectable meats, and maybe even watching some fireworks in the sky. The history of the weekend, however, dates back to the fateful day in 1776 when the framers of our country declared independence from England and signed the famous words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

In the Gospel of Matthew, we find an even more famous set of words from Jesus: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” In what follows, Jesus gives us a course for true independence from the grip of spiritual tyranny and toward the deepest kind of life, liberty, and the pursuit of blessedness.

The way, of course, may be challenging.

But according to Jesus, the freedom found in the journey is well worth the sacrifice.

And, incidentally, it can be savored forever.

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Sermon Transcript

Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: Kingdom Come: Sermon on the Mount
July 6, 2014

Obey – Part 2
Matthew 5:17-48

If you don’t have a Bible, slip up your hand and we’ll give you one. It would be very helpful to have a Bible. If you’re looking at Matthew 5, you see some of the subheadings: “Anger,” “Lust,” “Divorce.” You realize we’re heading into some territory that is quite delicate. If you remember, about a month ago we were reading in Nehemiah, chapter 8, when Ezra stood up and read from the Law to all of the people gathered in the square. There’s this phrase in Nehemiah 8 that talked about how all of those who were able to understand listened.

I wanted to give you a heads up. As we venture forward into some of these topics that we talk about because Jesus talks about them, if you’re with your kids and there are some topics you may foresee they don’t understand, I want you to know that downstairs the kids’ department is teaching a great lesson on this Scripture that they will be able to understand.

So just so you know, we’re headed into some territory, so if you want to take your kids to GraceKidz because these are a few subjects they’re not ready to wrestle with, that’s a-okay. Is everybody okay with that? Great. Probably everybody is kind of sitting forward like, “What are we going to talk about?”

It’s July 4th weekend, a beautiful weekend. Every once in a while, Atlanta tricks you into thinking you live in California. The weather is just so nice and dry and crisp. I think a lot of people I know had nice Fourth of July weekends. We were over at the grocery store, and we actually got the last bag of hamburger buns. I thought, “Wow, it’s either about to snow or all the bread and milk is gone or it’s the Fourth of July.”

Then I went over to Home Depot, and on the outdoor propane tanks there was a huge sign that said, “Out of propane.” I guess everybody is grilling this weekend. Of course, we remember that weekend, July 4th, as the Independence Day celebration of our great country. It was the time when the framers of the United States had, over a period of years, grown tired of living under a foreign empire and having their lives run by this foreign empire of England.

They had experienced unjust taxation. The legal system had broken down in many ways. There were signs of oppression. It led them, as leaders of their communities, to get together and express in a formal document a desire for freedom. That was the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. In that, they talk about the certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It really was a political declaration for freedom and for rights, and it was kind of the beginning of a revolution. Of course, in 1775 there had already been Lexington and Concord. Some of the shooting battles had already begun. But really, this Declaration of Independence pushed it over the edge to the revolution.

That characteristic at the birth or the forming of the United States has really stuck with us as a people, as a nation. It’s a big part of our identity. Wherever we go around the world, actually, when I talk to people who live in other countries about America, one of the things they often mention is that this is the place of freedom.

A lot of people want to move to the United States because it’s the place of freedom (and making money, but freedom is a big part of that as well). A lot of times people think, “If I have enough money, then certainly I’ll be free.” So a lot of times when we hear the word freedom, when we think about freedom, we think about it in terms of that political reality. “What are our rights? How are we living? What are we free to do?”

The question we’re going to wrestle with a little bit this morning is…Is this the true freedom in the eyes of God? Is it your political rights? What about when you live in a situation when the government doesn’t necessarily provide the full extent of freedom you desire? Is it still possible to live freely even when you’re in a situation where externally there are controls on your life?

These are the exact same questions the people of Jesus’ day were facing, because the Romans ran their lives. Living in Palestine, Israel, at the time of the Roman Empire was actually much more oppressive, much more difficult, than it would have been living under English rule in 1776. The people had very few rights. They were very poor. We’ve talked about this. Probably around 80 percent or so were just barely living at that subsistence level.

