Jimmy Evans – Demystifying Marriage – The Four Laws of Love

Karen and I got married when we were 19 years old we started dating we were 16 years old we were in biology class together we met there and dated through high school in college and but when I was in my second year of college we got married and no one ever said a word to us about marriage I met the preacher that married us on the morning that he married us and the only advice that I had ever received about marriage was for my friends they said that means you're making a mistake that was the totality of my marriage advice before I got married I was just dumb waiting for a place to happen and so Ken and I got married she was precious Karen Karen was wonderful I was not I was just I was a bad husband I was dominant I was chauvinistic I grew up in a family of chauvinism and you know in our family women were very subservient men were the deal and I just thought you know I'm mr. wonderful and she's just blessed to be along for the ride and I did I didn't take care of her I didn't I just was a terrible I was terrible but so after several years of marriage we were on the brink of divorce I told Karen to get out of the house we we just we couldn't be together any longer but we were Christians and we went to church every Sunday and we read our Bibles every day in the morning that we that that evening we got in a fight that morning I'd read John 16 where Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes he'll lead you into all truth and so I went to work that day and I would play golf and the golf was a big deal this was you know the thing that was causing a lot of problems are marriages so I went to play golf I came home and Karen was very nice she was not a bad person but she just you know didn't give me the worship that I wanted trying to figure out how to say it that really is how I want to say it and she just you know wanted to be an equal and so I came in that night from golfing and she said I want I want you to come home I want you to come home be with me and be with Julie and you know stop playing so much golf and I said you get out you get out of here you go home I don't care where you go you get out of this house I'm sick of you and that's just how bad I was so she went ran down the hall and crying you know blubbering all that stuff and so I went into the living room and I just I was in shock I mean I really was in shock because I thought I don't want to leave it I don't want to say I don't know what to do I'm about to lose my marriage and so I was I was sitting in the living room and I remembered that scripture that when the Holy Spirit comes he will lead you into all truth and I said I knew I was about to lose Karen and I said to the Holy Spirit I said Holy Spirit will you teach me how to be a husband because I don't know how and at that moment just this deception fell off my eyes I don't know how to explain it but I was deceived I was deceived about myself and I was deceived about Karen and I apologized after that happened it was a supernatural experience and it was an answer of that prayer and I apologize to Karen she forgave me but we still had a lot a long way to go to have a good marriage and the next morning I woke up and I said Holy Spirit I want you to teach me how to be a husband and so he took me in the Bible he said turn to Genesis 2 and I turned to Genesis 2 and he took me to the four laws of marriage I didn't know that they were the four laws of marriage I did and he showed me the scripture in Genesis 2 and I read it it didn't mean anything to me and I read it again he said keep reading it and I read it for a while and all of a sudden he just unpacked and I saw that when God created marriage he created four laws of love that God marriage marriage is not a complicated relationship marriage is a blessed relationship this is what safe this is what saved our marriage and we lived three years in a rotten marriage and we live 44 years at a wonderful marriage because of Jesus number one and because of the four laws this this is what saved our marriage and this is what I've been teaching people around the world for many years it so let me make a couple of statements here that are kind of big statements in my first statement is marriage is the safest relationship on the earth when God's laws of love are honored that's hard for our generation to believe it is marriage was not created by a lawyer a legislature or a lonely neanderthal marriage was created by Almighty God and our God is a good God somebody say men he would never ever create anything to harm us we're his beloved he would never do that it was it wasn't somebody that created marriage God did and when we slam marriage were slamming God and understand this a lot of people in our culture fear marriage there's a tremendous fear of marriage and our culture now worldwide and understand this in 1930 83% of adult Americans were married today it's between 45 and 48 percent most adult Americans are not married in marriage has a bad name marriage gets slammed and people even Christian people are are afraid of it you you fear anything that you don't understand ignorance causes fear and I was I was afraid of it I mean I was like everybody else and so understand this God from the very beginning made marriage very simple and easy to understand if we would just honor most people who fail at marriage or just like Karen to me we were innocent we just didn't know some people have just rejected the Word of God and they won't receive it if somebody teaches it to them most people who are failing in marriage are wonderful people most people who have failed in marriage are wonderful people they just didn't know Karen and I would have divorced I would have divorced multiple times there's no doubt about it so I'm here by the mercy of God and I don't want to act self-righteous but what I want to say is this I know the laws of love I know these laws and I know the difference that they make in your marriage these