The Most Important Issue in Marriage

coming up on marriage today with Jimmy & Karen when Karen and I were failing in our marriage I was 19 when I got married no one had ever taught me about marriage we were failing in our marriage and God was so compassionate with us and I'm just I'm saying that to say if you're struggling if you're failing if you're fearful if you're broken in this area or you come out of a broken family God feels compassion not anger he's not angry [Music] this is called the most important issue in marriage and this is something that we need to know if we don't know anything else about the subject of marriage and this is John chapter four let me give you a little back background on this story this is a Samaritan woman who's been married five times this lady is an outcast no one will have anything to do with her it's very unusual for women to go to the well by themselves they win in groups for safety reasons but no one would go with her and so she was she was a broken person she was a loser in that society so she's at the well by herself and Jesus shows up and she said what are you what are you having anything to do with me why are you having anything to do with me I'm a Samaritan woman and Jesus said give me a drink and so he's talking about this well and he says to her if you knew the gift of God and who you're talking to you'd ask me for a drink and I would give you that drink and you would never be thirsty again this this Samaritan woman the the story shows the compassion of Jesus to people who fail I've already talked about that God is compassionate because he knows that there's a devil against us he wants us to to be defeated he's also compassionate because he doesn't he knows we don't know what we're doing in the area of marriage when Jesus hung on the cross he forgave the people who put him there but he but he said why Jesus said Father forgive them they don't know what they're doing and most most of us have never been taught about the issue of marriage our failures this woman is an example God knew that she wasn't trying to fail no one in marriage is trying to fail anyone who's been divorced anyone who's struggling in marriage no one is standing at the altar getting married saying I sure hope I fail everyone getting married they want to succeed but most of us just don't have the skills we don't have the knowledge of how to succeed in marriage and so Jesus comes this woman he feels compassion for her because it's his nature to be compassionate because he knows she doesn't know when Karen and I were failing in our marriage I was 19 when I got married no one had ever taught me about marriage we were failing in our marriage and God was so compassionate with us and I'm saying that to say if you're struggling if you're failing if you're fearful if you're broken in this area or you've come out of a broken family god it feels compassion not anger he's not angry at you he doesn't want to reject you any more than he wanted to reject her he wants to give you the answer though for how to succeed he doesn't want to leave you in that condition Billy Graham says God loves us the way just the way we are but he loves us too much to leave us like that and that's exactly right God loves you just the way you are but he wants to fix you he wants to help you and so he's compassionate God marriage was created by God and this is another thing that this story illustrates and it's only successful when it honors his plan and includes his presence remember in the Garden of Eden it wasn't Adam and Eve it was had him and even God we need God God created marriage and when Jesus walks up to this woman to fix her he is saying to her lady you have a spiritual problem you have a void on the inside and if you keep trying to get men to solve your issues you're drinking from the wrong well men cannot fix you people cannot fix you if you keep drinking from that well you're just gonna be sold thirsty for the rest of your life and frustrated and defeated but if you knew who was standing in front of you I would give you a spiritual drink of living water and it would quench your thirst forever and many of us have experienced that but as a young man in marriage I didn't know how to relate to Jesus like I should and so I depended too much on Karen she depended too much on me and we had a dysfunctional marriage the third thing that's illustrated in this story is the most important issue in marriage is a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ that's the most important issue if you don't know anything else about marriage that's what you need to know about marriage is your marriage and your life will be more profoundly affected by your relationship with Jesus than any other let me tell you why whether whether we realize it or not when we wake up every morning we have four basic needs that drive us through life every person every day is driven in life by four basic needs acceptance identity security and purpose that's what's motivating you that's what's motivating me every person is the same acceptance means I want to be accepted for who I am now once you listen to me Romans they asked this question what can separate us from the love of God and here's the answer given in Romans nothing God loves you like no one else loves you on your worst day God is your best friend and when every other person leaves Hebrews 13:5 God says I will never leave you I will never forsake you and that means he will never physically leave us nor will he ever turn his heart away on our worst day when we've done the grossest thing for the for the millionth time God isn't like people his acceptance is different it doesn't matter if our teeth are straight it doesn't matter if our teeth are white it doesn't matter if our deodorants working properly it doesn't matter if we're dressed the way we ought to dress it doesn't matter if we talk with the wrong accent it doesn't matter any of that He loves us period and he's the only person who does most people most people who love us love us based on what they don't know we want people to like this we put our best face forward but if they knew every single thing we had ever done in the secret thoughts of our mind I promise it would shorten our list of friends I promised it would because a lot of people love us based on what they think we are but if they really knew us for who we were they wouldn't love us anymore can I tell you something