They’re very broken. They have all kinds of hopes and dreams that haven’t come to fruition. As the Jews, they felt like God had promised them life, liberty, and the pursuit of blessedness, but they had not experienced it yet. Then Jesus shows up on the scene, and he begins saying things like, “I have come that you might have life, and life to the full.” He came and said things like, “If the Son sets you free, then you are indeed free.”

Here in the Sermon on the Mount he said, “If you’re poor in spirit, if you feel like you have nothing, you’re blessed and yours is the kingdom of God.” These are the sorts of things Jesus comes in to pronounce. “The kingdom of God is at hand. It’s available through me. You live in this bondage to the kingdom of darkness, yet I can show you the way out of that kingdom of darkness and into the life of light, the life of God’s rule, where our God reigns and things are as God desires.”

Last week we looked at how that first beatitude in verse 3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” really describes a state of hollowness within, poverty, bankruptcy of spirit. Then, at the end of chapter 5, we get to this point where Jesus says, “You must be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

We talked about how that word perfect doesn’t necessarily mean so much moral perfection as it does total wholeness. Of course it includes the moral component, but really it just means a fullness and a wholeness of life. So what you’re seeing happen from the beginning of chapter 5 to the end of chapter 5 is Jesus laying out a path for the hollow to become whole, from the bankruptcy of our spirits to being perfect or whole like our Father is perfect.

This is a powerful transformation, but in order to get there, in order to arrive at that sense of wholeness and freedom, there’s going to be challenge. As we remember this weekend, and often during the course of the year, freedom is not free. Oftentimes it must be fought for. Here Jesus is laying out a course of how we fight for freedom and how we begin to live not under the bondage of darkness but more and more in that kingdom of God, that kingdom of light.

Just as a reminder of what we talked about last week, when Jesus is going through these teachings, oftentimes we have read them as sort of an either/or: “You used to hear it say this, but now I say that.” Actually, they’re not just two-part teachings Jesus gives; they’re three-part teachings.

He says, “Here was the traditional way. You’ve heard it this way. You’ve thought about it this way. This is what the Old Testament said, or this is what the religious tradition says. You’ve heard this.” That’s the first part. The second part is Jesus saying, “Now here is the vicious cycle. Here’s where you’re in bondage. If you don’t deal with this particular issue, whether it’s lust or anger or dishonesty and manipulation, here’s where that cycle will bring you.”

In the third piece, Jesus gives very practical, very doable, transforming initiatives, things we can engage that will begin to transform us. Of course, we do that with the help of God. We do that in the awareness of God’s blessedness and grace. We do it with his strength. Nonetheless, there are responses. There are active steps Jesus is giving us so we might live more and more fully into the Scripture, into the direction he’s giving us.

I’m going to start in verse 17. I’m going to read through the end of the chapter, which is a lot. Then we’re going to start unpacking it. Of course, we’re not going to be able to unpack every detail. There are books and books written about just one or two of each of these verses, but we’re hopefully going to get to a place where we’re able to see the big picture of what Jesus is doing here in chapter 5 and we can explain enough so we can begin to live more deeply in some of these areas.

Starting in verse 17, right after Jesus has said, “You’re the salt of the earth and the light of the world,” he says, “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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.'” (Matthew 5:17-21)

That’s the traditional teaching. Moving on to verse 22, here’s the vicious cycle: “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matthew 5:22)

Then here are the transforming initiatives Jesus says, the next steps: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” (Matthew 5:23-26)

Then Jesus moves on to lust. Here’s the traditional teaching: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.'” (Matthew 5:27) Now here’s the vicious cycle: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

This is the transforming initiative: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’

But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:29-48)

Deep breath. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Last week we talked about anger, so we won’t spend much time rehashing that ground, other than to say Jesus is very serious about reconciliation and forgiveness. Actually, what you see here in chapter 5 is Jesus emphasizing the importance of good relationships, honoring others, of deep respect and regard for the human dignity of others.

In fact, later they would ask Jesus, “What’s the most important command in all the Law?” and you remember what he said: “Love the Lord your God and then love your neighbor as yourself.” What we see in Matthew 5 is Jesus unpacking, in many ways, what it looks like to love those around us. Then we get to Matthew 6, and we’ll see much more the love directly in the presence of God, as he talks about prayer and fasting and giving and all of this, how we relate to God in anxiety and finances and everything else.

