Introduction and Opening Prayer
Speaker 1 0:26
Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your love. We thank you that you restore us when we mess up, that you have grace and mercy for us. You never are embarrassed by us and the mess that we’ve made of our lives. You never are intimidated by what we have going on. But, father, you are a true father of love, and so, god, we pray that you would help us today to understand your truth and give us eyes to see and a heart to be able to sense what your truth is and the healing power that’s in your love and in your hands. Jesus, I pray you’d meet us here today, because I think there’s a lot of people who have been through some difficult times in their lives in regarding to marriage and love, and what we’re going to talk about today, I think, will be really healing for us, jesus, and so I ask that you would give a special blessing to all that hear this message today. Amen, alright, so we’re going to talk about today’s sermon is called Love and Marriage. Love and Marriage. You remember that that show? I wasn’t allowed to watch it when I was a kid. All right, so get ready for an easy conversation that we’re all super comfortable having. Let’s talk about sex, super comfortable having. Let’s talk about sex. Oh, speaking of being uncomfortable, have you ever had a masseuse that made you feel weird? They just rubbed you the wrong way. Boo, I get a boo on that one.
Speaker 1 2:15
Joseph Stalin, you remember him? The Russian dictator Joseph Stalin was giving a speech to his army. You know, they were all lined up in their rows, you know, and he’s speaking to his army. If you know that and you speak Russian, that’s funny. And he’s speaking to his army. Jizik swizik, jadejil lafantana vadkupil. If you know that and you speak Russian, it’s funny. For all my Russian-speaking joke listeners that killed, but none of you, I see, speak Russian. Well, he’s speaking to his army when all of a sudden, right at the height of his speech, he’s pounding the table.
Speaker 1 2:55
Someone sneezed. Hachu the uncomfortableness. He stops his speech. Who sneezed? He says Nobody says everybody’s super uncomfortable. Nobody says a word. Sweat started to fall down some foreheads, so he points and his guards shoot the first row of people. They die. Oh now then he asks again who sneezed? And he tells his guards get ready to shoot again. And one guy in the fourth row says it was me. It was me, I sneezed. And one guy in the fourth row says it was me. It was me, I sneezed. And Stalin looks at him very, very intensely and says bless you, see, you don’t have to be uncomfortable, it’s okay.
Speaker 1 4:13
Well, I hope you’re blessed also as we talk about love and marriage today, because a lot can go wrong with love and marriage. How many of you have experienced divorce or been impacted by divorce? Okay, we’re going to be talking a little bit about that today, and the Bible has a lot to say about marriage. You know, god created it. It has a purpose and, at the deepest spiritual levels, marriage is actually the most intimate glimpse that we have into our spiritual union with Christ. We’ve been talking a lot about our identity and our union with Christ, haven’t we? Over the past 12 weeks, we have just hammered our union with Christ identity, and so that’s what marriage is all about. And so in this world, every marriage actually is a picture of how much God loves his people, the union of Christ with his church. It doesn’t matter if they’re believers or not believers. Every marriage at some level is a picture of that, and I love to talk about that when I do weddings, because it gives people an understanding that their marriage really isn’t about them, which we’ll get into All right.
Speaker 1 5:26
Well, let’s start reading in 1 Corinthians 7. It says this On the screen is going to be in New King James, which is a great version, but I’m actually going to read it out of New Living Translation just to kind of give you
Understanding Biblical Marriage
Speaker 1 5:39
another idea of how it sounds. It says now, regarding the questions you asked in your letter yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations, but because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. So if you were here last week, you know that we talked about sexual immorality and Paul said flee sexual immorality. And it’s really really dangerous. It’s like fire when you participate in sex outside of marriage. It’s really really dangerous, it’s scary and it can burn you. And because I love you, flee sexual immorality.
