-To begin my message, I wanted an expert on marriage to share some words of insight – let’s take a look at the screen
-Show Video clip from “Princess Bride”
-In our text today, it talks about what love does
oMany people think that love is a feeling
oThat is why people can say, “I’m not in love with you anymore.” or “We fell out of love.”
oLove is not a feeling – it is a verb
oPsychologist have spent a lot of time and effort studying love and feelings over the last 30 years or so
oWhat they’ve discovered is if you want a more loving relationship you can’t just will yourself to feel more loving
oInterestingly, they’ve discovered that if you simply act more loving towards someone, your feelings will catch up – partly because they will respond lovingly to your entrée
oDisagreements over time sometimes lead to divroce
-Remove the “D” word your vocabulary – Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, was asked about divorce – divorce – No – Murder - Yes
oIf you’re in the military and you arrive at a new base with someone who you don’t get along with what choice to you have – work it out – same with your relationship
oYou are promising today to marry each other for better or worse – there will be some worse at times in your relationship
oYou have to learn to work through any differences that y’all have – you do that through communication
-Communication – it is the grease that helps one work issues out
oWe talked about the “floor” – otherwise known as the speaker-listener technique – forces you to listen to the other person and summarize what they say, so you aren’t thinking about what you are going to say or trying to win the argument but really hearing the other person
-The problem we have is marriage is not incompatibility - a sin problem – permeates everything we do
oWe sin a lot, all the time
oIt mars everything that we do
-What are you capable of – anything – capable of cheating on your spouse? Absolutely if given the right circumstances
oJesus said to the Apostle Peter, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
oIf you are willing to admit your weakness you’ll put sufficient barriers in your life to prevent yourself from falling to temptation
oBilly Graham was asked whether he could cheat on his spouse –
oHe answered “yes” – that is why he would not get on an elevator alone with a female – other than his wife, daughters or mother
oThat and you never know what you might be accused of – he did not want to undermine his credibility as a minister and as a Xn
-One of the things that has really helped my wife and I in our marriage and is a key component to a successful marriage is forgiveness
oThe fact is that we often have the opportunity to hurt those that we love more often
oWe hurt those closest to us because we know them well enough to say the thins that can really hurt
oDon’t do it
oIf you were to take a board and drive nails into it and then pull them out – what’s left? Holes
oThat is what happens to our relationship when we say things that hurt our partner
oThe ability to forgive others doesn’t come from within us
oIt comes from Christ
oJesus said that we act out of the overflow of our heart – if we feel and know that we are loved by God and acknowledge that our sins, through many, have been forgiven we will be able to extend forgiveness to others as well
oJesus told a story about a man who owed his master millions of dollars – something that he couldn’t pay back in a lifetime – he begged for him to forgive the debt. The master did but then the servant went out and found a man who only owed him and little and had him thrown in jail when he couldn’t pay him. The master heard about his and had the first man thrown I jail too.
oOne theologian has said that we will never be asked to forgive other more than we’ve already been forgiven.
-Invitation to follow Jesus
