Session 3 HEA (2)

Session 3 Happily Ever After

Marriage is Challenging

It is almost never what we expected.

You listened to the Kuses, Frasers and Moors

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

We saw their faith increase and they grew closer together.

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.

Gary Thomas’s book Sacred Marriage

He coined the phrase “what if God didn’t 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.

Gods Deeper Purpose for marriage:

Is to make us more like HIM

If we will accept that:

Then each and every problem 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.

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

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

I think we worship.

Worship is offering our bodies as a living sacrifice- Romans 12:1

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.

2 Corinthians 1:20 “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”

God has given you a promise:

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.

“He receives favor from the Lord”.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

They have this problem in conflict with Gods promise

The enemy loves to elevate your problems above Gods promise.

This promise was a big deal.

Abraham is obedient to Gods call. He takes his family and heads to the new land.

For the next 25 years Abraham and Sarah faced many troubles

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

Worry

Famine

Wavering Faith

Death

Depression

War

Times of pain and tragedy

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

Gen 21:1-2 “Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.”

I want to point out that this promise from God took 25 years to arrive.

Between those 25 years was a lot of tragedy, troubles and pain.

There are way more scriptures describing the difficulty of the journey

It was essential that Abraham and Sarah would cling to the promise that God gave them.

They would go years between hearing from God.

They simply had to believe and trust Him.

Even when their circumstances would say otherwise

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.

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.

Even in times where his natural circumstances appeared to go against Gods Promise.

He remained faithful to worship God

I said earlier that I believe worship is a key element to maintaining an awareness that Gods promises are yes for you.

That doesn’t mean worship removes every trouble or tragedy we face. But it does change our perspective, that God is and will use everything in our lives to make us more like Him and to bring Him Glory.

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 your situation.

I know what your facing is real and you need answers.

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.

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 worship God again.

We were made to worship. If we don’t grow in worship then our problems will seem to be larger than the promises of God.

Satan wants to take our problems and use them as a wedge to divide our marriage and hinder our worship.

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 spouse?

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

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

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.

God sees our marriage as 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.

Doesn’t change the value of the treasure. Its a one of a kind.

Underneath the mud and stains 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 beautiful masterpiece call marriage.

God wants to restore you and your spouse.

He is the great restorer.

In the testimonies we watched, they all faced the unexpected, the unforeseen, They faced tragedy.

Instead of the enemy dividing them, it brought them closer together.

That doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt at times.

Happily ever After does not mean a problem free marriage, but it does mean that we are walking out life, sometimes really difficult life, with our favorite person by our side.

The couples that you have heard in this session all have walked though tough seasons of life.

Because they have God as True North they are able to share their story to help others.

When we do that it puts Jesus on display.

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.””

It is possible to have peace.

To grow closer to God

To grow closer to each other

In the midst of life’s troubles.

Happily ever after isn’t something we stumble upon, it is something that is carefully constructed and sought after...... we plan for it.

Its not a destination its a journey.

So what do you do next? Make a plan?

Make God your true north, your fixed point in an unstable world.

Just because you do this doesn’t mean troubles wont come.

After doing this we recieved a diagnosis......

Romans 8:28 became our life verse.

if its not good yet then Gods not done yet!

You have to be for each other.

Be willing and commited to your marriage.

It takes both of you to get though life’s hardest moments.

Pray and get in devotion with the Lord together

Some of you have asked these questions about your marriage...

Is this all that marriage has to offer?

Have I married the wrong person?

Some of you have simply accepted the lie that this is as good as it gets and your just waiting around until Jesus comes back hoping it will get better.

God has more for your marriage, more for your family and more for you.

However "You can have every tool, but if we don’t have the desire to use these tools, they are useless.”

The only one that can help you with that is you and God.

You got to have the want to...

Philippians 2:13 NLT God is working in you giving you the desire and power to do what pleases Him.

Do we have any pilots in the room?

Spacial Disorientation

Basically when a pilot loses all since of direction.

This is very serious and can prove to be disastrous for a pilot.

It doesn't tend to happen when conditions are good

It happens when flying at night or in poor visibility and when they cant see a clear horizon.

Basically the pilot can have the sensation that they are flying upside down.

In these moment pilots are taught to trust their gauges.

When spacial disorientation comes on a pilot the feeling of being upside down is so real they have to make a decision to trust their gages or trust how they feel.

To trust their feelings means they go against their training

Many pilots have lost their lives because they have chose to ignore the gages and trust only their feelings.

You may feel this way with your marriage right now.

You don’t know where to turn

You don’t know which way is up.

Your feelings will lie to you

You have to trust your gauges

God is our gauge, His word will guide us.

You may be in a really tough season of life right now, and you don’t know where to turn.

Turn to Jesus

When we look at the marriage and the life of Abraham and Sarah

We find problems, troubles, trials and tragedy.

Some was self inflicted, some was caused by others, and some was un avoidable and out of their control.

God didn’t give up on them and He will not give up on you

Marriages are hungry for revival.

I believe that is why your here

Pray and it is ministry time.