Speaker 1 6:15
So the church was probably like, oh my gosh, if this is so dangerous, why don’t we just be abstinent altogether? And Paul’s like I mean, okay, but that’s really not the design either, that’s not the point. So they probably figured that if sexuality was such a danger, they could be more pure by abstaining from it altogether. Even in marriage, let’s just not do it at all, you know, and that’s like Paul’s going to correct that, because that’s like over-exaggerating the problem. It’s over-correcting right. It’s like people saying drowning is bad, so let’s get rid of all the water on earth. Or fire burns people, so let’s get rid of all the electric power plants. Or ice cream gives me a brain freeze, so no one gets ice cream. No fun people.
Speaker 1 7:08
There is a reason for sex, okay, and it’s good, it’s important, but it will burn you if you touch it outside of the safe way that it’s been designed for. So for us to understand sexual relationships and how they work, we need to back up a little and see how marriage works in the first place. Okay, so in Colossians, chapter 3, verse 18, it says this this is the most clear, simple way. It says wives submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. What does this mean? It means honor your husband because God loves him and has a plan for your act of love, this act of love that you’re going to do by honoring him, not because he’s earned it. Okay. So you look at your husband and you’re like but I’m not going to honor him, I’m not going to respect him because he hasn’t earned it. He’s a goofball, he’s a goober. You don’t know the gooberness that I have to live with. And so the temptation is no, I’m not going to honor this guy because he’s a jerk. But God says, do it because I love him, love him because I love him, all right. And then it says, husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter towards her. So what does that mean? It means, husbands, you’re supposed to love her, not because she’s earned it, but because God has a plan for that in her life. God loves her and he’s going to use your love to bless her, heal her, take care of her, not because she’s earned it, but because that’s his heart for the success of this person.
Speaker 1 8:47
So, husbands and wives, it is vital that we understand that’s how marriage works. You’re married not for you. Your marriage is not about you. You’re married to serve and love the person that you are married to. You’re married to meet their needs. So when a marriage looks like this, our hearts easily trust one another. When a marriage looks like this and we learn that, we can pour out love on each other. But when we focus on ourselves, we destroy the fabric of that union. So when we become self-focused, remember others focused. You know, when you’re focused on your spouse, that’s true love. Self-focused is lust and it doesn’t work. That’s the flesh. Okay, giving is love, taking for selfish reasons is lust. That’s how God has made it.
Speaker 1 9:43
So why is this all so important? Because your marriage, every marriage, is really a display of the possible union that people have with Christ and the church, with us and Jesus. Because your marriage really isn’t about you. That’s why we have to talk about this. Your sex life isn’t about you. It’s about Jesus and his church. That’s why God invented marriage in the first place. It was his plan, his idea. We just participate in his invention of marriage. Why do we have to be faithful to one person? Because God is faithful to us. Not because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’ll get in trouble if you don’t, but because God is faithful to us, so we are called to be faithful to him. That’s why faithfulness matters in marriage. We can’t be messing around with other gods. Just like. There’s one husband for one wife. You’re to honor and love that relationship and that’s it.
Speaker 1 10:53
If you want to get more complete in your definition of marriage, then you’d read Ephesians 5, verses 15 through 33. We don’t have time for that today, but I wanted to throw it out there. If you want to really dig into it, it’s great.
Marriage as a Picture of Christ
Speaker 1 11:06
Back in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 3, it says the husband should fulfill the wife’s sexual needs. In Greek it means have due affection for his wife and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.
Speaker 1 11:25
Now, guys, this is not about slavery. This is about trust and offering. You know, trusting each other and offering yourself to each other. And this points us it’s not about you again. This points us to how we offer ourselves to God and say I want God to fill my heart and my life with his life. In Romans, chapter 6, it says this Romans, chapter 6, 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts, and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace. So we have a relationship of love with God that’s based on grace, not rules. It’s not the lust of self-focused living.
Speaker 1 12:30
And this is how we respond to the gospel. So you hear that God loves you and has grace for you. And so the how we respond is we hear the gospel, then we believe it and then we offer ourselves to him. And if you think about marriage, that’s kind of you hear that he loves you, you discover that you love each other. Then you make a covenant, that’s kind of you hear that he loves you, you discover that you love each other. Then you make a covenant, a commitment to one another, and then you’re able to offer yourselves to each other in intimacy. And that’s where that intimacy comes from. So when you think about we’re supposed to offer ourselves to God every day that’s our daily response to the gospel. God every day, that’s our daily response to the gospel you ask what are we supposed to do?