So here Jesus is really pressing us in our relationships with others. The first thing he addresses is that anger. It’s not a prohibition of anger altogether. It’s Jesus coming against the idea of when we are wronged or when we see injustice or when life just hits us hard and we feel pain and anger shoot up, that we not maintain it but quickly, with priority, go and be reconciled. Can you just imagine how much better the world would be if we all dealt with our anger? I think that’s part of what Jesus is doing here. “First, let’s work on anger.”

Then he moves pretty quickly on to lust. The traditional teaching goes back to the Old Testament. “You shall not commit adultery.” Then he talks about this vicious cycle. “When you look at a woman with lustful intent, you’ve already committed adultery with her.” This is difficult. What’s going on here? What is Jesus talking about when he’s talking about this look with lustful intent?

It’s important to recognize this look is not merely appreciating beauty. God himself, after he created the heavens and the earth in the beginning of the book of Genesis, looked at all that he had made and said it was good. “It’s very good.” So God himself looks and sees beauty and appreciates it. People are often beautiful. It’s not talking about simply appreciating beauty.

Actually, one of the ways this has been translated is as the leering look or staring. The idea is not even that you’re looking around and all of a sudden you see an attractive person and kind of have this quick trigger of a thought like, “Oh, very attractive person,” or whatever goes through your mind. It’s not so much that. It’s more that you are looking with a preconceived desire to desire, that you’re looking with intent to possess or to burn.

We know what this is like. We know what it’s like when there’s something that catches the corner of your eye, and you have a sense that it may be inflaming to your passion. Then you decide, “I’m still going to look at it,” because there’s going to be this little jolt of gratification or pleasure that comes through our eyes. It releases that dopamine in our brains, the oxytocin of connectedness, just a little hit.

In Jesus’ day, one of the problems was that people felt like, “As long as I don’t physically sleep with someone else’s spouse, I’m okay.” At the same time, with their eyes they would drink in all of those little gratifications. Jesus is saying, “No, no, no. If that’s the way you’re living, you are in a vicious cycle that will result in the divided heart of broken covenant and adultery and shattered relationships.”

I think that probably in our culture today it’s at least as bad as it was back then. I think if you look around everywhere, there is great value on appearance. It’s not just a system that messes with the minds of the luster, the person who is looking for that little sense of gratification with the eyes. It’s a system that creates all sorts of vicious cycles all the way around.

It creates people who thrive on attracting the look, who actually cultivate that, because they recognize if someone is looking at them lustfully it gives them the upper hand. That’s a broken relationship. It’s a system that wrecks people who are constantly looking for the next view, the next glance, the next little charge of visual gratification. It’s a system that ruins for spouses who feel like their mate is constantly looking at others and never at them.

It’s a system that makes those who feel like they don’t attract the look, who don’t inspire the lustful intent, feel so inadequate. What Jesus is really getting at here is the objectification of others, the temptation to reduce another person to just a set of body parts and then to take that set of body parts and entertain whatever it is in the mind that’s unwholesome and unrighteous.

As we objectify others more and more and more we actually begin to surrender our humanity, and brokenness cycles all the way around. This is what Jesus is talking about when he says, “When you’re looking lustfully like this, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart. Your heart is becoming divided. Covenants are being shattered.”

Now listen carefully, because every single one of us deals with sexual brokenness, and it manifests in different ways. Some of us have had experiences as younger people. Some of us are currently in the grip of sexual addiction. If God suddenly removed everyone from this room who had some sexual brokenness at work in their lives, I’d be the only one left talking. Nope, it would be an empty room. It’s going to be an empty room.

You know, it’s uncomfortable to talk about this stuff. As I was reading this text, I was going, “Man, it is July 4th weekend. People are in town. Parents are in town. Families are around. ‘Hey, let’s go to church together.’ Then all of a sudden, ‘Hello, lust. Let’s look at this right in the face.'” But it’s like we read. Jesus says we’re not going to strike one jot, one iota.

