week if you'd like to go to that. So that's our— I know the 11:00 AM service has been waiting for a while for kids ministry to restart in the 11:00, and so now we're finally there. So next week, July 11th, in the 11:00 AM, we're gonna have kids 6 to 12. That will be available to you. And, and I got to teach the the 6 to 12-year-old class in the 9:00 a.m. last week, and it was so much fun.
Now, I will say this. We're about to read God's word. We're gonna have some readers come up and do that. But before they do that, I wanna explain something because you might think, okay, this is not an ideal Sunday to talk about divorce and remarriage. In the first place, we have a bunch, I don't know if you've noticed this, we have a number of children here.
And if there's any less kid-friendly lesson than divorce and remarriage, I don't know what it is. So you might think, let's pick a kid-friendly lesson for today. Or you might think, hey, it's Fourth of July weekend, let's do something thematic, let's do something, you know, I don't know, America-themed. Here's what our church firmly believes, that the greatest need of our kids and the greatest need of our country is the same need, and that is to understand for themselves the real Bible, which reveals to us the real Jesus. We have no greater need for our kids, no greater need for our country than the real Scripture pointing us to the real Jesus.
Amen? So with that, we're going to— let's welcome Carlos and Gloria Gomez as they come to read God's Word for us today.
Yeah, you should clap for them. I love these folks.
Good morning, church. As Ricky said, my name is Carlos Gomez and my beautiful wife Gloria Gomez here next to me. We've been members here at Cross of Grace for about 5 years now. We ask that you please stand during the reading of God's Word.
Mark chapter 10, verses 1 to 12.
And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. And Pharisees came up in order to test him, asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away." And Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. And in the house, the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.
And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. This is God's word. Amen. You may take a seat.
Well, at my wedding a number of years ago— a number of years— 13 years ago, that's a number of years, we had an unreliable ring bearer. We knew he was— I suspected he was unreliable. Has anybody in our church been a ring bearer, had the responsibility of taking the rings down the aisle? Anybody? Have we got some ring bearers?
Yeah? Yeah? It is a moment of sheer terror for a small boy because— so let me explain what happened at our wedding. So at our wedding, we had— it was my cousin, younger cousin, and he must have been 4 or 5 or something, and he was unreliable. He didn't really want to do the job, and so his mom kind of right before the wedding, got down and looked him in the eye and said, "Listen, if you don't bring the rings down the aisle, they can't get married." And so like a change came over him, like, "Okay, okay, I gotta do this." You know, I gotta— and so he's got the little pillow with the rings, and we got married in a large church, and so there was a long aisle, and you could just tell his eyes were wide.
He's looking around, he doesn't want to be there. But what's keeping him going step after step is his mom's voice saying, if you don't do this, they can't get married. You know, if you don't do it, he's just kind of reluctantly. And now what he was supposed to do is get down to the stage, and the stage was this, the stage had like 10 little tiny steps up to the top. He was supposed to just peel off and go sit with his mom, and you know, and that was that.
Instead, believing, that he was critical to the ceremony, he began to not peel off. His mom is waving him over, he looks at her and says, "No." And then he begins, he looks at me, he's looking at me 'cause Jen's not out yet, he looks at me, he begins to take a step and then another step and so he's climbing the steps and the whole wedding party's going, "This is not supposed to happen. What is happening?" So he's driven by this mission. He will get the rings to me. He gets all the way up to the top, hands me the rings, and then at the pinnacle, his little back is in the spotlight of this whole ceremony, he realizes in that moment he has a little boy wedgie.
His little suit is right there in the spotlight. He decides to try to wriggle out of it, take care of it, and then walks down the steps. But he feels, and as he walks down the steps, he's smiling, relieved that his duty has been discharged. You know, we're done here, right?
Now, here's the thing, here's the thing. He saw something that was true, which was this, that the rings, the exchange of rings, is actually incredibly important to the wedding. Now, is it critical to the wedding? Could you get married without rings? Yeah, you could. You could just say the vows.