Speaker 1 13:15
It’s not about good works, it’s not about all the laws and keeping the rules. That’s not how to respond to the gospel, saying I need to do better, I need to try harder. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about offering yourself, giving your heart to Jesus. Saying Jesus, here’s my heart. Giving your heart to Jesus. Saying Jesus, here’s my heart, here’s my hands, here’s my feet, here’s my mouth, here’s my mind, all the parts that are in my body I offer as instruments for you to live through. And that removes all the pressure in the relationship, because now you’re just like, I give myself completely to you. I don’t have to be in control. I don’t have to be in control Now.
Speaker 1 13:55
That instantly causes a lot of stress to us, because at times in our life when we haven’t been in control, people have hurt us, people have harmed us, and that’s where we have to learn that God is not people. God is never going to hurt you. God is never going to treat you in any way except perfect love and as a perfect heavenly Father, and that’s where we’re learning to trust Him. Okay, so that’s what this is all, how it spiritually matters to our lives. So he says do not deprive each other of sexual relations unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so that you can give yourself more completely to prayer, and afterward you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Speaker 1 14:46
So the principle in this passage is really important. God makes it clear, there’s nothing wrong and everything right about sex in marriage. Okay, so Satan’s great strategy when it comes to sex is to do everything he can to encourage you to have sex outside of marriage and then, when you get marriage, to discourage you from having any sex at all. It’s an equal victory for Satan on either side. That’s what his goal is. Notice that Satan. He just twists sex to hurt. That’s what his whole plan is. God wants it to be a blessing. Jesus has blessed it. He’s a big fan of healthy, love-filled marriage. Because he invented it, he knows that this is the best thing for us.
Speaker 1 15:37
And so Paul’s going to talk now about a few specific situations when it comes to marriage. So he says, number one, the first thing he’s going to talk about, probably another question they had to him singleness can work too if you have the gift for it. So that’s what this next section is about. He says I say this as a concession, not as a command, but I wish everyone were single just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift from God of one kind or another. So I say to those who aren’t married and to the widows it’s better to stay unmarried, just as I am. But if they can’t control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It is better to marry than to burn with lust.
Speaker 1 16:16
So what he’s saying is that the physical desire for sex is not wrong per se. We all desire to be loved and share an intimate relationship, but some can go without having that desire met. But some can go without having that desire met because they have a gift. God has enabled them to be able to be satisfied in their relationship with God alone, and they don’t need that. But for most people it’s better to get married, because then you get to participate in this picture for the world of how marriage is our relationship with God, of that love and safety and intimacy.
Speaker 1 16:59
So significantly Paul, he regards both marriage and singleness as a gift from God. So if you’re married, that’s a gift from God.
Sex Within Marriage
Speaker 1 17:10
If you’re single, that’s also a gift from God. And Satan also twists that to be like I’m missing something, I’m in the wrong situation. The grass is always greener in the other field, right. And so Satan will constantly plant in these seeds. If you’re single, oh, if you were married, everything would be perfect, you would have everything that you need, and married people are like no. But when you’re married, satan doesn’t do that. He plants the other seed that says you know, if you were single or if you had a different spouse, everything would be better, so that single is fine, but you don’t have to be single. That’s the lesson there.
Speaker 1 17:57
Second lesson he says, number two divorce sucks. You can write that down. But for those who are married, I have a command that comes not from me but from the Lord A wife must not leave her husband, but if she does leave him, let her remain single or else be reconciled to him, and a husband must not leave his wife. So as you study this was answering their specific question but as you study all of the Bible, you see that there are two exceptions to this rule. The first exception is unfaithfulness. If there’s been unfaithfulness, with your spouse cheating on you, then divorce is allowed and you’re allowed to get married to somebody else. Secondly, abandonment. If your spouse is just like screw you, I’m out of here and they take off and they’re gone forever, you’re not bound to that. But if that’s not the situation, you’re in. Divorce isn’t.