laws create love these laws protect love and these laws promote love without these laws there is no love and marriage I've been on both sides of this and so these are the laws of love this is where love comes from okay so and I want to say something to parents in to influencers and that is there's just a negative impression in our society on marriage and some of it comes from Christians and I want to say every parent's dream is for your child to grow up and get married and have kids right that what we want so you wanted to leave home number one that's the big one but you want to have grandkids you want to have you want to have a family so you want your kids to leave and get married but you're the greatest influence for what what's going to happen to them and so as you're raising them what I'm saying is you may have bet you may have been drugged down a hard road I understand that you may have been divorced or something I get that I get how hurt you might be but what I'm saying is you can be healed in the truth will heal you and even if you have failed to this point you can succeed from this point on and your influence upon your children is the most important influence their life and what I'm saying to you is this I'm asking you if you would to develop a positive attitude towards your marriage because it's a gift from God and when you slam marriage or slamming God and when you're slamming marriage we're sitting silently as somebody else is your children are watching and your children's impression on marriage should be it is a gift of God and it's the safest relationship on earth when you do it God's Way somebody say Amen and second statement you have a 100% chance of marriage 100 percent chance of success in marriage when you do it God's Way 100 percent chance you don't have a 50/50 chance you know if half of the airplanes taking off we're crashing it would be a sign of intelligence not to fly and with half of marriages failing a lot of smart people say why would I want to do that why would I want to get hurt under I totally agree but what I'm saying to you is from the very beginning God created laws and His laws work every single time so this message is called demystifying marriage so I want it I want to take the mystery out of it because there's so much mystery to it right now that scares people to death I want to take the mystery out of it I want to say when God created marriage he created laws for laws that govern marriage and here's worried that if this is Genesis 2 Adam gave names to all the cattle to the birds of the air and every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found to help her comparable to him and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in his place then the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man and Adam said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of a man therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh and they were both naked the man and his wife and they were not ashamed now in verse 24 and 25 these are the four laws of Lovelace and God created Eve for Adam and the instant that he was finished God said therefore a man will leave his father and mother should be joined to his wife they too shall become one the man his wife were both naked not ashamed listen listen to me they didn't have mothers God said therefore a man he's looking at Adam and Eve they were both created directly by God they didn't have mothers we know that God was not speaking this to Adam and Eve he was speaking this over all of creation just as he created everything in Genesis 1 and created laws by which the universe in the world operate he created marriage and the first thing he did was speak four laws over the marriage they're impersonal they're universal they work for everyone if you violate them you get hurt if you honor them you succeed every single time there's no luck to it there's no mystery to it from the very beginning God said that it was for this cause a man would leave his father and mother and all these other laws so this is what I'm gonna be talking about the next four weeks is the four laws of love let me just say this God made Adam out of the dust but he made Eve out of Adam's rib okay from the very beginning women were more expensive and more complicated and that's what I want to say so well so why why did God make Eve out of Adam's rib because marriage is a covenant and the word covenant means to cut if there is no blood there's no covenant he's said in mark 14 then he took the cup and when he had given thanks and gave it to them and they all drank from it he said to them this is the blood of the new covenant which is shed for many the word covenant means a permanent sacrificial relationship what it means is this I'm all-in whatever level whatever level that we have to go to when you're saying your vows and your standing before a preacher like me and you're saying for better for worse you know why you're saying worse that's covenant in modern marriage this is just better sickness and in health that's covenant richer for poorer that stinks but it's covenant it's those are covenant vows and from the very beginning you're saying this is a sacrificial til death do us part if this is a sacrificial permanent relationship this is a covenant relationship so from the very beginning God created marriage as a company you said well what if I don't have a covenant marriage you have a contract marriage let me tell you the difference a contract protects my rights and limits my responsibilities it's selfish it's selfish from the beginning and this is what modern marriages are I'm going to marry you as long as you take care of me as long as you do right and so I want to protect my rights and I want to limit my responsibilities and this is all about me a sacrificial covenant says I'm sacrificing rights and I'm limiting my responsibilities I'm all-in from the very beginning this is a sacrum say in relationships you get what you pay for and if you want to begin