How To Respond To The Reality And Pain Of Divorce

so uh boy you're all looking at me what's the deal today I'm going to preach on a very sensitive topic and I'm going to need your engagement just like you are right now and some participation we can do some a Manning today and some engaging that way so why don't we just practice you want to say Amen all right good deal I don't know what you're saying amen to but I'm glad that you said that but yeah this is going to be pretty sensitive and it's a pretty intense topic there's there's four words that I want us to talk about and they are really really tough words in fact they're easy to say funny thing about words proverbs has a lot to say about words words come out of our mouth very very easily anybody who can speak the English English English language uh anybody who can speak the English language can say these words except for me it seems like but here's the words and we're going to spend like half-hour on these words I want a divorce I want a divorce you know as easy as those words are to say the reality that they convey are some of the hardest things that any human being can possibly experience divorce is never easy for anyone involved it always costs more than any party could imagine it would and we're on this series on the family and today's message is called Part B redeeming tough situations and I was planning to kind of talk about the different situations that families find themselves in that are difficult and how God redeems those but as I prepared and prayed and wrestled through this the topic of divorce just loomed so large over all the other issues that families face and just as I was praying about it I felt that God wanted us to hone in on this topic alone just to deal with this topic as it is and to deal with it boldly so you're ready to do that together all right what we're going to do to start is we're just going to pray and invite God into this room and I'd ask you to stand with me to do that so let's stand together Heavenly Father as we talk about this sensitive topic we ask for your Holy Spirit's power to be upon your word God your word changes lives and God every one of us in here needs you to change our lives today so I pray I pray for everyone children married people divorcees God every person in this room may your word touch us changes impact us today in powerful ways give us your light give us eyes to see give us hearts to grasp what it is that you are trying to say to your church today and we thank you God in advance for what you're going to do in our lives in Jesus name Amen can be seated I typed the word divorce into the search engine on my computer I expected stuff to come up like statistics on divorce and and maybe some of the problems that come around divorce I was actually quite surprised with what I saw the first find was this three easy steps to divorce of course there's no such thing as an easy step to divorce but as I scroll down the page I was shocked to find that every single thing on that page was advertising in fact as I went from the first page to the second page to the third page these are all the headings that I found easy online divorce high-quality divorce services at affordable prices divorce online fast easy and complete complete that's good one of them even advertised a hundred percent satisfaction guarantee not sure how you'd make good on that one but I think it's clear that our society has never experienced at least in modern times the kind of ease and deception and ludicrous behavior as we do around this topic of divorce nowadays we seem to have changed the words as long as we both shall live - as long as we both shall love or it gets worse from there and marriage is taken to lightly divorce has become too easy of option there's a few cases I'll just let you know about one is of a deaf man in South Carolina he filed for divorce because his wife was always nagging him in sign language poor guy there's a woman in Georgia who divorced her husband on the grounds that he stayed home too much and was much too affectionate oh wow um and then this one just speaks of just the total dysfunction there's a woman in Colorado who divorced her husband because he forced her to duck under the dashboard whenever they drove past his girlfriend's house dysfunction and here's the reality today marriages that last a lifetime they are now the exception rather than the rule at one comedian he said it this way he said marriages don't last so when I meet a guy the first question I ask myself is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with ouch right ouch and you know what's what's really hard about all of that is they're not just crazy stories because there as there's lots of ludicrous crazy stories and they're not just statistics the reality is there is probably no topic that we could talk about today that has caused more hurt to the collective group assembled here in this room than the topic of divorce it's touched every family in some way one in three adults today will be or have been divorced four out of ten first marriages end in divorce six out of ten second marriages end in divorce more and more people are opting for common-law relationships which we need to declare is not God's plan or God's best for people but why are they doing that because they're afraid of the commitment of marriage and again the potential of divorce when I was a youth pastor I've well over half the teenagers that I had the opportunity to pastor came from broken homes or difficult situations in their homes in fact to this day when I meet a young person a teenager or young adult and I ask them about their family I assume about their siblings and then instead of just saying who's your mom and dad is it well who do you live with mom dad how's your family work out it's part of conversation of getting to know people nowadays to find out kind of how they're unique family situation happens and so because divorce is so painful and because divorce is so prevalent it needs to be addressed it needs to be addressed from a godly and loving perspective and I am convinced that there needs to be a voice about this I'll give you a few reasons why I think first of all one of the reasons there needs to be a voice about divorces because there needs to be a voice for godliness in our day there needs to be a voice for godliness that shouts louder than the media then our own flesh than what the world around