But the rings, especially for us in America, symbolize something, right? It's a circle, it's sort of an unbreakable line, it just keeps going over and over again, and you wear it physically. It's a symbol of now you're mine and I'm yours, right? And in that moment, it's a beautiful display that tells the story of the whole wedding. And he got it better than any of us, and he was gonna fulfill his duty, right?
Now, what we're gonna learn today is that Jesus is so intent on us doing everything we can to preserve the covenant of marriage because marriage itself is much like the ring in this way. Marriage is a display of a much bigger story. Just as rings are a display of the story of that couple, marriage itself is a display of the story of God and his people. And if you get that, it will make sense of everything else in the text.
So, we're gonna look at 3 sections briefly today. The first one is the design of God. The design of God.
6 · Ricky expounds Jesus' hermeneutical move in Mark 10: when asked about divorce, Jesus redirects to Genesis creation
Now, a few weeks ago, we went into greater detail on this, so you can go back and find that sermon on our website. But what I want to do is remind you of what we heard a few weeks ago. You cannot navigate or think about gender and relationship and marriage without doing what Jesus does. He says, But from the beginning of creation, right? That's a real intentional phrase meant to go back to in the beginning, the very first verse of our Bibles. God— the Pharisees in this moment are asking him about divorce, and he says, no, no, no, to understand that, you got to go back further to marriage itself. And so we see that from the beginning, God created humanity specifically with a unique design to relate to him in a way that no other part of creation would relate to him. And God created two genders to display his image to the world.
7 · Ricky asserts the core theological claim: marriage was designed from creation to be a living picture of Christ and the church—God's relationship with His people
And he created marriage to be a picture of something glorious. That something glorious is summed up by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:32. He says, "This mystery, this secret, is profound." And I'm saying that marriage refers to Christ and the church, right? So from the beginning, marriage was meant to tell a story about God. From the beginning, it was designed to tell the story of heaven and earth meeting and God and man's relationship. It's designed to tell the story of God and his people.
8 · Ricky contrasts the world's transactional, needs-based view of marriage with the biblical design: mutual self-giving love that mirrors God's relationship with His people and even the Trinitarian love
And you see that the way that marriage is supposed to play out is supposed to image that, right? The world's, as we talked about last time, the world's way of thinking about marriage is essentially, if I could say it this way, a selfish view of marriage. Meaning, I'm here, I'm me, I have a bunch of needs, can you fulfill these? And the other person goes, well, I don't know. I have a bunch of needs, I have a bunch of things, can you fulfill my needs? And so you try to find somebody that's like, yeah, I think we could sort of kind of work this out. And when you stop fulfilling each other's needs, it's like, all right, peace out, right? That's sort of our culture's version of this. Whereas marriage in Genesis 1 and 2 is different.
Rather, it's meant to be lived out, the husband giving himself in selfless affection for his wife, seeking her joy, and the wife giving herself in self-giving love for her husband, seeking his joy. So rather than each of the parties sort of saying, well, I want— are you gonna give me what I want? They're leaning forward and saying, I'm gonna pursue your joy, and the person responds and says, I'm gonna pursue your joy, and that's meant to be a picture of of the way that God relates, even in the Trinitarian relationship, but the way God and his people are meant to relate. You see this glimpse of glory, this glimpse of the grand story of the Bible in marriage from Genesis 1. It's no accident that the Bible begins and ends in a wedding, right?
Because what is the Bible? The Bible is the story of God's love for his people and the story of God and his people. Starts with that metaphor, ends with that metaphor, right? And in the end of Revelation, you see God's people are there, a bride adorned for their groom, God himself, reunited as they should have been in Genesis 1 and 2.
9 · Ricky synthesizes the first section with a propositional summary: lifelong covenant marriage between a man and a woman is God's intentional design to display His relationship with His people, not a human invention
So here is the point. The point is that lifelong covenantal marriage between a man and a woman is designed by God to carry within it and to display from it the story of God and his people. Just the way that the ring represents the story of this couple committing together, marriage itself tells the story of God and his people. Marriage is not the result of social constructs. It's not the result of biological needs. It's not the result of social pressure. It is God's design.