a relationship by moving your clothes into someone's closet and not making any formal commitments you've got what you paid for and it's over as easy as it started but if you want to begin a relationship with covenant with a sacrificial mentality that you're all-in and you paid the price for that relationship you get what you pay for in the last the rest of your life from the very beginning God made marriage as a covenant relationship so let me let me talk about the first law of marriage real quick this is the law of priority and of course he says for this cause a man will leave his father and mother well laws create order safety and predictability when you when you have laws there's order there's order in the universe and there's order in world cuz laws right okay there safety if you follow the laws if you don't follow the laws you know there's not safety and it's predictable you know I can predict if I throw a ball in there it's going to come down because the law of gravity but imagine there was no law of gravity imagine for just a minute that gravity wasn't a law it was just kind of a principle and it came and went and you're sitting on the runway in an airplane and the pilot comes on says folks were we've had some pretty good gravity the last couple of days so we're gonna go ahead and take off but let's just hope that it stays for a little while because we did lose a couple of planes to outer space last week that was bad and relax enjoy your flight so anybody that be aren't you glad the gravity's a law our laws create order and safety and predictability God created marriage with laws marriage is orderly marriage is the safest relationship on earth marriage is predictable when you do it according to God's laws when you don't and most people that don't know God's laws are sweet people that just don't know like we didn't but if you there's just no mystery to it there's no fear to it you don't have to fear marriage it's God made you premiers God created all that he created and he blessed every single thing he created except a man by himself in Genesis 2:18 he looked at Adam said I will not bless you by yourself and as soon as he created Eve god bless them as a couple God made you for marriage he made your children for marriage there are a few people that are not married they're like Jesus and like the Apostle Paul they're not a subculture they're a super culture that's what the Bible says but most of us were made for marriage but we have been damaged by a culture that has rejected the Word of God and it's time for us to return to marriage and to receive it as the gift that it is and to understand it and to embrace it and teach our children how to do the same thing what if there were no traffic laws people are crazy with traffic laws what if there were no traffic laws you know mature believers who love Jesus get in the car they lose their salvation Satan possess ISM really really I'm talking about the church parking lot folks I'm telling you so Karen and I Karen I have a good marriage we have a great marriage Karen's the perfect wife but in the car we struggle and in the car we struggle and so I'm just being honest so I should have titled this book the four laws of love except in the car so Karen she didn't like the way I Drive and she's not silent about it and she has a backseat driving spirit that cannot be cashed out jesus knows I've tried she was backseat driving on the way here and so we get in the car and she'd like to a drive and so and she like that you should I'll turn will be driving somewhere I'll turn she'll say you should go on that way that's the best way that's the shortest way that's my we always go the wrong way you always go wrong then Jesus help me be strong and and we'll get to go up to the stoplight and I'll stop and she'll say you could have made that [Applause] then the next slide I'll go through it she said you just ran that like are there any other husbands that can relate to this so god bless you teeth is healer Jesus healer give him strength well I don't like my caring drives she scares me to death the sister scares me to death so we'll be going somewhere she'll grab her keys my worst fear we're taking my car I'm gonna drive us and Karen we're gonna take my car no we're taking my car this time I'm gonna drive so I get I get in the passenger seat just start praying in tongues she she scares me to death and I'll say something though that Karen Karen you're going too fast you're following too close just like you just sit back Mike I can't relax when my life is in danger I'm sorry I've never been relaxed right before I died yeah so there are laws of marriage that are absolute and they protect us thank God for law somebody okay so God God crate loss number one laws the law of priority for this cause a man will leave his father and mother marriage has to be first it has to be before your children it has to be before work it has to be before church it has to be before golf it has to be before video games it has to be before social media it has to be before friends if marriage is in any other place except for your relationship with Jesus if marriage is in any place other than first in real terms it doesn't work and so God comes and he says for this cause a man will leave his father and mother well before you get married now the word leave is this work it's hobbits this work just let go it just means drop meantime you just reprioritize him for this cause a man has to let go of his parents being the most important bond in his life no so so you've heard this saying that blood is thicker than water okay so what that means is fight breaks out stay with family right let me give you another thing blood may be thicker than water but spirits are thicker than blood and Jesus said what God has joined together the Pharisees were in Matthew 19 were asking Jesus if it was okay to divorce for any cause at all and Jesus said what God has joined together let not man put asunder let me say something to you this