us and maybe our peers are telling us there needs to be a voice for godliness there also needs to be a voice for married people to let married people know the ugly side of divorce what God has to say about it there needs to be a voice for unmarried people to be warned about the prevalence and potential danger of divorce and here's especially where I think there needs to be a voice especially in God's church there needs to be a voice of love and forgiveness and hope towards divorcees there needs to be a voice that lets divorcees know clearly that you can relate to God every bit as much as any of God's other children can relate to him that he sees you as significant as his love child the same way that you're a part of God's Christian community as much as anyone else in the church and that you can be a blessing and a benefit in God's community in this community in spite of and many times because of your difficult past and there needs to be a voice to all of us married or divorced to know how to relate to divorces how they need our love and our acceptance how to treat them as we would any human being not as a person marked with some kind of stigma upon them so you can see I'm pretty passionate about this that we need that voice a clear and biblical and godly and loving message and amen and you can yeah right on and so what we're going to do with the time we have together is I'm going to give you three exhortations about how to respond to the reality and pain of divorce and this applies to young people it applies to married people it flies to unmarried people it applies to divorces and people who know divorces okay so all of us can learn better from God's Word how do we respond rightly to the reality and pain of divorce and the first thing we can do is we can learn to acknowledge divorces reality if you have your Bibles you can turn to Matthew chapter 19 and you can see a time when Jesus addresses this topic but so often this thing called divorce is sort of the elephant in the room isn't it you're on an elephant in the room is you ever heard that expression it's when there's something in the room that everybody knows is there but nobody's talking about it's sort of that the hidden thing that it's obvious but man nobody wants to address it nobody wants to deal with it nobody wants to to hit it head-on and this thing needs to be addressed it can't just sit there like that in and I think sometimes because divorce is increasing in our culture in our day that we sort of think we're the the culture that is most dealt with this in all of human history of course that's not true at all Jesus culture dealt with it many cultures throughout human history have dealt with it in fact there is one record in the Roman Empire I think I mentioned this to you a couple weeks ago where there's a record of a twenty third husband marrying a twenty first wife okay so this is nothing brand-new and it existed in Jesus's day it exists in our day let's see what Jesus says about it here Matthew chapter 19 I'll start in verse 3 some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with his question should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason haven't you read the scriptures jesus replied they record that from the beginning God made them male and female and he said this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one since they are no longer two but one let no one split apart what God has joined together well then why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away they asked jesus replied Moses permitted divorce as a concession to your hard hearts but it was not what God originally intended and I tell you this whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery unless his wife has been unfaithful so there's Jesus response when Jesus is asked about the topic of divorce he doesn't skirt around it he doesn't pretend it's it's not there he doesn't change the topic he hits it head-on and when you hit this topic head-on there's a lot of things you can learn and and many of them are here in the scripture some of them are quite surprising you might be surprised to learn that divorce is God's own concession due to the sinfulness the hard-heartedness of mankind it wasn't the devil it wasn't the world it wasn't the courts it was God who came up with divorce God's Word makes clear allowance for divorce - did you know that in particular there's it makes it clear that at least in sexual immorality and desertion there is place for divorce and we need to accept this reality that although divorce is a terrible thing sometimes it is the better of two evils God Himself accepts the fact that mankind is sinful that people have hard hearts that divorce happens and will continue to happen so here's what I'm trying to get at if God is honest enough and bold enough to say this so should we let's get it out into the open let's come out of the closet if you will on the divorce issue why because if it's faced it can be dealt with properly you see here's what we're tempted to do we're tempted to just go no it's bad it's bad it's bad let's not talk about it but when it's faced it can be dealt with rightly when it's faced it can be dealt with biblically when it's faced those who are hurting can find healing and when it's faced in many cases God willing the miracle can happen and divorce can be avoided altogether so instead of running from it when we see it it's potential in our own lives when we see it happening in other people's lives or when we're dealing with people who've been divorced instead of running from it let's deal with it and not pretend it's not there when we keep the topic of divorce hush hush what we do is we isolate divorcees and we miss the opportunity to care for broken and hurting people we force those who've been hurt by it to keep their wounds a kind of incognito where they can not find healing and divorcees you can help God's church here too you can help by being open and honest about your journey III am so convinced this is what God's church should look like a community of people where we're broken people journeying together to find wholeness not a judgmental community not a whispering community kind of behind each other's back school did you know did you know no just an open community of broken people journeying together in Christ word wholeness and that a great dream for God's community tae-young and that happens when we bring this stuff out