10 · Ricky uses a personal anecdote about his silicone wedding ring engraved with "Zion" to illustrate that marriage carries and displays the story of God dwelling with His people
Now, my wife and I, we— I don't know when, a couple years ago, we switched to these silicone rings because we have 3 small kids. and we kept damaging them or ourselves. And so we'll go back to the really nice wedding rings in a few years once we don't have like a 2-year-old. And so we've got these silicone rings, and so we picked one that matched one another, and we wanted to get a cool kind of like national park or nature kind of ring, and so we picked one, but the one I wanted was this one that was a map of Zion National Park because in tiny letters on the ring it says, Zion.
And I love that because I'm like, that's it, right? Zion meaning, Zion was the Old Testament term for the place where God dwelt with his people. And so every day when Jen and I walk around with our little Zion rings, what we're doing is we're, in a way, reminding ourselves we're carrying the story of Zion. We're carrying the story of God and his people, coming together. That's what marriage is, and that's why it's so powerful.
11 · Ricky offers two personal historical examples—Uncle Bobby serving his disabled wife and his own father kissing his mother every day after work—to show that when marriage images God's love, it resonates in the human heart as good and true
That's why when we see certain things, something in our hearts goes, "Oh, yes, that's it!" Right? I grew up— we celebrated Uncle Bobby's 95th birthday last week, and I remember growing up in this church, Uncle Bobby was always a tough guy, strong guy, World War II veteran, still a tough guy, and worked for the railroad for many, many years. But his wife had a very severe degenerative condition where, with her back where she couldn't even fully stand all the way up. So she'd come in bent down and you get this kind of strong, even as an older man, Bobby, Uncle Bobby's always strong, strong man using his strength to serve and support his wife. And I got to see that every week.
And I got to see a living drama telling the story of God and his people. And when you see that, there's something in your heart that goes, yes. Yes, this is it. I mean, even something as simple as, you know, my dad and mom had this pattern of every time my dad would get home from work, he would kiss my mom hello, and then he would turn and talk to the kids. And so I just knew it was useless trying to tell my dad anything until this whole drama played out every night.
So he'd open the door, say hello everybody, kiss my mom, and I'm like waiting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, there we go, now I can like say something. I didn't talk to him, right? And it's this little drama that played out every day. And even though as a kid, you know, you're probably— when you see your parents kiss, you're like, "Ugh, bleh," you know?
But there's something in you that smiles. It's like, "This is good," because it tells the story of God and his people.
12 · Ricky concludes the first section by restating the theological foundation—humanity is entrusted with displaying God's story through marriage—and transitions to the second section on divorce
So the reason Jesus says all he says is because humanity has been given, has been entrusted with this this display of the story of God, the design of God. Second, part 2 though, the reality of divorce.
13 · Ricky expounds Jesus' teaching that divorce should not exist in God's original design; it exists only because of human sin and hardness of heart
Now, Jesus introduces this topic saying that divorce, in God's design, should not exist. Divorce exists because of the hardness of human hearts, right? What happens is that sin twists our hearts. Sin takes us from selfless love that displays God's love to selfish love, where rather than finding our joy in one another, each person says, "No, no, no, I'm gonna search for my joy and my life, and you're gonna be an accessory. You're gonna be a tool to get me what I want." That's why Adam, who makes up an on-the-spot poem about Eve in Genesis 2, right? In Genesis 3, after he sins, God comes and says, "Hey, what's going on?" And Adam throws his wife under the bus and is like, "I don't know." It was her.
Actually, you gave her to me, so I guess you guys, I don't know what's going on with you. Something bad, you know. And you just think, what happened to this song? That's what sin does. It twists our heart.
