Description
I DON’T: MARRIAGE
HD Marriage
Ed Young
October 27, 2002
[Video starts of Ed in an electronics store talking about HD televisions.]
I’ve often wondered, “What’s the difference between a regular TV and one of the new high definition televisions?” So, I’m in front of Tweeter audio, video, and car stereo store in beautiful Lewisville, Texas and we’re going to find out, because I hear they have some pretty incredible high definition screens. Let’s go.
[Inside the store, Ed speaks with a sales clerk] Hi, I’m Ed.
Sales Clerk: Hi.
Ed: And you are?
Sales Clerk: I’m Jefferson.
Ed: Jefferson, nice to meet you. I want to know about these cool high definition televisions and I want to talk to you about the difference of those compared to regular televisions. So, do you mind showing me around?
Jefferson: Not at all, right this way.
[Ed and the sales clerk walk over to a high definition television]
Ed: Wow, so that’s a high definition television?
Jefferson: Yes it is.
Ed: OK, what’s the difference between that one and, like, the regular television that I have. I mean what’s the major difference?
Jefferson: One of the advantages is that there are no more ghosts. Also, you no longer have noise, the little white flecks — snow, if you will. OK, now that’s just two of the side benefits. The other benefit is that you have a far superior picture — the detail is unlike anything you have ever seen before.
Ed: Yeah, it’s almost three-dimensional, Jefferson. The reason I ask is because, on like my television at home, the closer I get, the blurrier it kind of gets. You see the pixels and, as you said, the snow and stuff. But with this one, I mean, that’s crystal clear.
Jefferson: Yes. Yes it is.
Ed: So, even right up close it’s defined and it’s just vibrant. Right. And the cost of this one?
Jefferson: That one is $9,999.99
Ed: $9,999.99! Now, show me, Jefferson, a regular television. You know, that Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Ricky Ricardo, Gilligan Island kind of television.
[Ed and the sales clerk walk over to a “regular” television]
Ed: This is the meat and potatoes of it right here, isn’t it?
Jefferson: This is meat and potatoes of the standard television.
Ed: Man, you can really see the difference after looking at that [high definition television] and then seeing this [regular television]. Check it out, though. As I get closer here, you can really see all the snow and the pixels. It really helped me to compare this one to that one, because once you look at this for a while and then go over there, you can see it.
Jefferson: Absolutely.
Ed: Well, there you have it — high-definition television with my friend Jefferson. This guy knows his stuff. Tweeter.
Jefferson: Tweeter.
Ed: It’s called Tweeter Electronics or what?
Jefferson: Just Tweeter.
Ed: Tweeter?
Jefferson: Tweeter.
Ed: Tweeter. That was pretty eye opening to see the difference between conventional televisions and HD TV. You see, we’re speaking about HD TV. I like that phrase, “high definition.” Over the last week or so, we’ve been talking about a high definition marriage. Because when you really consider it, God has a high definition of this union between a man and a woman. Comparing God’s high definition of marriage to just a typical marriage is like comparing high definition television to conventional television.
As you get closer and closer to God’s definition of marriage, it becomes brighter, clearer and more vivid. On the other hand, as you look at marriage from the world’s perspective or the way that society thinks, it’s kind of blurry. You can see the pixels and the snow and everything. So, over the next couple of minutes I want to talk to you about God’s HD marriage — what it means to have a high definition connection between a husband and a wife, because God wants us to have high definition marriages and we can. I’m going to show you the traits of this high definition marriage, so check it out.
[Video ends]
As you look into a high definition marriage, as you get closer and closer to that screen, you are going to see several things that we need to bring out. First of all, you are going to see some high definition unconditional love — HD love. It’s kind of unique to look around our culture, because our culture builds its marriages on conditional love. We say, “If you do ABC, 123, then I’ll love you. If you jump through that hoop or this hoop, then I’ll love you.”