is a very important statement marriage is not a piece of paper that is created by the state of Texas or any other state marriage is an act of the Spirit of God and what makes you marry a certificate from the state is great the blessing of your parents is great but the most important part of your marriage is your spirits being connected and the spiritual connection of marriage is more profound than the blood bond with your mother and father and from the very beginning God said this isn't going to work now if you're not willing to reprioritize your life if anything else is going to take the place of your spouse's are going to work so the law of marriage when you're falling in love it's by no accident because this creates love let me give you example so here's what you're saying when you're following the law of married a young man gets down on his knee and proposes to his pur you know his fiancee proposed on sight and he gets down his knee and he presents her a ring and I saw her marry her because uh-huh well what's so romantic about that you know it's because of what he's saying and here's what he's saying I choose you to be the most important priority of my life and to be the primary focus of my life with the exception of my personal relationship with Jesus here's the electrifying part of the law of priority I choose you I choose you is the focus of my life for the rest of my life and except for Jesus you come first it's electrifying it's what we live for ever we all want someone to choose us and that's what the laws of love create look Karen I fell out of love because I wasn't following this when we began to respect the four laws of love we fell back in love this is for love comes from it's not some force it's not chemistry it's not what it comes from a loss of God when you follow the laws of God every single day what you're saying to your spouse's I love you I choose you again today and I will protect you from anything that competes against you I will protect you now there's a term called legitimate jealousy there there are times in marriage that you can become jealous in a good way in legitimate jealousy by the way exodus 34:14 God says you shall worship no other God for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God God's net one of God's names is jealous you say why is God jealous the word jealous means intolerant of rivalry here's why God is jealous you're only jealous in proportion to the degree that you love you're never jealous over somebody somebody that you don't love but to the degree that I love you is to the degree that I will fight for the relationship jealousy means intolerant of rivalry I don't want any competition with you and here's what God's jealousy means I created you to love me first and I'm your God and I saved your soul and I deserve a first place your life and when I see any person or anything coming to take you away I'm gonna fight for you because I love you so much I'm not letting you go without a fight somebody say Amen this is all good talk good God loves you and God gets jealous well when we get married we fall in love and we know that we belong to each other first I know that Karen belongs to me first except for Jesus and I belong to her first so when we got married Karen began to complain because she was jealous and I wouldn't listen to her would you come home and not play golf would you be with me and not my friends would you be with me and Julie and not go to work all the time and I just never I didn't listen I never validated what she was saying but what she was doing was saving our marriage she was jealous in a good way and she was fighting for our marriage but I wouldn't listen to her and the classic cycle of love and marriage is we meet become attracted we highly prioritized the relationship every time you fall in love you're doing the right thing you're prioritizing the relationship we fall in love and get married the marriage is great for a while but things gradually then gradually other people and things begin to take first place in our lives in real terms and we begin to be jealous and complain and many times a man is turning toward his work or something outside the home the woman is turning toward children she's taking her frustrations and turning them toward the children and the husband is frustrated because he feels like all the energy that he used to get is going to the kids the wife is frustrated cuz she feels like all the energy she used to get is going to something else work or something else and you're complaining but you're not listening but what both of you are doing what one or both of you're doing is you're violating an absolute universal inviolable law of God that he created called the law of priority when you get married it's not putting your spouse first when you're dating or when you're first married that matters Karen I've been married all this time were first we're first let me says so talk about you know listening I went to a men's conference when I was a young husband as my early 20s that was still bad husband and there was a guy speaking a pastor speaking and he made this comment and he said every husband needs to sit down with his wife over a cup of coffee and say tell me what's wrong with me and I won't defend myself and I thought that's the stupidest person I've ever met that man is just too dumb to be up there teaching what why would why would I do that she'll tell me why would I why would I ask for it well that was dumb Jimmy if I had a time machine I send myself back in time to dumb Jimmy and the first thing is just slapping say listen Jimmy listen listen and so now that I'm not stupid anymore I say the Karen on a regular basis are you okay when you've been married this long you just have code language and here's the code language when I asked Karen if she's okay here's what I'm saying is there anything you need is there anything bothering you is there anything I'm not doing we're doing because your first and I will cut I will crawl