Speaker 1 18:52
The answer is what he’s saying, because a lot of times we think again divorce is something that we could go through. Or a lot of times again, all of us have experienced divorce. Our nation has been ravaged by it. Our families have been destroyed by it. Why does God say it’s not ideal? Because God is working in this marriage to show you something. Okay, marriage to show you something. Okay, you could be an example of his enduring love to this world. You could. You could serve. In that way, you could learn how faithful God is to you and how he can answer prayers that seem completely impossible like. Change this situation. Meet me here, transform me. Help my spouse to discover your love, your identity. Don’t give up, is what he’s saying. You don’t have to give up. Surround yourself with brothers and sisters who will pray with you and help you to love more and give more. Okay, we’re going to come back to this topic, but just the main lesson there is divorce sucks. Okay. This isn’t meant to condemn you. We’re gonna see that God is gonna transform it in just a minute. But hang on, let that just hang there. Number three the third lesson we have is missionary marriage. If you’re in that situation Now, I’ll speak to the rest of you, though I do not have a direct command from the Lord.
Speaker 1 20:22
If a Christian man has a wife who is not a believer and she’s willing to continue living with him, he must not leave her. And if a Christian woman has a husband who’s not a believer and is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him. For the Christian wife brings holiness to her marriage and the Christian husband brings holiness to his marriage Otherwise to her marriage. And the Christian husband brings holiness to his marriage. Otherwise your children would not be holy. But now they are holy. But if the husband or wife who isn’t a believer insists on leaving, let them go. In such cases, christian husband or wife is no longer bound to the other, for God has called you to live in peace.
Speaker 1 20:57
Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you? So again, if you’re in this situation where it’s a mixed, you know, half believer, half unbeliever, then love is still the answer to that situation. God says it can still be used. It’s just like missionary dating. Now, if you’re a believer in here and you’re just dating, don’t go date an unbeliever. This doesn’t give you permission to. I’m going to go lead all the women on the island to the Lord. It’s not how it works, because they’re going to bring you down. That’s not an ideal situation, he says Paul is acknowledging it would be easier for you to just leave, but God has given you a specific person now that you’re bound to, that you could show his love to, and so we’re going to dive into that. Okay, so divorce sucks. Unfaithfulness really hurts. I’m going to share with you my story and get ready, let’s go.
Speaker 1 22:05
So when I was in college, I showed up at college
Singleness, Divorce, and Mixed-Faith Marriages
Speaker 1 22:11
and, like any 18-year-old kid, I thought in college, you know, it’s a ring by spring or your money. Back at the Bible college I went to. So I show up and I’m excited. I’m definitely like want to find just a wife, a believing wife. I came from a family of divorce and it really hurt. So I was like, oh my gosh, I want to find a wife that really loves me. And one thing I was most afraid of being hurt by divorce, by unfaithfulness. That was what I was most afraid of because of, I think, some really deep down wounds that I had from my own parents getting a divorce at two years old, and so I grew up in that family and it was painful. And so I go to college and I meet a girl and instantly, you know, she’s leading worship and singing. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is what else could you want, right? So I start dating her and so and Bible college was powerful for me.
Speaker 1 23:12
I was growing in the Lord and I was like, okay, god, I was learning about this thing called grace that I had never really understood before, and so God was just really moving in my life and teaching me about grace. And I remember I was having a Bible study with my roommates and so there’s several guys Tim and a bunch of other guys here, and we were praying for each other. And then one of the guys said you know what? The Lord has just put something on my heart, and it was 1 Peter 4.1. And I was like, okay, and he’s like for you, sean. So we were just praying for each other and when they got to me, tim was like here I have this verse that God has given me for you. And I was like, okay, what’s God? You know what kind of blessing is this going to be? He’s going to, you know, move to Africa or something crazy.