That's why divorce exists. That's why marriage is difficult. So, Jesus' simple summary is, when is divorce desirable, or good, or something to be happily and joyfully pursued? It's not to be. But it can be permissible in a fallen world.
14 · Ricky addresses the apparent absoluteness of Jesus' statement by employing canonical hermeneutics—comparing Mark 10 with Matthew 19 and the Old Testament
Now, you might say, wait a minute, it sounds like Jesus is saying divorce is never permissible. Isn't that what he just said? Well, we're helped here by the whole counsel of Scripture. So this is very important when we're looking at Scripture and something seems hard to understand, we want to look at the rest of Scripture and see what does the rest of Scripture say. Scripture interpreting Scripture.
So the emphasis here is Jesus' point that divorce is an aberration of God's design, but in the rest of Scripture, we see that divorce can be allowable, permissible, in 2.5— I'm gonna say that— 2.5 cases, what seems clear in Scripture. So I'm gonna lay this out briefly, but again, every situation is different, and we'd be happy as pastors to talk with you more specifically about, you know, your specific case. But I just am trying to be faithful to deliver what Scripture says here. So first, divorce is permissible in cases of sexual immorality, or in cases of immorality. Now, this exact story is repeated, in a sense, in Matthew 19.
So it's either a different account of the same teaching, or maybe times where Jesus taught two similar things. But in Matthew 19, Jesus teaches this but adds the caveat, "Except in cases of immorality," of sexual immorality, porneia is the Greek. Why isn't that included here? So, like, Jesus says it's not allowable. Well, Probably it's not included here because it was universally agreed on that that was the exception wherever you were on the spectrum.
So there are some people that were very permissible about divorce, some people that were very strict about divorce, but the one thing everybody agreed on was that divorce was allowable in this case, okay? So in other words, Jesus is saying, yeah, we all agree on that, but in other cases, and, you know, it's not allowable. So that's one explanation. This is congruent as well with the Old Testament teaching that Jesus was assuming the Old Testament backdrop to this, where it was clearly allowable in the Old Testament. So it's clear that that is a grounds for divorce and it can occur there.
15 · Ricky establishes the second permissible ground for divorce: abandonment by an unbelieving spouse, citing 1 Corinthians 7
Second, divorce is permissible when an unbelieving spouse separates from a believer. Now, it would make sense that as Christianity grew, you'd find this situation where maybe one spouse would come to faith and the other spouse would not come to faith. So, what do you do in that case? So, Paul addresses it saying, "If the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved." So, there will be times where an unbelieving spouse may abandon the marriage, either physically abandon it or in some other way that would constitute abandonment of the marriage.
But that being said, it would be preferable, the emphasis in in that section of 1 Corinthians 7 is that if the unbelieving spouse will consent to live with you, continue to try to win them to the Lord. Paul says, "How do you know whether you will save your spouse?" So the hope is, even if it creates great difficulty, in that perhaps as one spouse but not the other acts out the drama of redemption in the story of God's people, they will point the other to Christ. And we've seen that happen. Very difficult cases, but we've seen God do amazing things there. We've also seen cases where the unbelieving spouse simply refuses and simply will not continue.
16 · Ricky addresses the complex case of abuse, which he calls "2
Now, third case, separation— that's the way you want to say it— separation is clearly warranted when abuse occurs, and divorce may well be permissible. Now, this is where, again, we're using the whole counsel of Scripture. God God hates abuse, period. He hates when somebody strong manipulates or abuses the weak. He hates when authority or power is used to take advantage of others.
That is throughout Scripture, that is in the Old Testament law, that's in the prophetic writings, that's throughout all of Scripture. And God puts authority in place to try to to prevent this and to restrain this. Some of that authority is government and civil authority. And so we believe strongly that civil authority should be involved in cases where it is warranted by law, clearly. In addition to that, there is ecclesiastical authority, church authority.
