Session 3 HEA

Session 3 Happily Ever After

Marriage is Challenging

It is almost never what we expected.

You listened to the Kuses, Frasers and Moors

What they had to say should have resinated with you deeply.

We watched them walk through some really tough seasons of their lives.

We saw their faith increase and they grew closer together.

But that is not always the case.

Regardless of if they told your story or not you know:

Marriage is full of un foreseen obstacles---- ALL MARRIAGES

John 16:33 ““I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.””

Amanda told you why we picked HEA.....

If you have been married very long… HEA is not quite how you would describe your marriage. AMEN

Did you expect marriage to make you happy?

Gary Thomas’s book Sacred Marriage

He coined the phrase “what if God didnt create marriage to make us happy but to make us holy?”

I believe that is so true, I believe God gave us marriage as a tool to make us more like Jesus.

Lets be honest, If I stay un married I dont have to face some of the selfish, self-centered, narcissistic tendencies my flesh has.

I have to share my life with another human.

That in its self can cause problems.

Nothing brings out every character flaw I have quite like being married does!

Marriage at times can bring the worst out in me.

And the worst comes out, at times, when the worst problems have arose.

Marriage is the great revealer:

It reveals the sinfulness of our flesh.

It reveals the deep rooted selfishness that resides in all of us.

It reveals the areas we are found needing and wanting.

It proves we are fallible and we need others to survive

Gods Deeper Purpose for marriage:

Is to make us more like HIM

If we will accept that:

Then each and every problem, if we face them together, is an opportunity to grow in Christ and be even more transformed in to His image.

Our marriages are to be a display of the Gospel. They are to showcase to the world the relationship between Christ and His Church.

That is all really good information and even justifies and AMEN. When things are going great.

When life is good and easy that word all of us can accept.

What do we do when, just like in the testimonies, the unforeseen comes crashing into our lives?

I think we worship. I think we maintain a level of worship that keeps us constantly aware, regardless of our circumstances, that Gods promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus.

God has given you a promise that your marriage is a treasure.

Prov 18:22 The man who finds a wife finds a treasure and he receives favor from the Lord.

If you have found a wife you have found a treasure. Therefore your marriage is a treasure.

Are you treating her like one?

How do we marry Prov 18:22 to John 16:33, that marriage is a treasure and that we will face troubles.

I am going to attempt to do that today.

Understand that HEA is a Journey not a destination.

We are going to look at what the bible has to offer.

While studying for this we found out that the bible has many scriptures on marriage. There actually is very few examples of a married couple and their life journey.

Most prominent one we found was that of Abraham and Sarah.

What better example than the guy the bible calls the father of our faith.

Abraham and Sarah Story.

This is a lot of scripture so I will be paraphrasing much of this for times sake.

This story starts in Gen 12 and goes to Gen 23, its 11 chapters and its really a beautiful picture of what marriage looks like. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Chapter 12

God calls Abram......

How many of you know to hear the call of God its exciting.

Well its exciting and maybe a little fearful at the same time.

As far as we know this is the first time God has Called or spoken to anyone since Noah and his family......

Gen 12:1-2 “The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”

That is an awesome promise!

I will make you into a great nation

That is very important thing to note.

In times of old a linage was very important

They lived their lives in thought of the next generation

Passing on their legacy was the way they lived their lives.

Hold up I forgot one key detail

Gen 11:30 “Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.”

Abraham was 75 years old when God calls him.

Their marriage journey started out with trouble.

We are not sure how long he and Sarai was married

But we know it was long enough to realize she could not have children.

This promise was a big deal.

Gen 12:4 Abraham is obedient to Gods call. He takes his family and his nephew Lot.

Men this is important.

When you get a call from God you take your family with you.

You take your Bride with you, your one.

12:6 He get to Cannan and the Lord appears to him and says

“To your OFFSPRING I give this land.”

Catch that? God reinforces or reminds Abram of the promise

The first thing that He does is build and altar.

He worshiped God

This is Abraham, he is the father of our faith. He must have had life figured out.

He must have been so close to God that nothing ever happened to him.

Not exactly so........

The child of promise, Isach was born 25 years after God first gave them a promise.