Speaker 1 24:08
And he read it and it says, gosh, I’m having a brain fade right now. I have it memorized, but you know what happens when you’re prideful. It says, therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourself with the same mind, for he who has suffered from the flesh has ceased from sin. And so I was like great. So you’re telling me my calling in life is to suffer, that there’s going to be this big suffering thing coming up in my life, but it’s going to be how God’s going to use me. It’s going to be how God, what God, uses in my life to really set me free from, you know, some things that were hurting me. And so I was like okay, so I just got to be ready to suffer. But I had no idea how bad that would be Foreshadow. I had no idea how painful it would be.
Speaker 1 25:06
So I moved back to Colorado. I get engaged, get married. We moved to Colorado and I’m just as happy as a clam. We’re like young, I’m a janitor at the church, we’re doing little bio studies and singing, doing worship and stuff, and everything just seemed great. So we have our first boy, simon, and you know, pretty miraculous, how God saved him, because my wife had appendicitis while she was in labor, so they had to do an emergency C-section and so God really saved his life. And then God was just really blessing and I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 25:45
And then so a year later we moved down to Colorado Springs because I got a job as the youth pastor of this really large church down there. So, man, things were just rocking then. I mean, I was teaching seven times a week, so we had Wednesday night, two Saturday nights, three Sunday mornings and a Sunday night and I was teaching all those. So we had like 450 kids in my youth group and it was just rocking. And so I was like really, really busy.
Speaker 1 26:15
So obviously I wasn’t really, and I was 22, you know 23. I wasn’t mature, so I wasn’t really spending a lot of time with my wife and wasn’t really investing in that relationship. There’s a lot of things that I did wrong in this situation, but in my mind I’m like I’m doing everything right. I was pure. When I got married I was, and that for me, counted for a lot Because I was a teenage boy. Can you imagine? I said no to all of that growing up and I was like I have earned God’s blessings and look, he’s given me a wife. And look, it’s so great. Okay, but that see, that attitude is what God was about to deal with. All right, so things are just rocking. We have another boy, ezekiel, and man, it’s just going great.
Speaker 1 27:05
And I’m leading mission trips to Russia and I’m leading mission trips to Peru. And I’m on a mission trip to Peru and I come home and I realize that, or I come home, my wife wasn’t even there and I was like she told me she’s out with some friends and I was like, okay, and so I get on the computer and I discover in a Facebook message that she was having an affair. And I was so shocked, I was so devastated. I could have died right there. I absolutely thought about going running into traffic. In fact, I went running down streets just because I had no idea what to do. I was completely devastated. I had never had an unfaithful thought about my wife. I wanted us to be together forever. I was completely in love, and here she was proclaiming her love to another guy and it was very clear that they had already done everything that I most greatly feared. And this was the thing that I most greatly feared.
Speaker 1 28:16
And so this made me question so many things just in that moment. It made me question God, do you love me? Because if you loved me, how could you let this happen? Because this is literally the only thing I was afraid of. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I wasn’t afraid of my kids dying. I wasn’t afraid of death. Obviously, I wasn’t afraid of being poor. I wasn’t afraid of anything except this one thing, because this was the one thing that I was hurt by when I was a child.
Speaker 1 28:56
And so, as I’m just processing this and she hasn’t even come home yet, I’m having this conversation with God and I’m like God, what do I do?
Speaker 1 29:09
What do I do? And I’m just weeping and I’m saying God, how do I even breathe? I was hyperventilating, I was truly having panic and God,
Sean’s Personal Story of Betrayal
Speaker 1 29:23
like, spoke to my heart and he’s saying listen, you have every right to leave. You can leave if you want, but if you want to discover this grace that you’ve been learning about in your head, if you want it to move down into your heart, I’m going to ask you to do something. I want you to forgive her and love her. And I was like are you sure? Am I got the right number here? I don’t know if I’m hearing you right, but in my heart I absolutely knew that was the Lord, and he made no promises to me about how any of it would turn out, he just said. The promise he made to me in my heart was, if I did this, I would understand him better, I would know him better. So I chose to forgive her and as she came home I was like, okay, I’ve discovered this. And what the F? Like how is this possible? Like come on right, but I’m going to forgive you and I want to work on this.