One of the benefits, joyful benefits of being part of a local church is that should something occur that is totally out of character, the church itself would be able to call that person to repentance and bring an appropriate spiritual authority over them to push them toward repentance and invite them to repentance. And so when abuse occurs, the overall command of Scripture is to defend those who find themselves weak. And that must lead to physical distance and the removal of the person from an abusive situation and the appropriate involvement of authority. Okay, so if you hear what I'm saying, that we're not saying any counseling anybody otherwise. Now, is divorce permissible in this case?
This is not something that is clearly articulated in Scripture, but what we— I'm gonna go at what it seems, what does seem clear in Scripture. Every situation is different, every situation has to be walked through, but at times we have seen repentance occur and people turn away clearly from that with counsel, with the involvement of authorities, and it can be restored. And in those cases, we rejoice. But if in their actions a spouse proves to be an unbeliever, divorce can be scripturally permissible because the unbelieving spouse has abandoned their biblical covenant of marriage. Now, and I will also say just anecdotally, in every case that I've personally encountered a spouse that will not turn away from abuse or abusive behavior, they have proven to be an unbeliever.
I simply have not encountered a case where it seems as though, yeah, this person seems a genuine Christian, but they keep abusing. No, I think Scripture would say no, their actions would prove them not to be.
17 · Ricky returns to Jesus' stark warning about divorce and remarriage, framing it not as harshness but as protection of marriage's purpose
So what does that leave us? Well, those cases where it is permissible return us to Jesus, right? Jesus hangs over this whole thing, this story a stark statement: if you divorce and marry another, you commit immorality and adultery. Now, that may seem harsh and uncaring, but remember what Jesus' emphasis is here. Marriage is ultimately designed by God to display the story of God and his people. So, so our lean should be doing whatever we can to preserve it whenever we can.
18 · Ricky highlights Jesus' pastoral brilliance: by using "if" (divorce may occur), Jesus opens the door to Hosea-like pursuit and reconciliation rather than automatic divorce
And yet, in that paradigm, Jesus tweaks the existing paradigm of marriage in a couple ways that I think are just Brilliant. First, Jesus uses the word "if," which would not have been inserted naturally by the people in front of him. He says that divorce may occur in cases of immorality, right? But that would be countercultural because for the conservative Pharisees, they saw the world divided into good people and bad people. So if somebody is a bad person, boom, they're out of your life. You gotta stay pure, you gotta stay the good people. And Jesus is saying, "You could tell the story of God just like it is in Hosea, where somebody abandons their vows and God goes after them.
God pursues them. God wins them back and welcomes them back. That could be what the Lord is calling you to do." And for the Pharisees, that word "if" would have been like, "What do you mean if? They're bad, I'm good, that's it." And the second thing Jesus does, which is brilliant, is tied into that. He elevates marriage from being, here's a bunch of things not to do, he takes them back to Genesis 1 and 2 and says, here's all the things to do.
So basically, they're like, they want a list of rules. Don't commit immorality, don't hit anybody, don't do this and this and this. Great, I have not done any of those things, I should be good. And Jesus says, no, remember the design. The design is, God made male and female that they'd be united in every single respect that they possibly can, and that tells the story of God and his people.
And so Jesus, by implication, is saying, "But are you doing that?" There's a lot of people in the crowd that felt good. "Well, I've never been divorced. I've never done this. I've never done that." Jesus is saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but are you telling the story of God and his people?" And when he goes there, there's nobody in the crowd that goes, "Yeah, I've done that." Nailed it. No.
Jesus shows them the heart of the law.
19 · Ricky transitions from exposition to application, signaling the third section: how Jesus' teaching redirects disciples' lives regardless of marital status
So where does that leave us? Well, third, the direction of disciples. So what does Jesus' teaching cause us to do? Well, wherever we are, whether we're married or divorced or remarried or currently married, the teaching of Jesus in discipleship should redirect our lives.