into the open it you can bring this into the open by simply wrestling with what you believe about it you can acknowledge it openly by planning your own journey how you plan to avoid it you can bring it out into the open by engaging with people who need healing in this area been hurt by a children and adults alike so God's church should be a healing community not a hidden community that's the first thing we can respond to the reality and pain of divorce by acknowledging it's reality the second thing we can do is make sure that we love divorces victims and again if you have a Bible you can turn to math or sorry Malachi chapter 2 verses 13 to 16 Malachi chapter 2 in Malachi chapter 2 is one of the strongest passages in all of Scripture about any topic and in particular this one is about divorce and the reason this passage comes out so strong is because divorce is the most destructive experience that many human beings ever go through so it's pain because it's so prevalent is all around us and I think sometimes again when we talk about pain this is the deal pain is something we don't like to sort of bring out into the open it's not something that's pleasant to deal with or talk about and so because it's not a pleasant topic again it gets shoved under the rug it gets hidden by the wayside but pain can find healing can find hope when it's brought out into the open and dealt with rightly so here's what Malachi chapter 2 says Malachi is a series of rebukes for several different issues one of them is this issue of divorce and God is really trying to restore his people bring them back on track here's I'm going to read it to you from the message version you can read it along in your own versions here is a second offense you fill the place of worship with your whining and sniveling because you don't get what you want from God do you know why simple because God was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride and now you have broken those vows broken the faith bond with your vowed companion your covenant life God not you made marriage his spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage and what does he want from marriage children of God that's what Sogard the spirit of marriage within you don't cheat on your spouse I hate divorce says the God of Israel God of the angel army says I hate the violent dismembering of the one flesh marriage so watch yourselves don't let your guard down don't cheat those are some hard words aren't they some strong words some of the strongest words in Scripture and here's what you need to understand when God says I hate divorce you need to understand where those words come from because those words actually come from a heart that's passionately in love with people a heart that's passionately caring about people who are being wounded and as this scripture says literally torn apart and what God is saying is not I hate divorcees what he's saying is I hate divorce because I hate what it does to people I hate how it leaves people emotionally scarred and shatters dreams and breaks commitments it's in his compassion that God cries out I hate divorce anyone in their right mind hates divorce and what it does to people and as I did some reading on this I'll just kind of share with you some of the things that I read about you cannot divorce without ripping up the the oneness of a person's being when God makes two one and you separate them there is an inevitable and ever tearing and ripping of a person's insights Billy Graham said this divorce is an easy escape many think but the guilt and loneliness that they can experience can be even more tragic than living with the problem as several studies reveal that divorce is more stressful than any other single event except the death of a spouse it causes more stress than being fired more stress than a jail term more stress than the death of a close friend and a mortgage foreclosure combined divorce even has health risks being divorced and a nonsmoker has almost the same exactly the same health risks as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day and staying married Wow a children from divorced homes are off the charts statistically when it comes to various problems they're over triple other kids when it comes to dropping out of school teen pregnancy drug abuse violence and the list goes on author named Mally Gallagher says that she says the evidence is now overwhelming that the collapse of marriage is creating a whole generation of children less happy less physically and mentally healthy less equipped to deal with life or produce at work and more dangerous to themselves and others children of divorce suffer we may think they are fine outwardly but inwardly they're hurting they are being forced to take sides they're feeling like they're to blame somehow they're feeling loss rejection bewilderment and a whole host of other kinds of pain they suffer more than we can measure and of course those things don't just go away so why do I bring all that stuff up it's not just to scare you or make you think oh no now what am I going to do with my kids or whatever you can break the statistics hey men you can be the one to say that's not going to happen in my home in my family I mean we'll be those people so don't yeah so so I don't say those things to us to scare us or to make us think oh no I say them to us so that we can understand the pain and the struggle that divorcees and their families are facing and then we can learn to love those who are hurting and you know what with the problem so often in God's church is the problem so often in God's church is that while we're sitting around debating who right and who's wrong well we're sitting around debating what's right and what's wrong in the middle of the debate there are people who are watching their families fall apart and who's right and who's wrong or what's right and what's wrong is a very little concern to those whose lives are being torn apart and it's not that we shouldn't know right and wrong and all of that it's just that we need to put our concern where the people are so how should Christians and the Christian community treat those who have been through divorce a divorce people often feel a kind of stigma kind of rejection as many times when a person gets divorced others around them don't know what to say they don't want to take sides and so they just kind of withdraw but of course that feels like shunning right it