Your marriage

“We doubt God's grace in the struggles of weakness and sickness. We doubt God's justice in the injuries of inequity. We doubt God when our marriages are struggling and failing. We doubt God when our kids are wandering. We doubt God when we're dealing with endless, constant, repetitive pain. We doubt God when we suddenly lose someone that we treasure and love”

“prone you are to discouragement. Because the higher we rise, the easier it is for us to fall. And so discouragement is something that we deal with. Of course, there are many sources of discouragement, beginning with the four-letter word LIFE, life. Life can be discouraging. But many of us are discouraged because, well, there's a struggle going on in our marriage that we can't seem to begin to unresolve. There's a battle going on with our kids, and there's just tension”

“them, He loved them, but He delayed. And it's important for us today to recognize that even when we experience God's delays in our lives, we are not being denied because of God's lack of love for us. I'm speaking to some of you today here with me in the room, some of you today who are listening and watching, and I know today that you're struggling with the fact that marriage has been delayed in your life. You have been waiting for, preparing for a day”

“or a girlfriend, and I don't yet have one, and so I wish I had what they have. You see others' relationships and think their marriage is filled with ease and blessing, and you look at your own marriage, and it's filled with struggle and fight and conflict. I think this happens in our hearts when we see others praised more than we believe we should be praised. This could be a co-worker, the side-by-side with you that gets promoted over you or before you. We see this with Joseph”

“would be messy. It would not be easy. It would be uncomfortable. Just a few things I want you to think about. They were not yet married, so it's a social scandal. They were not prepared for a child, a personal struggle. They would not consummate their marriage, a physical sacrifice.”

“And that king is not going to be defeated, and his will is not going to be overruled. And the power of Jesus is that he is the king of all eternity, the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And my question today is, do you know the king? Some of you today are struggling, And you're thinking, my marriage is over. Some of you today are looking and thinking about your children and thinking, what a mess.”

“of control. And we've got a major issue going on in our economy today and a lot of decisions being made that are having a lot of impact on a lot of people. Maybe the struggle that you have in your life is a loss of a marriage. And what began as a wonderful hope of a happily ever after has become a nightmare. And you are struggling today because you are barely hanging on in a marriage that you do not know if it has hope. Maybe there's another dream in your life, and I don't know what that”

“have the diagnosis that you were given. They may not have the loss to the extent that you have experienced life. But none of us in the Christian life are immune to the suffering, the grief, and the hardship that life brings. Some of these are financial hardships or job losses. Some of these are relational difficulties of estranged marriage or family members. Some of these are emotional struggles of depression and anxiety. Some of these are physical. Their diagnosis and”

“forgive find your enjoyment and being someone who ministers Mercy to others and that's especially true in the home Dan allender and tremper Longman said we must never be naive enough to think of marriage as a Safe Harbor from the fall the deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the Fall that's marriage it was Ruth Graham who said every marriage needs two good givers and two good for givers and to be merciful”

“known the things that I've done, like, man, you wouldn't love me. You wouldn't accept me. You wouldn't sit across from me. You would just judge me. You see, guilt looks at the behavior, but shames puts an emphasis on the person. You don't just feel like you failed, you feel like you're a failure. There's a lot of people in the room who struggle with shame. How about the supposed to bees? I mean, my marriage is supposed to be better than this. My husband's supposed to be like this. My”

“but shame puts an emphasis on the person. You don't just feel like you failed. You feel like you're a failure. There's a lot of people in the room who struggle with shame. How about the supposed to be's? I mean, my marriage is supposed to be better than this. My husband's supposed to be like this. My wife's supposed to be like this. God, you're supposed to be doing this. And we love to point the finger and we love to imagine not just comparing ourselves with other people, but comparing ourselves with an idolized version of ourselves.”

“2nd Corinthians verse 7 1 through 5 even talks about the importance of having a consistent sex life in marriage again don't turn there I don't want to lose you but 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 verses one through five but whether you're married whether you're not no matter how good your marriage is no matter how old or young you are you have to struggle”

“The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the fall, marriage. And it takes a lot of mercy to build a lasting marriage. It takes a lot of mercy to build a strong church. It takes a lot of mercy to fulfill God's mission that he's called us to in the world. And that doesn't mean that that mercy is without standards, our expectations, our responsibilities,”

“that point, because then we know there's no other option but to follow God. In my marriage, I've been married 54 and a half years now, 54 and a half years. We made that covenant agreement. So there's never been an option, but we're going to work through the challenges and struggles and you know, the differences and whatever it is, because we know that our marriage is on purpose and on mission. So when you're in that kind of a covenant all in agreement, you see your life as your own mission. And I think then that gives your life eternal purpose and direction every day.”

“he said that in a fallen world, marriage doesn't solve our emptiness, it exposes it. And if you don't understand that the very thing that you need most is a reconciliation of relationship with Christ, then you will spend your married life struggling to try to find how you can fill your emptiness and you simply won't do it. Being reconciled to God enables us to be reconciled to others.”

“and marries another commits adultery so is there biblical precedent and means for divorce yes but what God has joined together he doesn't desire for any man including husband or wife to separate and just think about this from a second for for a second from God's point of view of his Covenant commitment to us you see when you become a Believer and you repent of your sin and you put your life and your trust and your hope in”

“relationships in life respect and when respect is gone when respect is lost relationships suffer and struggle for survival it was Gary Thomas an author who has written over 15 books on marriage who wrote this in one of his books we are obsessed with being respected but rarely consider our own obligation to respect”

“that struggle with the addiction and the obsession of sexual morality, of pornography, of committing adultery. We have women who are broken, who are full of shame as they found out their husbands have been indulging in this or that they have had an affair where they would swear that they would never step out on their wife. They would never give in to their indulgences. But then they do this and then there's brokenness in the marriage. There's brokenness in the family. There's trauma that is experienced by the kids. There's so much that comes from this evil thing that so many people”

“That's the answer, not some other means in the world. And so to that end, we come to this passage that is so full of this amazing story of this huge chasm that existed in the ancient world, A chasm of separation between Jew and Gentile. And if we're going to understand the magnitude of the reconciliation that is discussed here and the peace that has come here in Ephesians 2,”

“sexual liberalization the sexual Liberation revolution of the 1960s set in motion a Cascade effect the reversal of the long-standing moral consensus around promiscuity separating sex from Marriage worked in tandem with the Advent of birth control and the legalization of abortion separating sex from procreation which moved on to the legalization of no fault divorce turning a covenant into a contract and separated sex from intimacy infidelity then to Tender and hook up culture separating”

“If the dying Savior reconciled us to God, surely the living Savior can and will keep us reconciled. Man, all the blessings of being reconciled to God. So finally, where I want to end the message today, the third R and third point today, Reconciliation becomes our business. Reconciliation becomes our business. I want you to look at this two ways today.”

“say it, reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are, say it again, reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. That's our word. Reconciled. Reconciliation. It's another of those R words that we are”

“we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more than now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice or we have joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Received reconciliation. A couple of things I want you to see there is that reconciliation isn't like a ceasefire truce.”

“and the ministry of reconciliation is not the pastor's mission. It is the church's mission. And therefore, we must live it out. As I say that, I simply say it because reconciliation is what our lives are all about once we are in Christ. The reconciling mission of God has for us in the world, but there is to become a reconciling manner in us.”

“God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. What does that? What does that mean? Well, he tells us, verse 19, that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation the gospel therefore we are ambassadors of Christ God making his appeal”