he knows every thought in your mind everything you've ever done and everything you will do and he loves you T totally acceptance he on the worst day of my life when I said Jesus he said yes child he that he never packs up in leaps he never packs up in the leaves acceptance people are undependable and they may love you today but they don't tomorrow or they may be happy right now and they give you dirty look ten ten minutes from now that hurts your feelings but God is absolutely stable and his love fills our heart like no one else his perfect love cast out our fear it's what the Bible says what's the fierce the fear of rejection it's our number one fear every person's number one need is love and number one fears rejection but his perfect love cast out fear because he's absolutely rely as a lover of our soul and he's the only one who is identity is a number another need that I have Who am I yeah I want to be unique I want to be special well he may be in my mother's womb you don't have to go through life being like everybody else you don't have to go through life wondering why you were created God will tell you he'll whisper it into your heart he'll reveal to you who he created you to be and you can know that rather than living your life to be someone in people's eyes it's a horrible thing security am i safe and secure from harm or my knees gonna be met am I gonna be protected well I just say this and we all see this today there's danger in every area the weather the events Wars the instability of nations our own economy our own instability is people you just see the danger on every side predators people that are doing evil things to people am I secure I am secure in god period I am secure in God if I am in the eye of the storm I am secure in God but if I'm in a hammock in Hawaii sipping a drink with an umbrella in it I'm not secure without God I'm securing God he makes me secure and I'm only secure in him number four purpose to have a purpose for life most people just lived their lives either to get money or to go through another 24 hours of making a butcan spending it or just whatever they're living for but they're gonna lose it let me say this and that's what I did I wake up every day for this purpose to serve the king of kings to lead to take as many people as I can to heaven with me and to give people eternal answers to their trouble and let me tell you something that's the way to live your life I'm not here to make money I'm not here just to suck up oxygen as long as I can I am here for a kingdom purpose and it makes me feel special and it gives me the motivation every day to roll out of bed and do it again but when you don't have God's purpose for your life and you get the belly punched and you get knocked on your back by life circumstance many of us have been in a circumstance in our life says should I go on is worth it what's it for and this is a broken-down woman been married five times and now she's living with the guys she's so disenchanted with marriage and she's been belly punched a lot Jesus walks up her says lady listen there's nothing wrong with you that can't be fixed but it's not gonna be fixed until you let me meet your needs and you don't try to get them out of a man the principle of transference is this if we don't trust Jesus to meet our deepest needs we will automatically transfer those expectations to those closest around us if we don't have a relationship with Jesus and all of us have had times in our lives when either we didn't know Jesus or we didn't have a close relationship with him so let me say there's any time in your life when you're not in relationship with Jesus you are a dysfunctional relationship waiting for a place to happen remember acceptance identity security and purpose are four basic needs either God's gonna meet those needs or you're gonna try to get a person to meet those needs the Samaritan woman tried to get a husband to meet those needs is she squeezed the first husband and it didn't come out because he couldn't do that only God can do that and so she rejected him here's what happens by the way with the transference for our needs number one will never be fulfilled people can't people can't meet our needs you can't we have a God shaped void in our lives and people can't fill that void money can't fill that void success can't fill that void pleasure can't fill that void only God can fill that void that's why Jesus said lady you're drinking from the wrong well but if you drink from me you'd be fulfilled finally when Jesus comes into that void the second thing is we become discouraged and cynical the divorce the marriage rate in America in 1930 was eighty-three percent eighty three percent of adult Americans were married in nine nineteen thirty now the marriage rate is forty nine point seven percent which means most people most adult Americans are not married and it's because of the cynicism because we've rejected God and because we've rejected God's wife and marriage doesn't work now we either don't get married or we shack up or we do something else and that's exactly what this woman had done well when you transfer your knee to another person or to someone other than God it's just gonna happen the third thing and I think this is probably the one of the worst things is we become bitter toward people and we reject them she tried to squeeze the first husband for what only God can give he couldn't and she rejected him so there's something wrong with him the second one the third one the fourth one the fifth and finally she said I can't trust him in associated live with him you need a man around but you can't trust him so I'm just gonna have him around I'm gonna say something and I but when I say this I'm not accusing you I just want to say something so you'll register this thought in your mind okay Jesus by the way her husband's were probably you know knuckleheads I'm saying I'm not I'm not putting all the blame on her cuz men have their own issues obviously so Jesus isn't putting all the blame on this woman he's just telling her what's wrong with her okay so let me let me make this statement to you I want you I want you to listen what I'm saying and this week if you would I want you to meditate on this she thought five men had let her down and again they were praying knuckleheads at times you know and they did things wrong but she was wrong the truth was she expected something of a man he couldn't give and