Between those 25 years were:

Famine that drove them to Egypt

Abraham faced fear and worry for his life (because of how beautiful his wife was)

Family problems that divided his family. (lot leaves for sodom and gamora)

War to rescue Lot and his family from 5 kings.

Marital problems (Because they tried to fabricate there version of Gods promise on their own.

Continued family problems from a poor decision to have a second wife.

Sarah gets an idea to help God out, she takes Gods promise and puts her logic with it to fabricate her version of Gods Promise.

And Abraham goes along with it.

Heart break for two un godly cities that are ultimately destroyed

Yet again Abraham fears for his life and lies about his wife.

And this is just what is recorded in these 25 years.

There are many scriptures where God encountered Abraham and encouraged him, reminded him of the promise and blessed him.

If you study the marriage of Abraham and Sarah you will find times of:

Worry

Famine

Death

Depression

Misery

Crying

Fighting

Times of pain

Times of Tragedy

Times they lost faith, times they doubted, times they done it their own way, time where I am sure they felt as though they failed.

Tucked away in the middle of all of this you find these scriptures:

Gen 12:7 “The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.”

Gen 12:8 “From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.”

Gen 13:4 “and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.”

Gen 13:18 “So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord.”

Gen 17:3 “Abram fell facedown, and God said to him,”

In the end Hebrews 11 records both Abraham and Sarah as being full of faith and examples of what it looks like to have faith in God.

In the end they were found to be full of faith to the Word of God.

At the Heart of who Abraham and Sarah were you find:

“Worshipers of God”

God was their True North

He was their fixed point in an unstable world

Abraham always went back to the altar, he always was found calling on the Name of the Lord.

He was a worshiper of God.

In the middle of everything they faced, times where it appears they failed or lost their faith. The one thing that is clear........ They worshiped.

I want to be known as a “Worshiper of God” don’t you?

The core difference between Abraham and myself is that he worship God throughout his troubles. I on the other hand, at times let my troubles consume me.

I want to be cautious here:

I want to be very sympathetic to the severity of your situation.

Because what your facing is real to you and the last thing I want to do is diminish the reality that many of you are facing problems that you don’t know the answers to.

And I know that because I have been there.

I have faced debilitating anxiety and fear. I have faced depression that hovered over me like a fog and I have struggled to get out from under it.

And in the middle of it all I didn’t know what to do or where to turn.

In the middle of life’s troubles Abraham kept God as His true north.

I am sad to say that there have been times that my North has shifted to which ever of life’s problem was the loudest.

I bounced around like a pin ball in the worlds game of life.

The shift happened in my life when

I stoped trying to make a name for myself and started to focus on making most of the name of Jesus.

I began to re engage in the Journey of Life with the Lord

I began to worship again.

We were made to worship. If we don’t grow in worship then our problems will seem to be larger than they actually are.

Everyone has their own version of tragedy.

We all face tragedy at one stage of life or another.

Tragedy does not nulify the promises of God.

Neglecting worship and allowing tregedy to cause us to fall way from our spouce hinders our ability to maintain an awareness that Gods promises are still alive.

You may not feel like your marriage is a live right now, But I can tell you for sure Gods promises are still alive.

Problems and issues come.

We will face things that cause us to fall.

Will they cause us to fall away or fall toward our spouce?

Falling toward our spouce brings us into an enviroment that keeps us aware of Gods presence and promises.

When your in the middle of tragedy you cant always see God working. Just because you cant see it doesn’t mean His promises are any less true!

Gods promise is your marriage is a treasure.... He who finds a wife finds a treasure.

Eph 2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Another version says masterpiece.

Your marriage is a masterpiece.

Picture this, a painting, a work of art. The Mona Lisa........

Its a masterpiece, a treasure of immeasurable worth.

Someone drops the painting face down in the mud.

Doesnt change the value of the treasure. Its a one of a kind.

Underneath the mud and staind and dirt is still a masterpiece.

We wouldn’t throw it away, we would get it restored

Return it back to the creators original design.

Underneath the stains, the scratches and mud that life has put on you is a beutiful masterpiece call marriage.

God wants to restore you and your spouce.

“We don’t get to choose what sorrows, trials, or troubles we bear, only we must endure them”-----------Quote I am not sure where I got it...