We’re not going to take anything out of the Word of God. We’re just going to walk through it and we’re going to read it. We’re talking about it because Jesus talks about it, and Jesus talks about it because it’s a real issue and it needs to be dealt with, and if we don’t deal with it, we end up with these shattered, broken lives.

I remember a few years ago talking to a young man. He grew up in a Christian home, and he said every month a Playboy magazine would come in the mailbox. Sometimes he’d get the mail, sometimes his dad, sometimes his mom, but nobody in the family ever talked about it. It was like this totally unspoken, under-the-surface reality that everyone knew about but nobody dealt with. We do that sometimes. Sometimes we think, “Oh well, it’s just my struggle. I’m wrestling with this, but whatever else.”

We just kind of hold it all in, and we never talk about it. That’s what creates adulterers in our hearts. It’s something that needs to be addressed. If it is an issue for you, just candidly find someone you trust and begin to unpack it. It may not even be at this point. You may not even have that kind of relationship, but if this is an area of real wrestling for you, one of the great first steps is to begin talking about it. “All right, let’s admit it’s there. Let’s confess this is an issue. Now what? Where do we go from here?”

For Jesus, he says very clearly, “Here’s the transforming initiative: gouge out your eye and cut off your hand.” Is Jesus speaking literally here? He can’t be, because if you’re looking lustfully and your right eye causes you to sin and you gouge it out, you still have your left eye. You can still lust with your left eye. Either eye can lust. What’s Jesus talking about here?

He’s not talking specifically about literally gouging out our eyes. He’s talking about removal, removing the pathway to temptation. It may even seem as costly sometimes as gouging out your eye or cutting off your hand. So Jesus’ transforming initiative is to say, “Don’t mess with this. Remove it. Remove whatever it is that is the pathway or gateway of temptation.”

Several months ago, Amy and I signed up for a new cable provider. I love to watch sports. She and I love to watch competitive cooking shows together. It’s like sports and cooking, so we agree on that. Then, of course, the home shows where they renovate the whole house and everything. So we like to watch a few of those shows, so we got a new cable service provider.

As I was calling and talking to them, you know, this complicated calculus of figuring out how long you’re going to pay what price and then at what point everything becomes ludicrously expensive… It’s this challenging thing. So anyway, whatever it was, we ended up getting a package that was dramatically cheaper because it included a premium movie channel.

There are probably some great movies on this package of channels. There are some good movies. We watched a few of the movies on that channel. But there’s also some real trash on this channel. Now that Amy is in nursing school, she often will go to bed at 9:00. She has to get up at 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning to go to her hospital, or whatever. So some nights I’ll be watching the Braves, and I’ll be flipping through, and I’ll see on the menu some of these trash programs. I mean, it’s just pornography.

There’s this temptation. It’s like this fleshy inflammation that just wants to look. You know what I’m talking about. So I’m reading this, and Jesus says, “Remove it. Don’t even entertain the temptation of it.” So I call the company and say, “Guys, could I cancel the premium television channel service?” They say, “Why would you do that? It’s free.” I said, “I want to get rid of that. I don’t need it anymore.” I’ve been reading the Sermon on the Mount, okay? Just cut it out.

This is the amazing thing that happened. They go, “Well, sir, we can remove it, but you’ll have to pay $50 more a month.” I’m like, “Are you kidding me? I’m actually reducing service.” They’re saying, “No, no, no. It’s going to cost you more to do it.” I’m like, “What in the world?” Jesus says, “Gouge out your eye. Cut off your hand.” Sometimes removal is costly. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable.

So I explored all of the options with the cable provider, and I was like, “Okay, this isn’t making a lot of sense.” I talked to Amy. I said, “Amy, what do we do about this?” Because this is a temptation. It’s not like an active place of stumbling for me, understand, but it is a temptation, and when I’m looking for an alternate channel between innings for the Braves game, I don’t want to even have that messing with my head.

I talked to Amy, and she said, “Well, we can just take it off the guide so you don’t see the channels anymore.” I was like, “That is a good choice.” So anyway, we’re kind of figuring out, “What do we do?” It’s so interesting that even the cable providers… The reason they want us to watch that channel is so we get so hooked on its shows that after the year is up we’ll pay exorbitant amounts of money to be able to continue piping that trash into our house.

