A special presentation with Pastor Chris Holland on Marriage. For those who are already married as well as those who will get married in the future.

<p>A special presentation with Pastor Chris Holland on Marriage. For those who are already married as well as those who will get married in the future.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

HopeLives365

Chris Holland

Three Essentials for a Strong Marriage

Well, I want to welcome you all to 3 essentials for a strong marriage.

And we're going to go ahead and get started.

And during the course of the next hour that we'll have together, I'm going to go over 3 biblical principles, and each of those principles has some sub-principles on a strong marriage.

So if you're not married this is going to give you strong foundations to to build upon or to look for in someone.

If you're in engaged in a relationship and thinking about marriage this is going to outline some principles to help you hone in and define as to what direction to go.

If you already are married and are in a happy marriage, these will give some principles to strengthen that marriage.

Or if you're married and things are not going as well as you would hope for them to be going, this will give you some principles upon which to build a corrective influence in your marriage.

And so with that, let's go ahead and have a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to be here this afternoon.

And we thank you that you are the author of marriage and that Lord, you give us principles to help us not just survive marriage, but to thrive and to fulfill really what your goal was for all of us.

All right, so where we're gonna begin, ironically enough, is at the beginning.

And so if you have your Bibles, I'm gonna encourage you to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24.

And if I could have somebody that can read Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24.

And I'm gonna pick on Seth because I saw Seth is open there.

And so David, if you wanna give Seth a microphone, and Seth, we're gonna look at Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become 1 flesh.

Okay, so I'm going to give you the 3 principles right here at the outset and then we're going to expand upon each of them.

In the New King James Version, the first principle is to leave, the second principle is to join, and the third principle is to be 1.

If you're reading from the King James it's a bit more rhyming.

It is leave, cleave, and then If you're real crafty as a preacher, they will describe the oneness as conceived.

But what we're going to see in just a moment is it's far more than that.

When you look at this word, this first principle of leaving, this word is both defined and translated in the Bible as in a couple of different ways.

It means to depart, it means to abandon, and it also means to loose.

So I want to give you some context because this is specific now.

Now, especially for those of you that are coming from a culture outside of the culture of the United States, don't worry, I'm not telling you to abandon your parents.

But let's talk about the context of this word leave and what this word leave means.

So I'm gonna ask somebody to read Jeremiah chapter 1 and verse 16.

So Junior, I'm gonna ask you to read Jeremiah 1, 16.

And then Thomas, I'm gonna ask you to read Proverbs 28, 13.

And then somebody else, if somebody else can get Matthew 27 and verse 46.

And so we'll go Matthew 27, 46 after that.

So Junior, Jeremiah chapter 1 and verse 16.

And the reason you're reading these is this word leave.

We wanna see how the Bible uses the word leave to help us understand what it means to practically apply it in the marital relationship.

Perfect, Jeremiah 1 16 says this, and I will utter my judgments against them, touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me and have burned incense unto other gods and worship the works of their own hands." Okay so the word leave that same word leave from Genesis 2 24, Jonas 2 24 rather is the word forsaken in the verse that Junior, too many J's in there, that Junior just read.

And when we talk about forsaking in that context the forsaking was literally turning their back upon God.

They were burning incense to foreign idols.

They were turning their back upon God or turning away from God.

Now later on this word forsaken will be utilized and translated sometimes as the word repentance in the New Testament.

Now we often equate repentance with behavior change.

It is a 180 degree turn away from something.

But repentance, the word repentance is the Greek word metanaos.

Meta is beyond, which means beyond the mind, which means repentance is not a change of behavior only.

Repentance is actually a change of the mind which then leads to a change in behavior.

And so when we understand this word leave it is not just a literal leaving but it's actually a shift in the mindset.

I'm gonna talk about that in just a moment.

I have you reading Proverbs chapter 28 and verse 13.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Okay, and so now we have, using this idea of forsaking in a positive sense.

You're leaving it behind, you're turning away from it, you're turning your mind away from it, because if I think about it, and that's really what the gist of the Sermon on the Mount was, right?

Is Jesus said, some of you think this, but if you think this in your mind, you've actually already committed the act.

And so, because Jesus intimately understood the reality that our mind is what helps the rest of our body do what it needs to do.

So we need to shift the mind because if we don't shift the mind and in the last class I used some of you may be familiar there was a show years ago called my 600 pound life and it studied those people that weighed over 600 pounds, and they were gonna have bariatric surgery.

And there's a famous doctor, I think he's in Houston or something like that, and they would go and visit him, and he would tell them they need to lose weight before they can have the surgery.

I'd be saying, well, wouldn't they lose the weight?

If they could lose the weight, why don't they just give the surgery?

Because that doctor intimately understood that unless they shifted their mindset in what they eat, when he turns their stomach from its regular size to holding with about 2 or 3 tablespoons worth of material.

He understood that if they didn't shift how they eat it, how they were eating, that he would do that surgery and then they would continue to eat the same way.

And like a balloon, their stomach would stretch back to its old forms.

And so, this leaving is not just a physical leaving, but it is a shift in the mindset.

But then there's 1 more passage that I want us to see the strength of this word and that's Matthew 27 and verse 46.

And so Leslie, I'll get you for a different passage.

In about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabbatini.

That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Okay, the word forsaken in the Greek is the same that that's the word, the Greek word used for leave in Genesis 2.24.

So when we think about that, by the way, and let's now make this very practical.

Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The sins of the world had been poured about on Jesus and his sins separated him from the Father and so he could no longer feel the presence of the father.

What does this mean here when we talk about the biblical principle of leaving?

Throughout our life, from our infancy, we have been dependent upon our parents.

So Crystal, when your children were in the womb, they were completely dependent upon you.

They were completely dependent upon you for food, for shelter, they had built-in shelter, and for the oxygen that was getting into their body.

Now once your children were born, your children are still, now, even at the age they are, are dependent upon you.

And in order for your children to survive, what are the key things that they need?

Food, water, shelter, those are the basic things.

Yeah, And we can throw in the things like love and all.

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Three Essentials for a Strong Marriage

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