feels like being separated from so here's what we can do first thing we can do is we can acknowledge the hurt okay acknowledge the hurt it instead of avoiding the topic we can sensitively talk about the issue not skirt around it the second thing we can do is we can accept the person this is so critical again in God's church and by backing up and I so appreciate this song that was just sung today when we realize that every person in God's church is a broken person a person who comes as a sinner before the throne of grace and somehow we do this strange thing sometimes we put certain people or certain sins in categories that are different than any others so let me set this straight divorce is not the unpardonable sin okay and to treat people shirk actually let me finish this and then you can clap okay to treat people who are divorced as lower-class citizens is ugly Pride and Prejudice it's as wrong as discriminating against people for the color of their skin or for any other reason all right amen so that's who we are we're a community of broken people of people accepted by God and by one another on the basis of God's grace the ground is level at the foot of the cross and that's one of the great and miraculous and glorious and amazing thing about God's church that the ground is level at the foot of the cross so we need to be a people who live that out god forbid that we would ever think we can look down on another person because they're divorced so acknowledge the hurt except the person and then the last thing is assist in the healing assist in the healing God's church is a hospital for healing and you and I are responsible to help one another find healing for our old wounds now healing happens in all kinds of ways Church there are specialized ministries around helping people find healing there are counseling services there's inner healing services there's deliverance ministries there's all kinds of ways that we can help people find healing but the primary way the most powerful way the most glorious way and maybe the most overlooked way in God's church for people to find healing is simply for the body of Christ to be the body of Christ for us to love one another and pray for one another and listen to one another and care for one another and to bear one another's burdens and when we do that just one for another we bring we become a healing community we bring healing to one another people who are divorced sometimes choose not to attend church because they are afraid of how they'll be treated may that never be the case in this church again to help us understand one divorce woman wrote these words she said I have lost my husband but I am not supposed to more I have lost my children they don't know to whom they belong I have lost my relatives they do not approve I've lost his relatives they blame me I've lost my friends they don't know how to react and I feel I've lost my church do they think I've sinned too much I'm afraid of the future I'm ashamed of the past and I'm confused about the present I am so alone so divorce people need to hear a message of grace and forgiveness and healing not just from the pulpit but from the church from the attitudes and actions of God's community and here's what I want to do right now I want to start it from the pulpit okay but then we're going to live this out in our actions and attitudes so from the pulpit from from the authority of God's Word I want to say some things directly to divorced people and I've already alluded to them but I want to say them directly here and I want us to embrace these as attitudes kay firstly divorce in no way it changes your value as a person before God God thinks you are valuable enough for him to die for and you are still the work of his hands okay secondly if God could use Rahab after living as a prostitute if God could use David after committing adultery and murder if he could use Peter after he denied even knowing Jesus if God could use paul after paul had condemned innocent people to death then surely surely God can use divorced and remarried people amen surely he can and surely he wants to and so and one more thing let me just say this - God's promise of abundant life is no less true for you who have been divorced it's no less true for you now than it was for you when you were married okay God's promise is still true you can live a full and rich life in Christ so divorce does not disqualify you from a wonderful relationship with God divorce does not disqualify you from being wonderfully used by God and divorce does not disqualify you from a life of joy and fulfillment alright so we respond to the reality and pain of divorce by acknowledging it's reality by loving and helping bring healing to divorces victims and the last thing is is we listen to divorces lessons I mean there are some strong lessons to be learned here and I want to speak these this part of this message especially to married couples now if you're single here and you think you might get married someday then this is for you - okay but there are some strong warnings here there's a caution to be careful to never sort of think oh I'm immune this could never happen to me there's a caution here - to guard your heart against coldness guard against the deadening of your relationship guard against adultery guard against the destruction and devastation of divorce every divorced person in this room can attest to those of you who are married be careful and if you're unmarried and hope to be married someday you'll be careful be careful about who you date be careful about your own heart and what you do with your heart Ecclesiastes 5:5 says it's not to make a vow at all than to make a vow and not keep it so there's a question to be careful there's a council to be diligent and so many people naively just expect their marriage is just to work out all by themselves just to get better and better every day as if that's the natural course of marriage the truth is this the great marriages happen when people work excruciatingly ly hard at them excruciatingly ly hard I'll never forget doing an interview with a couple on a church stage who they were both on their second marriage and we were giving us all kinds of marriage advice and they had actually been on the brink of divorce themselves both of them for the second time now when they joined a step family small group where they began to discuss God's Word to couples and they were able to work at