when he didn't she rejected him now I've made this mistake so I'm not pointing the fingers I made this mistake multiple times listen what I'm about to say because there have been times in your life when you did not know Jesus or you weren't walking with Jesus there have been times that you transferred the expectations of your life to people and you set them up for failure because they couldn't be Jesus to you your parents annex a close friend a business partner a pastor a church a government leader government program whatever it might have been you were not walking with Jesus you were not trusting him and so you took acceptance identity security and purpose and you transferred that to an individual and they let you down and it may have ended the relationship maybe it just ended in a frustration in the relationship and you kind of accused that person but you're wrong I'm not saying that that other person wasn't wrong also you were wrong and in my encouragement to you is to do an inventory is just to sit down in the presence of the Holy Spirit and say Holy Spirit would you help me because I know I have some broken relationships in my life are any of those broken relationships because I tried to make that person Jesus to me and gently and graciously God will help you to to deal with that and the purpose isn't condemnation to drag you into your past the purpose is just simply to say maybe they weren't as bad as I thought they were and maybe I was a part of the problem I've done it I did it to Karen I was very disappointed in Karen when we got married because I was trying to make her into Jesus for me she's a great Karen she's a lousy Jesus I'm a good Jimmy I'm a lousy Jesus there's only one good Jesus and his name is Jesus here's my question to you once you listen I'm saying when you have a problem where do you go first a friend the web a credit card a store internally worried fear where do you go first doesn't matter if you love Jesus it doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus do you trust him do you trust him with your finances do you trust him with your children do you trust him with your relationships do you trust him with your life do you trust him for miracles do you trust him to come through and change things when Karen I wake up every morning now we did this wrong and we almost divorced so we're not better than anybody we're not special but what we learned is the most important issue in our marriage is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ it's the most important thing so when I wake up in the morning and when Karen wakes up in the morning we both have different places in the house where we go and we have our quiet time which means we read our Bible i journal I read my Bible and I pray and it's not a religious experience experience I don't pray just to pray I don't read my Bible to straight my Bible I need God I need him to encourage me I need him to heal me I've got fears I've got problems I've got needs I've got anxieties every single day every day it doesn't matter how long I've known Jesus every day I've got issues that only God can solve I don't go to a person first thing in the morning I don't go to the web first thing in the morning I don't buy something early more to make me feel better I go to Jesus and it changes every relationship in my life every relationship in my life I'm gonna be relating to people all day long and there's several I want to kill I want to strangle them today could I have permission it happened in the Bible could I do it and God says no so I'm gonna fill you with my Holy Spirit and you won't want to kill them you love them okay when I wake up and I have been with God I'm a different husband than if I have it sometimes Karen will say to me when I'm not having one of my better day did you pray this morning and most the time I did but I won't admit it cuz I don't want to know she's right cuz she's right too much we need Jesus I know you believe in him and I know you love him I know you do you wouldn't be here if you did but do you trust him I'll hope you enjoyed that teaching you know this is just a part of the ten part seminar that I do called marriage on the rock it was the first seminar that I ever did first book I ever wrote was marriage on the rock it still is to this day the most important marriage teaching that I do and we want to put this into your hands the full seminar series and the book we want to put it into your hands in right now for your gift of any amount to marriage today we want to send you the CD single the most important issue in marriage is the first teaching in the seminar it's the first chapter in the book and it is the most important issue in marriage it will change your life it will change your marriage for your gift of $50 or more we want to send you the full series on CD the full 10-part marriage on the rock series plus we'll send you the book for your gift of a hundred and ten dollars or more to marriage today we're gonna send you the marriage on the rock book the 10 part DVD series plus our special romance book called happy happy love you know we want to put these into your hands to change your marriage and help you solve any problems if you're experiencing any problems in your relationship even if you're single or divorced to give you hope to prepare you for a marriage but also to understand we're a mission and we're a ministry that goes all over the world when you're helping marriage today when you give to us not only were you blessing your own marriage you're helping us to reach couples to all over the world and keep little children together with their parents go online right now pick up your telephone and order these important resources marriage on the rock the best-selling book and series is the essential resource to having the marriage of your dreams through this power-packed series marriage expert Jimmy Evans will show you how to deal with real-life challenges and offer easy to understand solutions that will transform your relationship Jimmy will address all the major issues the couple will encounter like communication finances sex kids his and her needs blended families and much more for your gift of any amount you'll receive the CD single the most important issue in marriage for your gift of $50 or more we'll send you the marriage on the rock book and CD series for your gift of $110 or more you'll receive the book and DVD series plus the