Jesus Answers The Divorce Question Series

A. In the last two sermons in our sermon series on the Gospel of Mark, we have been watching Jesus privately teaching His disciples some very important lessons on discipleship.

1. The topics He discussed with them were about prayer, the passion of Jesus, pride and prejudice.

2. I trust that we have needed Jesus’ teachings about these subjects as much as the apostles did.

B. Today, as we start into Mark chapter 10, we notice that Jesus moved back out into public and was again doing His teaching with the crowds.

1. As Jesus was teaching in that public setting several things happened that gave Jesus the opportunity to address a number of serious societal problems facing humanity.

2. If you had to guess, what do you think were some of the most pressing societal problems facing people in Jesus’ day?

a. Would you guess things like crime, poverty and politics?

b. And what would you say are the societal problems facing people in our day?

3. My guess is that somewhere in our list of problems facing people in their day and in our day, would be the problems of divorce, the treatment of children, and materialism.

4. Jesus addressed all those problems in Mark chapter 10, but we won’t try to address them all in today’s sermon.

5. Today, we will focus on Jesus’ answer to the question about divorce that the Pharisees asked Jesus in order to test Him.

C. You are familiar with the fact that I like to begin my sermons with something on the humorous side, but as I considered the topic of divorce, I decided that jokes about divorce would be out of place.

1. But I must tell you, it was really tempting to share a joke about divorce lawyers.

D. Divorce is one of the hardest and most stressful things a person can go through in life.

1. Margaret Atwood, the Canadian poet said: “A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there’s less of you.”

2. I want us to take a moment to realize that many people in our congregation have lived through the terrible experience of divorce.

3. Let’s try to grasp the pain, heartache, and trauma that so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ have gone through and let’s be ready to offer compassion and grace.

4. And let’s remember that the devasted ones include the adults who were the husbands and wives involved in the dissolution of the marriage, and the children who experienced the dissolution of their family.

5. Although divorce is sometimes necessary it is never without pain, heartache and loss.

E. As I’m sure you are well aware that the state of marriage in our day has fallen on hard times.

1. The traditional definition of marriage and the God-given purpose for marriage has been lost with the legalization of same sex marriage.

2. The value and necessity of marriage has been lost in the minds of so many people today, and so living together without marriage has become the rule rather than the exception.

3. For that reason, both the rate of marriage and the rate of divorce have declined over time.

a. If you have less marriage, then you will have less divorce.

4. For those who choose the marry, the average length of marriage is 8 years.

a. We’ve heard that 50% of marriages end in divorce and that’s an accurate general fact, but here’s more detailed statistics that give a clearer picture about marriage and divorce.

b. 41% of first marriages end in divorce.

c. 67% of second marriages end in divorce.

d. 73% of third marriages end in divorce.

5. You would think that a person would get better at choosing a mate and also get better at making their marriage successful with each subsequent marriage, but that is not the case for many reasons; including these two reasons:

a. First, the problem in their marriage is often a problem with them, and unless they get help with their own issues, they take their problem with them into the next marriage.

b. And second, once a person has given up on one marriage when it wasn’t making them happy, then it is easier to give up on the subsequent marriages for the same reason.

F. I have shared these statistics with you this morning to help us to grasp the societal challenges we are facing with marriage and divorce in our day.

1. The society of Jesus’ time also had their challenges with marriage and divorce.

2. Mark reports: 1 He set out from there and went to the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Then crowds converged on him again, and as was his custom he taught them again. 2 Some Pharisees came to test him, asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mk. 10:1-2)