Speaker 1 30:35
And she had no idea how to respond to that, because she thought there would be anger and stuff like that and it didn’t go well. So she wouldn’t admit, she wouldn’t confess, she wouldn’t repent, she would lie and then every night be gone all night long. And when I ask, where are you, it doesn’t matter, I’m just out alone. All just lies and lies and lies. And she was drinking and getting drunk every night and I was like we had never drank anything in our entire lives. I was like who are you? How did this happen? Where did my wife go? And so, god, I was alone on these nights taking care of my two boys, and so I would you know when you’re desperate. I didn’t even have friends, because the church was a big help and they just fired me. You guys ever been hurt by church before? Yeah, so now I’m broke, poor, devastated. My parents were all gone One set was in Russia, the other was very far away and it was like I had nobody to turn to.
Speaker 1 31:52
It was almost like God put me in this isolated room and said I am going to be the only thing you have. So I had my Bible and I would just play songs and I would just cry and I would just read my Bible and I would talk to Jesus through these nights and I’m talking two months, three months, four months of complete and utter devastation. And every night, when she would come home, the Lord would say go clean her up, wash her clean and forgive her. And I was like, how long, oh Lord, how long. And it was so. But it got to the point where, when I would take that first step of faith to just speak a kind word, he would fill me with love, he would fill me with kindness that I did not contain inside me and I had compassion on her and I was like, oh my, I don’t understand this, but God Jesus was living in me and through me and he would speak to my heart and he would call me and he would provide me with his spirit. That told me that he loved me and that’s been something that changed my life completely, and so I just want to bring you into the story. I know that you guys have stories like this of people harming you, but God’s ability to transform these things and redeem these things is so powerful and you would never understand how powerful and how loving he is until you let him be all that you have, until you let him fill you and meet your needs.
Speaker 1 33:46
So my wife is going out all the time. She starts putting on a little weight and I was like, are you pregnant? And she’s like I don’t know. And I was like, okay, well, we should probably find out. And then we found out yes, she was pregnant and I knew I wasn’t the dad, and so she was just going to have an abortion. And she’s still like, hanging around, not wanting to leave, because she didn’t have any other options and none of the guys she was with even cared about her, so she couldn’t go. Stay with them.
Speaker 1 34:26
It was brutal, so she was going to do this and I said, please don’t do that, just come home. We’ll move to Denver to get away from your scene here and we’ll have that baby and he’ll be our baby and God’s power. She actually agreed to that. She was like, okay, let’s do that. So we moved up to Denver and we had my third son and you know we were starting to try to put the pieces back together, but she still was like saying I’m not a believer anymore, and so it was like that situation. But she wasn’t leaving. So I was like, okay, lord, I’m going to obey this scripture, I’m going to, in faith, I’m going to believe that you are going to maybe lead her to the Lord through my love. And so I was just loving her, loving her, we were taking care of the new baby. And then, six months later, she did it again, and this time the Lord in my heart said you’re free and I didn’t. He didn’t require me to go through it anymore, and this time he put it in her heart or whatever. She just left for good and she was gone.
Speaker 1 35:40
So I was a single dad of three boys at 25 years old, 26. Maybe my career in ministry had been taken away from. You know, I was like God. What did I do to deserve this? That was the flesh I was struggling with. God, I’ve been gifted by you, I’ve chosen to serve you, I’ve chosen to love, and now I’m alone. I’m alone and no woman is ever going to want to date me with three boys and a crazy ex-wife. So what are you doing with me now, god? But God wants to restore and God wants to redeem.
Speaker 1 36:33
So I asked God and I said God, I’m too tired, I’m too broken to do anything to date. I’m not going to date. I’m going to wait here. I’m going to ask you to give me a wife that’s going to be faithful, that has been through the same thing. I’ve been through that. I already know. I asked him for someone that I already knew. I didn’t even want to meet someone new. That’s how broken my heart was.