passion reigniting happy happy love book discover God's design for your dream marriage whether you've been married for years or just preparing for the journey experience marriage on the rock today [Music] you know this is the first session that I ever did when I caught a marriage samar it's amazing yeah it is Mary Jean Rock is the first seminar that I did 2530 years ago and it's the first chapter of all the books that are written that I ever wrote in the book was the most important issue in marriage and Karen when we got married we depended on each other too much and by that what I mean is we we expected each other to meet the deepest needs that only God could meet to talk about talk about what that was like well when you say the deepest needs would be the security the acceptance the identity you know those things that are core within us that God puts a hole there and only he can feel that's wrong it's a need that we have but we don't know that inside when we first got married you know we knew we were void of something but you you assumed that when you get married you're your best friends you love each other that though that you're gonna be able to you know connect in a way that's gonna you know make me feel better about those those issues like my identity you know my insecurities were horrible you know and I depended on you so much to make me feel good about myself and I know or yeah I've never met a person with lower self-esteem than you had we got well and I know it wore you out but you were always so patient I mean you were always so good about enforcing and reinforcing but it still didn't satisfy that thing and it didn't matter how many times you said it's wrong only God could change that in me only God and I'm here as a testimony that is the truth that you know your husband or your wife's I can't meet those needs no it's impossible because then we wouldn't need God and you know God's the one that put us all together and he's the one that formed just the way that we should be you know connecting with God first so he can finish those things in us and then we can give the best of ourselves to her spouse well we got to a very dark place in our marriage and we were fighting a lot and part of the reason we're fighting is because we were depending on each other and angry at each other because we couldn't meet those needs and you turn to God yeah it really the the act the number one thing that changed our marriage was when Karen stopped fighting with me and you turned to God exactly and you know again like we say all the time you know none of us are born perfect we all have to send nature and you know we all have issues in our lives that God is going to constantly be patient and kind to us so that we can keep changing and I think that you know as your couple as a couple as you're going through stuff be patient and kind with each other go it's amazing how much kindness will go the extra mile when you're dealing with you know issues whether your spouse is a mess or you're a mess you know and just give them a chance that you know give God a chance when you wake up in the morning this is what we do and we both pray and have our time with the Lord and you take your hurts and your fears and your deepest needs to him he'll satisfy you he told the woman the well if you knew who you were talking to you asked me for a drink you'd never be thirsty again and when you're depending on people she'd been through five husbands and now she's living with a guy and Jesus loved her you know and Jesus said to her lady your problem is not a man problem your problem is a god problem and if you just asked me to meet these inner needs I would and you would never thirst again and we're saying this to many of you watching right now you may have been hurt in marriage you may have been disillusioned you may be going through a frustrating time right now God loves you and he's with you and the number one most important issue in your marriage is your personal daily dependent relationship with Jesus Christ if you haven't done it before you invite him into your life he will come and he will meet your most important needs thank you for joining us today we want to say thank you to all of our partners that we only are able to come to you because of our partners who support this ministry thank you so much rock solid partners for the blessing that you are to us in helping us take this ministry across America and around the world but if also if you're not a partner would you please consider becoming a partner with us here at marriage today you get some special resources and blessings that nobody else gets we want you to become a partner help us to help marriages succeed little keep little children together with their parents here's how you can do [Music] we all enter into marriage confident a happy fulfilling life is in front of us over time life's journeys can quickly deflate those expectations and we're left feeling like we've fallen out of love but with the right information and a mutual commitment to success a better marriage is possible become a rock solid partner and gain instant access to practical marriage help in topics ranging from communication needs and intimacy as well as blended families intentional dating spiritual health and much more marriage today exists to help every person succeed in marriage with your help we can continue raising a standard for marriage and reverse the curse of family breakup in order to rebuild the nation's one home and time that's why we're tied into the ministry [Music] last gift so they keep do there's this millions of marriages that need help if this is the way we can help facilitate that that's a great way to spend somebody who loves you Karen or how to be a better couple and how to help like they do become a rock solid partner with the Ministry and mission of marriage today thank you for watching marriage today with Jimmy & Karen subscribe to marriage today's YouTube channel for more marriage building videos and updates

Channel: XO Marriage

Views: 82,666

Rating: 4.9224377 out of 5

Keywords: marriage, marriage counseling, marriage help, marriage advice, relationships, relationship help, counseling, Christian counseling, divorce, husband, wife, issues, fixing your marriage, love, marriagetoday, Jimmy Evans, wedding, wedding planning, motr1

Id: Ha7tYeCMCks

Length: 26min 49sec (1609 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 19 2018