Jesus says radical removal is the way. “Radically remove this.” That’s the word some of us may need to embrace and explore with the help of God. Are there some areas of our lives that need radical removal? Are there some pipelines of temptation that are there, even if we are not actively entertaining them, and they don’t need to be? Here’s what Jesus is saying: “Don’t even mess with it. Just remove it. Learn a different way. Learn to look differently.”

Just a couple of weeks ago we were doing a wedding for one of the young guys who was in my high school D-Group a few years ago. It’s so great watching these young guys get married. I love that moment in a wedding when the bride comes down the aisle. She’s just radiant and beautiful and walking down the aisle and the music is a crescendo and all the rest.

I love that moment, but even more than that, I love watching the groom as he’s there. I saw this young guy who I’d known, who I’d walked with through so much of life, and we had talked about all sorts of deep issues together, and as she’s walking down the aisle, the tears are streaming down his cheeks and he’s giving her the righteous look. It’s not the look of lustful intent; it’s the look of authentic love.

I thought, “You know, that’s how Jesus wants us to look at our spouses.” That’s how Jesus wants us to look at people: not as a collection of objectified body parts, but as whole, beautiful sons and daughters of God who are gifts to us. If we never learn how to look that way at others, we’ll never live fully in this kingdom reality. So Jesus’ transforming initiative is, “There are some things it’s time to remove.”

Then he moves on. He presses in deeper. In verse 31, he begins talking about divorce. This is an incredibly delicate subject. I’ve talked with many folks who are part of this church who have experienced various perspectives on divorce and have heard different teachings within the church about divorce. Not just Grace, but other churches. “How do we interpret these passages? What is Jesus actually saying here?”

I want to make a few brief observations, but before we dig into this next topic from Jesus, let me just say this: if you are in a place where your marriage has ended or it is feeling like it’s on the brink of disaster, this room is not the ideal setting in which to find what you need to know and hear from the Word of the Lord. Let me say that a different way.

If you feel like your marriage is in a crisis place, sitting as one of 700 to 800 people, you can get some stuff, but what you really need is to process that with wise leaders. You need to sit down and have some of those conversations face to face. I know many of you have. I mean, we’ve had those conversations, our whole team, in many places. All of our marriages go through times when it feels like, “This thing is not going to work out.” We can gain some insight in the big room, but what we really need is that face-to-face connection.

Rachel Vigardt and the team lead a ministry on Monday nights called re|engage for marriages. Some of you guys have done that. It’s been very powerful. You can drop in at any point. It’s not a curriculum where if you show up on the seventh week of the 32-week study you feel like you’re behind. You just show up. “Our marriage is in trouble. We need to talk about this at a more personalized level.”

That’s Monday nights in the Dhouse at 6:30, and it has child care available. So before we get into this subject, if you’re in that place where you’re wrestling through this… We have an amazing divorce care ministry if you’re on the other side of divorce. The real place to process this kind of brokenness is in a smaller place where you can look people in the face and really experience the grace and truth of God directly.

With that said, what’s going on here when Jesus is talking about divorce? Well, first, you have the traditional teaching. “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” This is from Deuteronomy, chapter 24, verses 1-4. There in the Old Testament Law it says:

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 24:1-4)

The key section of Deuteronomy 24 is that it’s talking about in a patriarchal male-dominated society, when a man takes a wife, marries her, and then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, he writes her a certificate of divorce. The idea is that the man is not allowed to simply push the woman out of his life altogether, but if he finds some indecency in her…

There is a broad range of interpretations. Some of the people at the time of Jesus said, “Well, indecency. That could be like she didn’t please him with her cooking or housekeeping,” whereas others were saying, “No, it’s only reserved for infidelity and sexual immorality within the marriage.” So there’s a broad range. “What exactly does it mean that he has found some indecency in her?” There’s debate about that.

What had happened by the time of Jesus is that people were divorcing for very little reason. They took this law to mean not so much, “If I divorce you, then you have a piece of paper so you can get remarried.” It was more sort of like, “I’m trying to find justification and paperwork that will legitimize this divorce.”