Well, the Bible comes along and the Bible says that we should have unconditional love toward our spouse — love on another level, a higher definition. The Bible mentions several levels of love. Let me illustrate them for you. The first level of love is the foundational love. You might have seen it or heard about it before — agape love. Agape love is covenant love. It’s a love I described last weekend when I went through the intricacies of the covenant. It’s the initiative taking love that Jesus had, and has, for you and for me. We don’t deserve what Jesus did for us. He has romanced us, he has dated us, and he has sought us out. There is nothing I can do that will cause Jesus to love me less. That is unconditional love.
A friend of mine is building a pretty amazing house. He’s about three months away from moving in. A while back I said, “Man, I want to take a tour of this house.” So, he took me on a tour. The design work, the rooms, the flow of the house, and the view are all something to behold.
Now, this house is being constructed in Irving, and I know that Irving has some pretty bad soil. So I asked him about the foundation. I asked, “How long did you work on the foundation?” His reply shocked me. He said, “I spent about six months just on the foundation.” Six months! After seeing the house and how large it is, I think he needed to spend six months on it.
This is the key, husbands and wives, to a great marriage. We’ve got to have the foundational covenant love. A lot of you weren’t here last weekend. I beg you to pick up the tape, because everything I’m going to talk about today was built upon last weekend. But let me give you the quick CliffsNotes about a covenant.
Throughout the Bible, God discusses convents. He is in covenant with us. For example, in the Old Testament, when a human being was in covenant with another human being they would do certain things. They would recite vows and they would make pledges to one another. One of the things they would do was to take an animal and split it in two. They would arrange the halves opposite of each other and then they would do something called the “Walk of Death.” By doing the walk of death they were saying to each other and to God, “If we break the covenant then do to us, God, what we have done to these animals.” They were also saying, “I die to myself and I am giving you my life. I am loving you unconditionally. I am taking the initiative. I am doing this, because it’s not about me anymore; it’s about you.” The other party would make the same covenant commitment. So, I say the covenant is a blood bond for life, it’s commitment on steroids. That is what we must build the foundations of our marriages on.
Well, there’s another level of love mentioned in the Bible. This level of covenant love is called phileo. Phileo is the connectivity; it’s the warm side of love. It’s the companionship of covenant love. We’ve got to have agape as the foundation, but we also have to have phileo love.
There’s another kind of love that’s real popular these days and the Bible mentions this one — Eros love. We get the word “erotic” from it. That’s the hot side of love, the passionate side of love, the sexual side of love. We’ve got agape, we’ve got phileo, and we’ve got Eros. We’ve got a problem with this structure.
[Ed has drawn out a structure to illustrate the “house” that marriage is. To this point, he has drawn the foundation, agape love, and the sides, phileo love and Eros love. The structure, though, is still missing the roof]
Now, this love has a solid foundation, but what happens if it started raining? If you added some lightning and rain, the people inside would get really wet; they would get messed up. You have to have a roof on this structure, because God wants us to have brick house marriages. Get it — “Brick House” marriages? [Ed is making a humorous reference to the hit song by The Commodores] I thought you did.
We’ve got to build a roof. There’s another term in the Bible that God uses when he talks about a covenant. It’s over in the Old Testament. It’s the word “hesed.” H-E-S-E-D. I like the word hesed, because if you look at it very closely, H is on one end and D is on the other — High Definition marriages. Anyway, hesed love is God’s tenuous love. That is the loyal love that God has for his children. God says throughout the Bible that our marriage should mirror his love for his people. That is a brick house marriage. That is a high definition marriage. That is the level of love that only God can give. Once we are under the authority of God’s covenant love, once we are under the authority of God’s high definition marriage, we will do things we normally wouldn’t do. We will say things we normally wouldn’t say. We will act out things we would normally not act out in the natural, physical realm.
