Experiencing A Successful Marriage Series

Men & Women

Experiencing a Successful Marriage

In Successful Marriages, Spouses give up their rights for one another (V. 21)

In Successful Marriages, wives give respect to their husbands (V. 22-24, 33)

In Successful marriages, husbands give love their wives (V. 25-30, 33)

In Successful Marriages, spouses give Christ their reverence (v. 21)

Slide

I have been excited for this weekend to get here for over a month.

Two things have got me excited.

Back to the Basics Seminar

One, we have our Back to the Basics Seminar this afternoon. If you would like to come, you are welcome to join us. It is from 1 to 4 pm.

I always get excited to teach the basics of Christianity and the truth that the Bible is the Word of God. It excites me anew to study and keep going because God has given us His very word.

Praise the Lord.

Fireproof

Also, this weekend, the movie Fireproof came out. I saw a screening of this movie over a month ago and it was absolutely awesome. You definitely want to go and see this movie.

There is a whole group of us going tonight to see it at 6:45 at Kerasotes Showplace Theaters in New Lenox. You are welcome to purchase some tickets and attend with the group. If you signed up to buy tickets last week, make sure you pick them up from __________ before you leave today. We will just be meeting at the theater to see the film.

But, I have also been excited about this movie coming out because I am preaching on some of the topics that this movie touches on.

This movie provides a great lead in to many of these topics that are so needed to be taught and heard and learned, so that we can truly experienced relationships as God intended.

Brief synopsis of movie

In this movie we meet a couple, Caleb and Catherine Holt, who have been married for 7 years but they have lost that lovin’ feeling and their marriage doesn’t even seem like a marriage to either of them anymore.

Fireproof is the story of what goes on in this couples life as they face the possibility of divorce and how a dare from Caleb’s father is used by God to not only change Caleb, but to change his marriage.

Now this story I think is very well done because it is not just some pie in the sky, trust God and everything will be fine, but it shows the reality of the struggles that this couple faces in dealing with

Forgiveness

Rekindling feelings for each other

Breaking free of Pornography and other things that hold us back from truly loving

As well as finding and experiencing the love of God in our lives.

We are going to be talking about these things over the next month as we learn how to Fireproof our Relationships.

Two of the messages in this series will deal with marriage primarily, but will hold truths that are valuable to each one of us, and the rest will cover issues that all of us deal with as we learn to love those around us.

Sermon intro

Today, we are going to talk about how to have a successful marriage even considering the fact that men and women are so very different.

Have you ever noticed that?

That men and women are different?

I am not talking about just physical differences, but praise the Lord for that difference.

I am talking about how different men and women are relationally a.nd emotionally

Do you ever wonder what God was thinking when he designed men and women so different?

We process things differently

We think differently

We can even experience the same situation and yet see it so totally different.

Lights out and

Go right into video clip – He said/She said

Lights back on – Scene 1

Slide

Back to Slide 1

Have you ever been there?

Felt that you and your spouse were so different that there is no way things can work out, no way you could experience a successful marriage?

Well, I want to tell you that if you have been married for more than a couple years, this thought has probably crossed your mind at some point, even if you have resisted it by the power of Christ.

But if men and women are so totally different, how is it that we can have a successful marriage and truly experience the Joy that God desires for us to experience within that relationship?

Turn with me to Ephesians 5:21-33.

(p. 829)

Slide

This morning, we are going to look at Paul’s teaching, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians concerning husbands and wives and how we are to treat each other.