So there was a great deal of turnover. There was a lot of divorce like this. Jesus is confronting this very lax view of the gift of marriage. He’s saying, “Guys, something has happened where you’ve taken this Old Testament Law and have mutilated it to the point that you have entirely lost the intent of God for marriage, the significance of that covenant relationship.”

The vicious cycle that comes out of that teaching is when we lose sight of the significance, the value, the sacred gift, of the marriage covenant, adultery begins to proliferate. There’s adultery all over the place. That’s really what’s going on here. Why? Because the covenants are being broken.

Now it’s very interesting, because on this subject… There are 14 of these little sets of 3 through the Sermon on the Mount. This is the only one of them that does not have a transforming initiative from Jesus. With anger he said, “Go be reconciled.” With lust he said, “Okay, remove it.” With this one, there’s no transforming initiative. In some ways, this is Jesus emphasizing how sacred marriage is and how it is to be preserved with the highest intensity.

But he does give an exception. I don’t want to soften his words at all here, because he is so forceful in endorsing the integrity and enduring nature of marriage, but he gives this exception here. In verse 32, he says, “I say to you everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.”

Once again, we have a challenge of interpretation. What is sexual immorality? The Greek word is porneia, and it can refer to everything from specifically incest to adultery, a physical act of intercourse with someone who’s not your spouse. But there’s also a broader meaning of the word porneia, as you look at its usage through the New Testament, that can refer to a broad range of issues that rupture the covenant of marriage.

So how do we interpret this exception Jesus is putting in here about divorce? Some say Jesus is allowing divorce only in the instance of marital physical infidelity but you’re not allowed to remarry. Others read this and say, “You can divorce and remarry, but only remarry if there was infidelity.” Then some others would read this and say, “Actually, because of the breadth of the word porneia, there can be divorce and remarriage for a handful of reasonable reasons.”

Later, when we get to the book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, Paul gives another potential reason that divorce might be permissible. He talks about when one spouse comes to faith and the other doesn’t. He says, “If your unbelieving spouse will live with you, stay as much as possible. But if they leave, divorce is permissible.” So we have Jesus talking specifically about sexual immorality as an exception of divorce. Then you have Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 talking about the desertion of an unbeliever.

Then you have the big-picture covenant, and I think that’s what Jesus is getting at when he’s talking about divorce and marriage. In Exodus 21, it talks a little bit about the covenant responsibilities of marriage. It talks about if a man takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.

In that little statement, you have this sense that the covenant of marriage not only is to reflect the love of God; it is also an environment where there is safety and provision. So if you have a situation where the covenant is being broken and the safety of the spouse is threatened, it’s almost as though that spouse is behaving as an unbeliever or that he or she has violated the covenant, and it seems like there’s some space there as well.

Now I don’t want to spend all of our time on this topic, but I know it is a very real issue. I think one of the problems is that we are confused about divorce because we’re confused about marriage, and we’re confused about marriage because we’re confused about love. What we have to do is come back into what Jesus is saying, what the Scriptures say as a whole, and we need to talk about it at an individual or couple-to-couple level, where we can process it together.

I think, big picture, divorce should never be an individual decision. It should be a decision that is deeply processed within the community and within the leadership of a church. Not because the church or the leaders are infallible, but because this is the way the Lord designed us to process truth and to make decisions.

Jesus says, “If there is divorce…” Again, let it be said divorce always goes contrary to the designs of God. The design of God is for marriage. The design of God is for reconciliation. The design of God is for a strong marriage to persist. But if there is divorce, like Matthew 19, Jesus says it’s an exception added because of our human hardness of heart.

John Stott, the great pastor in London, England, for all of those years, said this about divorce, because he was a pastor and he worked with congregations for so long. He said, “Whenever somebody asks to speak with me about divorce, I have now for some years steadfastly refused to do so. I have made the rule never to speak with anybody about divorce until I have first spoken with him (or her) about two other subjects, namely marriage and reconciliation.”

Again, this is a place that we can soak and we can learn the big picture. Jesus is encouraging us all to, as much as possible, with the help and grace of God, reconcile and live in that beautiful reflection of covenant love within our marriages. If you have been through a divorce, remember there’s grace for it. The Lord has a future for all. It may be on the far side of your divorce you feel bankrupt or excluded or poor in spirit.