20 · Ricky applies Jesus' teaching by calling for humility
First, there's 3 directions I want to suggest today. The direction of humility. Now, one of the things Jesus did again and again was to help people like the Pharisees who thought of themselves as the good people, the clean people, the pure people. He helped them look in the mirror and see that they too fell short. And what he does is he holds up the mirror of Genesis 1 and 2 and says, "This is God's design, Genesis 1 and 2.
Are you doing that perfectly? Are you?" reflecting God's design perfectly? And the answer is no, right? There's nobody that should be able to look at that question and go, "Yep, I've done it." And if you are under that impression, I would encourage you to talk to your spouse in private after the message. "Really, I've done this, right, honey?" Like, "Well..." You know, that's probably the way the conversation's gonna go.
We all fall short. When we sin in relationship to our spouse, it is a serious thing. In the sight of God. It is more than just a sin against that spouse, it's a sin against God himself. He's entrusted us with the rings, in a sense, and we've not faithfully displayed the story.
So when, as a single, when you're physically involved outside of marriage, or when you are in marriage and physically sin with somebody outside of marriage, or maybe you digitally sin with images, we sin not just against ourselves, our own bodies, not just against the people in front of us, but against God. God grieves those things and the result should be an appropriate humility. When it comes to the topic of divorce and immorality, we all start at the foot of the cross and the ground is level at the foot of the cross. There's nobody that's like, "Well, I'm doing a little better than you." Nobody at this point should be thinking, "Well, who's I've never been divorced, so at least I'm on the good side. No.
I've never done this. No. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Sometimes the church looks at the culture around us and goes, "Tsk, tsk, tsk. I can't believe you people out there.
Ugh, unbelievable. Look at you. Look at yourselves," right? "You should be good like us in here. We wear white.
You wear whatever that is," you know. No. In speaking to those and relating to those who live as LGBT people, or in speaking to people on their third or fourth or fifth marriage, or speaking to people who use Tinder or whatever, in speaking to the sinners, whoever they are, we must heed Jesus' words and realize the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
21 · Ricky applies Jesus' teaching by proclaiming grace
Second thing, though, the second is the direction of grace. Here is the amazing thing. Jesus continues his mission after he says this to the cross. In that, we see the grace of God. In fact, Jesus standing before his people and teaching this message itself shows us God's pursuit of his sinful people. He is the embodiment of the husband in Hosea who comes after his wayward bride. Bride, he goes to her again and again and again.
And Hosea 4:16 says this, "In that day, you will call me my husband and I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice and in steadfast love and mercy." Jesus stands even as he teaches this. He teaches this to hold up a mirror to help people see their need for grace, but then he stands as the embodiment of grace itself. Rather than standing before these sinful people and going, "So I'm out and good luck." No, he simply turns and walks and continues to the cross where he in love will lay down his life to cover the sins of his bride. This is the application, friends.
If you humbly see your need for Christ, receive the grace of Christ, and rejoice.
Like, years ago— I've told this story before, but I can't think of a better illustration— when I was 19, I was doing an internship at a church, not here, and I was back here on Christmas break, and it got revealed on Christmas break that I'd had a pattern of quick glimpses and then longer glimpses and then longer glimpses of things I should not have been looking at. That were sinful on my computer, and it came out over the Christmas break. And so I had to call— I was devastated— I had to call the pastor that I'd been working with at this church and just say, "Look, this is what I've done. I want to repent. I want to lean into this." And so I kind of poured my heart out, and I paused, and I fully expected the next thing for him to say would be— the first thing for him to say would be, "Well, you know you can't come back." and you know that ministry is not in your future, and you know that you're going to need to spend a lot of time thinking about how bad this is, etc., etc.
Now, he did later in the conversation lovingly make, you know, confront me and make sure I was understanding this, but the first thing he said absolutely wrecked me. The first thing he said was, "Ricky, as you have sought to repent of your sins, it is my joy to tell you that you are forgiven and loved by God and by me.
And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that that has changed my understanding of grace for the rest of my life.
