This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day three together of our look at 1 Corinthians chapter 7. We've been
talking about marriage. First part of the chapter talks about how a marriage
stays healthy as we give ourselves to one another in love.

And then Paul addresses divorce and the reality of this pain that we must face.
Yesterday we looked at some questions and the answers that God's Spirit through
Paul gives to us. We looked at the question, "Should I divorce?

" And the answer from Jesus is no. We looked at the question, "What if I married
to an unbeliever? " And the answer from God's Spirit is there's no difference.

The answer is still no, you should not. We looked at the question, "What if an
unbelieving husband or wife leaves me? " And the answer in that case is you're
not under bondage.

The scripture says, by the way here, if the other person leaves you, either
through adultery or through abandonment, you are not under bondage. You cannot
force them to do what they will not choose to do. Now the fact that you are free
to divorce in that circumstance does not mean that you're required to divorce.

I have seen many, many marriages saved even after the sin and pain of an
adultery. Now they may have been able to turn to the Sermon on the Mount and
point to this and point to that and say, "Okay, the law says I can do this. "
God gave grace and they came together in counseling and in confession and in
changed lives and rebuilt trust and rebuilt a marriage.

So the fact that you may be free to do something in God's Word doesn't mean
you're required to do it. You still have to go to Jesus and say, "Jesus, what do
you want me to do? " Now today I'd like to look back at this issue of divorce
and just answer some other questions from God's Word because I know as you heard
this yesterday, wow, the answer is just no.

So what does that mean and how does that fit into my life? Well, let's walk
through that a little bit today. Let's deal with some more personal questions in
each of our lives beginning with this question.

Question, why would God want two people to stay together if they dislike each
other, if they hate each other? Why would God want that? Why would God even
choose that?

Why would God say for us to do that? Now, by the way, hating another person,
another believer, that's my choice and the Bible says whoever hates a brother or
sister is in darkness and lives in darkness and does not know where to go
because the darkness has made that person blind. So when I allow hatred to begin
to build, it's going to blind me to the truth of God in my life.

What's the truth about this? Why would God want two people to stay together? The
truth is romantic love tends to last no more than three to five years,
especially after you get married, if you get married within those three to five
years and you're under the same roof.

The truth is it is commitment rather than romantic love that holds couples
together in the dry times of marriage. So why would God want you to stay
together even though you dislike each other? Because that's how you grow.

That's how you change. That's how you become more like Jesus is by facing the
difficulties about yourself and the other person and realizing what that really
means in your life. The truth of the matter is the healthiest place for me to be
is in a growing marriage, even if that marriage is struggling, even struggling
through that marriage.

Dr. Medved years ago wrote a book called The Case Against Divorce. Let me just
read you a quick quote from that.

"I started this project believing that people who suffer over an extended period
in unhappy marriages ought to get out. I thought that striking down taboos about
divorce was another part of the ongoing enlightenment of the women's civil
rights and human potential movements of the last 25 years. To my utter
befuddlement, the extensive research I conducted for this book brought me to one
inescapable and irrefutable conclusion.

I had been wrong. It's always better," this book says, God's book says, "It's
always better, if at all possible, if both people can be made willing by God's
Spirit. It's always better to stay in and fight it through and grow together.

Is there pain in that? Yes, absolutely. No doubt about that.

But that pain is the pain of growth. That pain is the pain of serving the Lord.
" Second question.

Question. Can I get a divorce? Can't I ask it just straight out with me?

I mean, I know what God's Word says about this. But can't I get a divorce and
know that God will forgive me? And the answer to that is, of course, God will
forgive any sin.

But if you really look at that question, it's like asking, can I cut off one arm
and then ask God to help me function well with my left arm, I mean, if I've got
pain in one arm? That question assumes that the sin of divorce is going to be
less painful than the marriage. And of course, it always feels that way when
you're in the pain of a marriage.

You're just looking for any way out. But the truth is, in divorce, you're not
escaping your pain. You're choosing your pain, either short-term pain or
long-term pain.

You could have the short-term pain of working through that problem and not have
the long-term pain of a divorce. The truth is, sin often brings instant
gratification and long-term pain. But obedience brings often pain for the
moment, but long-term gratification.

Now as I'm saying this, I know some of you listening right now are thinking, but
Tom, what about this situation? What about that situation? What about my
situation?

And the truth is, I don't know your situation. I'm just bringing God's Word to
the table. And then you have to look at it in light of your situation.

And the truth is, I'm not the one you need to be talking to about it. You're
following Jesus. So you bring it to him.

But you don't just bring your thoughts to him. You've got to look at his Word.
If you're making a decision about whether to stay in a marriage or get out of a
marriage, if you have a friend who's making that decision, it's not just a
matter of you thinking about what you think or you're getting friends to tell
you what they think.

The most important Word is God's Word. Now I know we don't go to it because
we're afraid of what it's going to say. But how in the world could you make this
decision, one of the most important decisions of your life, without letting
God's Word speak to you?

The fact is, because of the other person's choice, a believer in Christ may have
to accept a divorce. But the Scripture teaches us that a believer in Christ
should never seek a divorce. Now as we walk through these practical questions,
another practical question.

