Love For A Lifetime Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• I have done a lot of weddings over the time I have been in Ministry. Wedding are a joy in part because there is so much joy surrounding the glorious event.

• You can feel the love all around. As you watch the couple as they gaze unto one another’s eyes, you can feel the passion and excitement.

• When I meet with couples before the wedding ceremony takes place, I have yet have a couple tell me that they hoped their marriage went down in flames, that they could not wait to despise one another, to cheat on one another, or to try to inflict as much pain on one another as possible!

• I think we would all agree that most if not all couples WANT to have their love and marriage last a lifetime, the question is how does that desire to have a lasting relationship translate into the realities of life?

• We have been looking over the past couple of weeks at how to Fireproof our relationships, today we are going to narrow the focus to fireproofing the most important relationship in your life after your relationship with Jesus; your marriage.

• In the movie, Fireproof, Caleb and Catherine are starting down the road to divorce. Caleb explains to his friend, Michael that the marriage is probably through. To which Michael responds, “I’ve seen you run into a burning building to save people you don’t even know, but you’re going to let your own marriage burn to the ground.”

• VIDEO CLIP. CLICK LIKE A NEW SONG

• CLICK TO NEW POWERPOINT SLIDES #1

• Today we are going to look at a passage where Jesus answered a direct question concerning the issue of the permanency of marriage.

• Let’s turn in our bibles to Matthew 19:3-6

• SLIDE #2

• Matthew 19:3-6 ( ESV ) 3And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said,£‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

• From the answer Jesus gives to the Pharisee, we can surmise that Jesus taught that:

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. Marriage is meant to be for a lifetime.

• One of the keys that will help to fireproof your marriage is realizing that marriage is meant to be permanent.

• I believe this will help us to not take the issue of marriage lightly.

• Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24 in verse 5.

• The concept of “Cleave to” or “to hold fast” carries the idea of firm, permanent attachment, as in gluing. In marriage a man and woman are so closely joined that they become “one flesh,” which involves spiritual as well as physical oneness.

• God shows us that we are to make a new life together and during the course of that effort, we become one inseparable flesh. God intended marriage to be a beautiful thing that makes each person’s life better.

• As God designed it, marriage is to be the welding of two people together into one unit, the blending of two minds, two wills, two sets of emotions, two spirits. It is a bond the Lord intends to be indissoluble as long as both partners are alive.

• Just like in the video clip where the salt and pepper shaker were super glued together, when a couple comes together as husband and wife, they are bound together as one, and separating them back into two will do great damage to each of them.

• During the wedding we have a point in the ceremony where the vows are exchanged.

• It’s at that moment I’m most tempted to say, “Wait, wait! Let me tell you what’s most likely to happen from here! Because reality is, while you married for better and worse, richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, there’s going to actually be a lot of worse, poorer, and sickness than you hope for. Yes, you’ll have better and richer and health, but not all the time.”

• Now let consider the fact that ALL MARRIAGES GO THROUGH SEASONS. Nobody gets a cakewalk. That’s just not how life works. Like the rotation of the earth, they move through stages that are predictable.

• Experts have identified four of them.

• Let’s examine the seasons of marriage.

• SLIDE #4

II. The seasons of marriage.

• It is important that we understand that there are seasons of marriage. Understanding this can help us to not fall apart when we hit one of the seasons that is rainy and drab!