through cut glass for five miles to make sure you're okay you'll never have to nag you'll never have to beg you'll never have to ask twice and I have a happy wife except in the car and so it might be that you that you were keeping the law of priority and you're not doing it now and my encouragement is just apologize to your spouse and do anything you've need to to make this right I won't first of all want to say listen to your spouse there when they begin to complain don't do it I did and just push it off when your wife is complaining about you're working and your friends and your video games and watching sports and stuff listen to her and let her know none of this is more important than you you're more important when your husband is complaining about the kids or friends or the amount of time that maybe you're on the phone or social meters have to listen to your husband and there should be a regular time that you guys are together and you're able to talk and if there's a frustration you've in it but you have to you have to validate the other thing I want to say is you need to you need to train your children to respect your marriage you know you will not have a marriage if you don't train your children to respect it and I say jokingly that you know children are simple little creatures there's only one thing they want they want to possess your soul and they want 24/7 access to you they want you to take care of them all day and all night you know they want to just walk into any conversation interrupt but they just want you know and so with your children are precious okay there's Jesus there's your spouse and there's your kids their kids with her let me say it's about your children here's why they're third they're going to leave someday hopefully they're a temporary assignment right and how are they going to succeed in marriage if you don't show them how so this this may sound like an arrogant statement but I'm going to say it is its truth when Karen and I were raising our children we wanted them to be just like us if you don't want your children to be like you you don't understand parenting it's more caught than taught we wanted them to love Jesus the way we love Jesus we wanted them to be married the way we were married we wanted them to be parents like we were parents they want we want everything that we had is what we wanted for them and you know something our kids are better than us they both have great marriages they're both great parents they love Jesus they serve the Lord is you have to teach your children to respect your marriage and the way that you did it when I came home from work when her kids were young I would come home and we would eat together and we would spend two or three hours together as a family and then we'd put the kids to bed and when they got older they put themselves bed but when they were younger you know a 8:30 9 o'clock I put him to bed you know pray for him and then Karen and I had our own time and we had our in our bedroom we had a lock on our door we went into her bedroom we had to have locked her door we had a guard we had if you don't if you don't teach your children they will respect it but we had a lock on her door and we would go into the bedroom and we would sit face-to-face and talk and that was our time and what we trained our children is no you had your time this is mom and dad's time they you respect our time and regularly we would have time together we want a little trip or something a day or two Karen I would and that was our time and so the law of priority is very simple marriage only works from work first place and if you're in real terms if you are not expressing to your spouse that their first and you will protect them from all competition they're going to be hurt and they're gonna be frustrated and the reason they're hurt and frustrated because they're normal and they're healthy and their jealousy is a protective thing in your marriage just like Karen's was and my encouragement to you is this honor God by honoring his word and the first thing he ever said about marriage is for this cause a man is going to have to read prioritizes life by the he didn't mean just man I mean man and woman but men are supposed to leave once you bury des with if you would lord we we believe your word we believe that we believe that your word is inerrant and infallible and true and eternal and those of us that have made mistakes we just didn't know most of us we just didn't know but now that we know lord help us to be humble and help us if we're single in or maybe divorced that we could prepare hearts to be married to not make that mistake again if we're married that we would be humble and make this right with our spouse if we have to lose a friend if we have to change jobs if we have to change the way our home is run that we don't give up our marriage I bless I bless the congregation I bless every campus every service every person watching online I pray you would heal the hurts of their past if there's any hurts from a bad marriage a bad family that you came out of previous marriages holy spirits sovereignly heal them i bind all fear in the name of jesus i bind every demon spirit of fear that comes to lie to us and keep us from your best and I pray for hope I speak hope over every marriage over every person give us hope again and I pray Lord for a marriage revival in America and around the world and I pray what the devil has done to destroy lives that you would come and that you would restore and that you would build in Jesus name Amen god bless you guys

Channel: gatewaychurchtv

Views: 98,489

Keywords: Jimmy Evans, Marriage Today, Demystifying Marriage, Laws of Love, how to have a successful marriage, principles of marriage, The Four Laws of Love, Biblical Marriage, biblical marriage sermon, christian marriage, jimmy evans marriage today, marriage help, Gateway church, robert morris

Id: ue-h6Z1gv5o

Length: 31min 14sec (1874 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 03 2020