Just remember those words of Jesus at the beginning: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” There is grace from God wherever our road has led, whether it has led into the land of anger and murder or into the sexual brokenness of lust or through the dark valleys of divorce. In every one of those places, the Lord is not saying, “Oh, well, you really blew it then. You’re gone. You’re out of the community.” No. He’s saying, “There’s blessedness there for you.”

Wow, we have honesty and retaliation and loving your enemies left. You know, I definitely have bit off more than is possible to chew in a 40-minute sermon. I think that may be enough for this morning for us. Maybe next hour I’ll pick up with oaths and retaliation. I’ll take a page out of Buddy’s book, you know, where each sermon for the different hours is a little bit different.

Let’s close at this place. In all of these areas, the thing to remember is Jesus was the perfect embodiment of his teaching. He poured out grace in every area and modeled what he talked about so well. We read that about honesty. We read that about loving your enemies. We read that about walking the extra mile and giving your cloak if they ask for your tunic, and all of these other things.

Just for a moment, as Jesus is talking about this, remember that Jesus fulfilled these so purely and perfectly. He did deal with his anger. There were times when he was indeed angry, but he reconciled. In fact, he was so serious about reconciliation he was willing to lay down his life. Jesus did avoid objectifying others. He never turned someone into a set of body parts. Just think about the scene where the woman is caught in adultery and she’s thrown in front of this whole group of people and they’re ready to stone her.

Not for one second does Jesus think of her as an object of desire, but rather, he treats her as a whole human. He tells everyone gathered around like vultures, “Listen, the first one of you who has not sinned can throw the stone,” and they all walk away. She says, “Are you going to condemn me?” and he goes, “No, I don’t condemn you either. Go and sin no more.” He refuses to objectify anyone. And on and on it goes.

Jesus, when he went to the cross and was set before Pilate… Pilate was talking to him and said, “Who are you?” and Jesus said, “I’m a king, and I was born for this purpose: to show the kingdom of God and to bear witness to the truth.” Here Jesus is teaching us not to go beyond our words with oaths and everything else to ramp up and manipulate others. Jesus is saying, “Every word I speak is simple, pure, and trustworthy.”

Jesus, as he’s facing the onslaught, as he’s facing people who are doing evil to him, could have looked at that Old Testament law, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” and tried to get even, and yet he didn’t. They struck him, and he allowed himself to be struck again. They said, “Prophesy, prophesy,” and they beat him, and he yielded his right to get even. It’s not that Jesus yielded every right, but by staying there, he forced them to recognize his dignity.

Jesus talks about, “If somebody takes your tunic, give him your cloak as well.” When he finally went to the cross, what were they doing? They had stripped him naked to shame him. He had given his tunic and his cloak. Every piece of clothing he wore he had given over. When Jesus was going to Calvary, he had to carry the cross himself. Then finally it says they forced Simon of Cyrene to carry it alongside Jesus. He was doing that same thing. “If they force you to go one mile, go two.” Jesus walked not just one, but two miles to Calvary.

Jesus, as he was there and surrounded by enemies crucifying him, said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” What’s happening here in the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus is giving us really challenging teaching. He’s giving us stuff that pierces to our hearts. He’s talking about stuff we don’t like to talk about. He’s unearthing darkness we know holds us in bondage, but we don’t know what to do with it.

He’s teaching us about it, and then he’s saying, “Come, follow me. I will show you the way. I will show you what it looks like to love your enemies. I will show you what it looks like to honor others. I will show you what it looks like to be reconciled. I will show you. Come, let me lead you. Become my disciple. Surrender to me, and I will lead you in these things.”

As we read these challenging passages, the last thing I would hope is that you feel the heavy hand of condemnation. What I want you to hear is what Jesus was talking about. It is the strong invitation of conviction to follow Jesus and to be transformed more and more into his image. For those of us who trust Jesus as Savior and as Lord and as the true King, he promises he will give us his very own Spirit, that we might have strength to obey what he’s calling us to do. Let’s pray.