What do you do? What do you do with feelings that you can no longer stay in this
marriage? I mean suppose what I'm saying to you, you're beginning to think,
"Well, I see what God says about this, but you don't know the pain.

You don't know the road I've been down. I just can't do it. It's just
impossible.

I can't make it. I don't have the strength. I tried and I tried and I tried.

I'm not going to be able to do this. " How do you handle the reality of that
feeling? Well you begin by deciding who you're going to trust.

You can say, and many people have, they maybe don't say it this way, but this is
really the thinking pattern. God wants me happy, and I know what makes me happy,
so God must want what I know. Well the truth is, God does want you happy.

He wants you holy, but He also wants you happy. But in this world, it's not just
a world of happiness. And as you know, many, many times with your children, with
situations, with jobs, the road to happiness has a lot of pain on the way there.

If you trust the fact that God wants you happy, you'd better completely trust in
the fact that He is the only one who knows how to truly make you happy. So you
turn to Him and you say, "God, what do you want me to do? " What do you do when
the feelings just aren't there?

I think one of the keys is you focus more on God. You got to go to Him. Focus on
Him.

It's easy to focus on the pain. It's easy to focus on the marriage. This is the
time to focus more on God.

You need to hear from God. I don't know if you realize this. Did you realize
that Jesus' parents, the parents of Jesus Christ, were almost divorced?

They would have been divorced if Joseph hadn't heard from God, if he hadn't
focused on God. Remember that when he learned that Mary was pregnant, he didn't
know it was a miracle. And so he planned to put her away quietly.

They were in an engagement period that in that day was just as much a commitment
as marriage. Now, they had not come together physically as yet. That's why Mary
was still a virgin.

But they were engaged. And so for Joseph to put her away would have meant a
quiet divorce, even before the marriage ceremony happened in that culture. But
he did not.

Because an angel showed up, and he listened to that angel, and that angel gave
him the perspective that he needed. And out of that, out of that, he made one of
the toughest decisions of his life. He made one of the most righteous decisions
of his life.

So get yourself in a place where you can focus on God. Get yourself in a place
where you can hear from Him. In every one of our relationships, we know that
when trust is broken, it's difficult for that relationship to work.

And you might be in a marriage where the trust is broken. So what do you do? You
start with who you can trust.

You can trust in God. So instead of saying, I'm going to stay in this marriage
because I still trust my husband, I still trust my wife, you say, I'm going to
stay in this marriage because I still trust the Lord. And I've heard from him,
like Joseph heard from him.

Now, you may not have an angel appear to you. But I would suggest as you read
through 1 Corinthians 7, you read through the Sermon on the Mount, you let Jesus
speak to you through His Word. There's one final question.

Can God forgive the sin of divorce? I know some of you hearing this, the divorce
is a way in your past. You've remarried.

It's a wonderful marriage that you're in or maybe remarried and even that has
struggled. Can God forgive what happened in the past or is it a stain forever?
In Micah 7, 18 and 19, there is no God like you.

You forgive those who are guilty of sin. You don't look at the sins of your
people who are left alive. You will not stay angry forever because you enjoy
being kind.

You will have mercy on us again. You will conquer our sins. You will throw away
our sins into the deepest part of the sea.

To look at divorce and honestly before the Lord with the strength that only He
can give you, admit that was a sin. But then to also look at the Lord and
instead of hiding from that sin or denying that sin, confess that sin and then
receive forgiveness for that sin, that lets go of a burden of guilt that you
could not imagine. I would never carry that kind of guilt into a second
marriage.

You let go of that guilt. Now you may realize that you've sinned against another
or you may realize that in that divorce, another has sinned against you. Of
course you could always say, "I was this percent at fault.

" There's never a hundred percent another person's fault, but the truth of the
matter is they chose it. You didn't choose it. They sinned against you.

So what do you do? You forgive them. You forgive them.

You let go of that bitterness. If you know that you're the one who sinned, you
let go of that guilt and the only way is through the forgiveness of Christ. If
you know that they have sinned against you, you forgive them and the only way is
through the forgiveness of Christ.

Jesus says we pray together. First we thank you that we're all forgiven by you
as we turn to you and accept that forgiveness. So I pray as we think about
divorce and the realities of it in our lives and in the lives of those that we
love, that we'd realize it's not an issue of whether you'll forgive or not.

It's not an issue of forgiveness. It's an issue of trust. Do we trust you or
not?

So if somehow divorce is in our past, I pray we would trust you as the one who,
because the blood of Christ has forgiven us and we look to the future, the
future that you have with us, for us. Maybe even in restoring that marriage that
we thought was lost or maybe in the new marriage that you've given to us. Lord,
if we're considering, if some listening to this are considering divorce right
now, I pray that instead of making it an issue of would God forgive me or not,
it's will I trust you or not?

Lord, help us to look at your word. Help us to hear from you. Help us to trust
in you.

We need your strength. We need your strength to follow you and we ask for it. In
your name, amen.

Tomorrow Paul's going to turn to the issue of how you make decisions about
marriage, about life.