Speaker 1 37:01
And God took that prayer and the next morning
Finding Healing Through Forgiveness
Speaker 1 37:08
I had a message in my MySpace inbox and you know I got this message and it said is this the Sean that I grew up with? And I was like, yes, it is. Yeah, this is how I type, like Bruce Almighty. So I had a message. Like Bruce Almighty. So I had a message and it was Dana, and she was a single mom of three boys and going through her own divorce. And God, I knew at that moment that God had answered my prayer and I never had to look for a wife. Woo-hoo is right.
Speaker 1 37:57
God answered my prayer and we were married nine months later. Six boys, six and under. When we got married in a two-bedroom apartment, it was insane. And then, yeah, we got married and we both had tremendous baggage. We were so hurt. We had so much, our faith had been wounded, our hearts had been broken. But God used this marriage and God used her love for me to build me back up and to show me how faithful he is to me.
Speaker 1 38:40
Like when I look at my wife, it’s a picture of God’s faithfulness to me that I don’t deserve to have her, but he pours out love on me through the way that she treats me, the way that she honors me, and so that’s and I hope I do the same to you. We are not perfect. You should see our fights. They are legendary. If you think you guys have fought, we have fought harder. She is not shy, and I can be quite the undercutting jerk, so we’ve just been just as broken, but God has been restoring and restoring and restoring our lives so that our eyes could be on him and we could receive that powerful love that he has for us. And so when I look at her, I don’t even really see her as much as I see God’s love for me. And I only say that to tell you that God has a plan for you to be able to receive His love.
Speaker 1 39:52
And if you’re married, it’s through that person. But if you’ve been through a divorce and maybe you caused the divorce, maybe you were the hateful, terrible person that caused your divorce it does not change one thing about how much God loves you and how much grace and mercy he has for your life. God still says I’m not done with you yet. Your marriage may have crumbled and you might have hurt your children and you might have hurt your spouse and you may have gotten hurt, but I am not done with you yet. Seek his face, bring your pain to him. He will heal you, he will deliver you and he will provide what you need, and maybe he’ll bring a Dana into your life Not my Dana.
Speaker 1 40:51
Yeah, father, we are unworthy of such great love and to know that you have been intimately involved in every part of our marriage, our marriages, our failed marriages, our broken relationships, our messed up things. You have been so involved, our messed up things. You’ve been so involved and, god, you design these things to be a blessing and I pray that your blessings would flourish in our lives, not because we earn them, not because we earn them, but because you simply are good to us. So if there’s people in here today that need some healing from the past, hurt that they’ve gone through or that they’ve caused, lord, we call unto you and say Jesus, help us, jesus, save us, jesus, save us, jesus, forgive me, jesus, heal me, because I want to know the love that’s been given to me. I want to know what the value of my life is, what the value of my love is. I want to know your plan for me.
Speaker 1 42:15
And if there’s anyone in here that has been convicted by this and realizes that they have failed to measure up to God’s standard which we all have failed to measure up to
God’s Redemption and Restoration
Speaker 1 42:26
your standard, god but if there’s anyone in here who wants to be cleansed of all their sin, it is offered as a free gift today and all we have to do is say Jesus, I trust in you. I believe that you died on the cross for me, that you are God, that you were raised to new life for me and that you live in heaven offering to forgive me of all my sin and to live your life through me. All sin will be forgiven, all healing will be given to you. Everything that you need will be provided through your relationship with God.
Speaker 1 43:05
So begin that relationship by crying out to Jesus, placing your hope fully in Jesus, and sometimes it takes us to go through incredible pain to finally get to the end of ourselves where we’ll say fine, god, I need you. I’m gonna surrender everything to you. I’m sorry for being the person that was self-centered and trying to control my own life. I give my life to you. I accept your grace. Jesus, I pray that you would save souls today. I pray that we would whoever in here that needs you would cry out to you and discover that you will always answer anyone who cries out to you. Jesus, you alone are the Savior and we cry out to you In Jesus’ name. We pray Amen.