Christ exposes all of us but then offers us grace. The grace we need. We see that promise in Scripture that he is faithful and just, that if we'll confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Here's the good news: we all stand before God as marred sinners in dirty clothing, but at the end of Scripture in Revelation, the church stands arrayed in white, like a bride adorned for her groom because of the work of Jesus. Like, I just feel like the Lord pressing in on this.
If you today have sinned in the past, especially I feel like for somebody here today that they may have— they may have divorced a spouse and they now see that it was not right. The Lord does not look down at you with a tsk-tsk. He looks down on you with grace in the person of Jesus Christ. See him and receive it today, friend.
22 · Ricky pauses the sermon's flow to address directly—with pastoral tenderness—someone carrying guilt over past divorce
Like, I just feel like the Lord pressing in on this. If you today have sinned in the past, especially I feel like for somebody here today that they may have— they may have divorced a spouse and they now see that it was not right. The Lord does not look down at you with a tsk-tsk. He looks down on you with grace in the person of Jesus Christ. See him and receive it today, friend.
23 · Ricky calls married believers to resolve—not merely avoiding divorce but actively pursuing the display of Christ's love
Third and last and briefly, the direction of resolve. With the direction of humility, the direction of grace, and then the direction of resolve, what this should cause in our hearts is an appropriate humility, a desire to honor the Lord, and a resolve to try to tell the story of Jesus as clearly and as faithfully as we can. And let me just say this: if you are married, your call is to not just not get divorced. Sometimes I feel like that's the bar, you know. Even couples joke about it.
"Well, we're not divorced yet." And you're like, "Ha ha ha." You know, somebody need to talk to them. Right? That's kind of the bar. Where Jesus lays out a totally different bar. Jesus says, "Are you telling the story of God and his people?" Right?
That's the resolve we should have to live that story as faithfully as we can. Strive for this. And let me just say from experience, I think if you're not actively trying to live this story out, if you're just drifting, nobody drifts toward the story of God and his people. Like, "Yeah, I wasn't doing anything and I just started doing better." No, it takes a resolve to go, Okay, there's some ice between me and my spouse, I gotta break through that.
24 · Ricky directly addresses husbands with concrete, convicting application: take initiative in pursuing your wife and seeking help for your marriage in the pattern of Christ
And let me just say this, men, you have a unique responsibility to keep and cultivate your marriage in the pattern of Christ, especially in him being the initiator to go after her. One of our pastors often says that if your wife is struggling, and as a man you're tempted to go, yeah, I don't know what her deal is, Remember that in the view of Scripture, you have likely either led her to where she is or left her where she is, and neither of them are a picture of Christ. So go after her. Go after her. It is much less common for men to seek out marital counseling.
It's much more common for the wife to initiate the need for help. I think, guys, we gotta take— we gotta change that. We gotta change, we gotta be the ones to go, "You know what, let's get together with an older couple. Let's get together with somebody. This doesn't seem right.
This is a pattern. Let's go, let's fix this. Let's be men about this." I do not care if you can smoke the meanest brisket in the city of El Paso and your marriage is languishing. We need to change our definition of masculinity to be what's actually masculine in the pattern of Christ.
And remember that there is help in the community. There is help. The church offers help. We offer help to one another. Not that you're just going and blabbing your business to everybody, but intentionally, specifically seeking counsel from other couples that can help you.
We need to do this together.
25 · Ricky addresses single believers, showing from Matthew 19 that Jesus validates singleness
That's married. If you're single, now you might think, "Well, this is a weird marriage message, and I'm glad I'm not married." This is, you know— actually, in Matthew 19, after Jesus teaches this, The disciples— this is not in this passage— the disciples go, "So if that is true, then it would be better for us not to have married," basically. Like, once you see the goal, you're like, "Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to do that." Like, that's, you know, and Jesus does not say, "No, it'll be fine." He says, "Yes, some are made eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God." And they're like, "Whoa, okay, nobody's talking about that," you know.