their marriage and bring healing to their marriage and as they sat on this stage and talked about their own marriage they we got to the end of the interview and I said anything else you'd like to say and and the man took the microphone and he just said I'd like to say this that if I had known back then what I know today I would probably still be married to my first wife in the room kind of you know look at her like little awkwardness she took the microphone from him she said the exact same thing she said man if only we had worked harder at it if only we had done our diligence to keep our covenant with our spouse to keep the flames of romance burning to forgive quickly and learn to fight fairly and to take our vows seriously into love selflessly and to serve generously Jesus wants you to have a radically strong marriage he does and again if you're single here you hope to be married someday due diligence work at your own heart work at your own character become the godliest person you can possibly be okay so there's a caution to be careful there's a counsel to be diligent and lastly there's a calling to be enduring and I say this in particular to anybody here who might be struggling in your marriage maybe you've considered divorce and I would urge you in God's Word would urge you to do everything in your power to injure for your own sake for the sake of the other parties involved for God's sake do what you can and again I think I've made it clear earlier on sometimes divorce is the better of two evils but I'll tell you man others there's there's one survey that after one year over 65% of people regretted their divorce saying I wish we tried harder we made a mistake another survey after 10 years of marriage 10% 1 out of 10 divorces said their lives had improve or they found greater happiness and those are shocking realities God is right on this issue so get help get counseling that you might think it's too late let me tell you this man I I've had so many couples that I've I've met with as a pastor talked to and looked at their relationship we just thought this one's over this one's got there's no way and I've seen God miraculously heal marriages marriage is that in every human sense just looked absolutely impossible the stories I could tell you just make you think you know this is insane the world we live in and yet God can restore and so believe for a miracle believe that we had one couple a couple years ago here they're not Christians not going to church nothing but just they were at the end of their marriage and just they're done and so there's sort of like one last-ditch effort one of them wanted to try the other one certainly didn't and so we're sitting down to this couples their last-ditch effort at this deal and as we talk as we sort of you know because we want to bring things out into the open as we brought stuff out into the open one thing after another thing after another thing it just looked more and more hopeless as the night wore on and she was done I mean she was over and done it was it was finished and it is no good bomb you know and and and so it counseled him try to help him figure out his world and you know it wasn't working and we got to the end of the evening and I just thought wow there's a couple that's don't got no hope I wish I could you know pray for a miracle they don't even believe in Jesus and I add and as I was finishing up the night I looked at the gal and I just said you know normally this is when I would invite you to keep your covenant before God but you don't even believe in that so I guess I can encourage you to keep your promises but let me encourage you in a different way and I looked at her and I just said this I said you might think it's painful now living with what you live with you have no idea the pain for your children for you for the next relationship and the one after that you're not jumping from pain to ease you're jumping from pain to a lot more pain and they headed out the door I know what to think you know though hot at least we said our piece almost a year later I ran into this guy that's almost afraid to run into him you know at all oh don't ask him about that you know he comes running up to me says you wouldn't believe our marriage is better than ever we're more in love than ever it's great it's like same girl says yeah that's amazing I ran into him about six months after that he says we're pregnant we're having another kid and I ran into him again not that long ago and he again he just said man I don't know but it's it's working home and I just said well praise God miracles do happen so there is a call sure yeah thank God so there is a call to be enduring now let me tell you on the flip side of that I've counseled many couples who their marriage just looked okay you know they just had a few problems normal stuff that any married couple would deal with and we'd counsel them through that say okay you work on this okay you work on that they smile yeah there's hope they walk out the door and the whole thing falls apart you think my goodness so many marriages that look like there's so much hope falling apart and so many married does it look like there's no hope at all and God makes away so let me just encourage you injure injure injure and believe that God can and will make a way for you alright so here's how I want to conclude I want to conclude by us imagining how our church should be on a topic like this I want us to imagine together that victory Church in Moose Jaw would be a church where divorce is not swept under the rug but where it's lovingly and clearly addressed not just from the pulpit but as a community I want to dream that we would be a church where marriage is upheld and devoutly worked on by all and that we would be a church where divorcees are loved and accepted and used in God's service and healing is brought from the devastation of their past a church full of wonderful marriages a church full of broken lives made whole a church where divorces feel welcome find wholeness and are used in God's service a church full of people who address the issue head-on and are doing what's appropriate in their own lives to deal with it and to bring healing to those wounded from it would you stand with me we'll close in prayer

Channel: Victory Church of Moose Jaw

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Length: 34min 34sec (2074 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 07 2012