So what do you do if you're single? Well, if you're single, you too display the story of God and his people. And how do you do that? You tell the story of Jesus' commitment to his bride and the bride's commitment to Jesus. And the way you do that in a radically counterculturally, a beautiful countercultural way is pursuing celibacy, purity, and joy in Christ.
Our world has absolutely no category for that. Like, it is insane to talk to people in our world and think, no, I, you know, I'm— if they're not a Christian, if I can't get married, I'm just not going to relate physically in that way. And our world is like, that's impossible. You can't do that. And that's stupid.
And I don't like it. And why don't you? And you should. And now I feel bad, you know. And it's this countercultural force that I think is one of the most powerful countercultural forces in our world today to say, I'm living out the story of Christ and his church.
By being satisfied in God and pure in all of my actions. And let me just say, side note too, if this is what marriage is, if this is what marriage is, it does change who you pursue as a spouse. Okay? Like all of our lists, I mean, we all have our lists, right? I want somebody with this kind of hair, and I want them to— they need to like Coen Brothers movies.
Who cares, man? You're locking in for 40 years, so you should be looking for, are they good at resolving conflict? How do they relate to their close friends? Do they love Jesus? I mean, that's the stuff you're looking for.
Okay? You should think they're attractive also, but that's the stuff you're looking for.
26 · Ricky pastorally addresses divorced believers directly
And last, let me just say this. I know if you're sitting here and you're divorced, and that is a number of people in this room, the number of people in this room that are divorced, this is a strange message. But I really pray that you could hear God's heart for you. I do not know the circumstances leading up to your divorce, but God does.
And here's what I would counsel you. As I've talked to a number of divorced folks over again, they feel stuck in this loop of that story of what happened to them and what the person did to them, or maybe what they did. Let me just encourage you, in Christ you have a better story to live out. You have a new story to live out. That does not have to define the rest of your life.
You know what defines the rest of your life? Christ's love for you. For his people and his love for you. So today, hear the love of Christ for you. Thank the Lord for a better story and seek to live in a way that points people to Jesus.
27 · Ricky returns to the ring bearer motif with a second humorous wedding story—this time a ring bearer who panicked and dove under the seats
All right, last thing I'll just say, wrap it up this way. I was at another friend's wedding. I won't say whose friend— whose wedding it was, 'cause they're here, so don't tell 'em. But at this wedding, they had a memorable ring bearer as well. and they chose, unwisely, I think, to give them the actual rings.
And so, if memory serves, they gave him the actual rings. This guy comes around the corner, sees all the people looking at him, flips out, and he's supposed to go, like, straight. He starts veering off, veering off, veering off, and then just dives under the seats and will not come out. And so, you know, his mom had to go, like, get the rings or whatever from from him and get them back up there because there was a recognition by everybody, "We could do this wedding without the rings, but we need the rings." I mean, it'd feel weird, right? "I love you.
I promise." And then there's just nothing and they go? That's— no, no, no, we need the rings. Give it, you know.
28 · Ricky concludes by applying the ring bearer illustration to marriage
And in that way, we should have the same attitude about marriage. Like Christ, the story of Christ and the church, God doesn't need us to display that story, but God invites us to display that story. The story's happened. He's doing it. But he says, "Will you tell it? Will you help me tell this story?" What a privilege, church.
29 · Ricky transitions the congregation into communion, giving pastoral instructions for parents with children and unbelievers present
So as we take communion, I want to invite you to take the elements that are in front of you, and we're going to take communion. We're going to remind ourselves of this story. And we have a number of kids in here, and so parents, I want to help you to help your kids. If they— if you believe them to be believers, to the best of your ability, they're welcome to take the Lord's Supper. If they're not, encourage them to wait and observe. This could be a great moment for them.
And if you're an unbeliever, you don't know if you're a Christian, go ahead and just wait and observe. But I want to encourage you to take the two elements and get it to where you could take the little wafer that I hate but represents Christ. We'll get back to the bread someday. Take that in your hand and hold in your hands the two symbols of Christ's love for his people.