That’s why the apostle Paul talked about marriage being a mystery in Ephesians 5:32. He said it’s mysterious. I believe the word “mysterious” refers to this covenant love, because the natural world, the secular world, the pedestrian people can’t really pick it up. Only the people who are in covenant relationships with the Lord Jesus Christ can have this power — this high definition love that the Lord desires.
Maybe you’re saying, “Well, Ed, the world says that love is accidental, a second hand emotion. It says that love is just uncontrollable.” Yeah, I know the world says that, but that ain’t love. That’s not real love. The Bible talks about real love, an authentic love. And here’s what it says: the Bible says that love is a decision. It’s a choice.
Colossians 3:14 says, “And over all these virtues put on love.” In the literal language it means “get dressed in love.” “Which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
Well, this morning I didn’t just fall in my closet and emerge dressed like Johnny Cash, in all black. [Ed is referring to the outfit he is wearing] That didn’t just happen. I made the decision, the choice, to get dressed. We’ve got to make the decision to put on what? We’ve got to make the decision to put on love.
I’ve done a lot of weddings in my life and last weekend I told some humorous stories about some weddings I’ve done. Every time I have officiated a wedding I’ve said this to the groom, “Do you choose to take this bride?” To the bride I’ve said, “Do you choose to take this husband?” Do you choose? Love is a choice.
Do I ask, “Well, do you feel like loving your wife like Christ loved the church? Do you feel that? Are all those emotions kind of welling up inside you?” No, I don’t ask that!
You see, God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows that marriage cannot be based on lust, because lust has lapses. He knows marriages can’t be based on feelings, because feelings get freaky. He knows marriage cannot be based on looks, because looks are fading. How many of you believe that looks are fading? Lift your hands. How many are a public testimony to that fact? We all are. Marriage cannot be based on circumstances, because circumstances change. That’s why God has said, over and over again, that marriage must be based on covenant love — agape, hesed love. It must. Love is a decision. It’s not accidental or uncontrollable. You don’t fall in and out of love; just like you don’t fall in and out of a closet and emerge dressed like Johnny Cash.
Also, love is about behavior. It’s about behavior. Jesus said this in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” In other words, you’re going to do the stuff. Christ basically said, “If you love me, you’re going to show me that you love me by the fruit you produce, by what you say, by what you do, and by the activities you engage in.”
Love also is a commitment. Wouldn’t you agree? It’s a commitment. That is what agape is all about.
Do you remember when I talked to Jonathan Cude, a Christian psychotherapist who attends Fellowship Church? He said, “Marriage must be built on the cold steel of commitment.” That’s agape. That’s what he was saying. It’s just agape love.
Many times, I have not felt these wonderful romantic feelings for Lisa during our twenty years of marriage. I’ll just be honest with you. I have not felt that 24/7. But, we have based our marriage, and we still base our marriage, on agape and hesed love. And, because we base it on that kind of love, these other types of love follow. So if you’re saying, “Wow, I just don’t feel this way,” or “I don’t feel that way,” whop-de-do-da! Join the club. That’s why God said to build it on covenant love. HD marriages are built on HD covenant love.
When people went into covenant with one another in the Old Testament, as I talked about earlier, they would make pledges. They would make pledges to one another and they would make pledges to people publicly. They would do it regularly. They would recommit to this commitment, and that’s what we need to do in our marriage. Covenant love is commitment on steroids. That’s why God said in Malachi 2:16, “I hate divorce.”
[Video begins of Ed standing in a cow pasture]
The first reason God hates divorce is what I’ve been talking about over the last several minutes. God hates divorce because he loves us so much. If we knew how much God really loved us we would blow a fuse. We wouldn’t believe it.
The second reason God hates divorce is the fact that sins are forgivable and marriages are repairable. Sadly, most people bail out of marriages right before the break through.
The third reason why God hates divorce is because he knows the futility of the “greener grass syndrome.” He knows once we jump the fence and try out some other grass that we’ll end up standing in marital manure. And it stinks up the whole place. Yuck!
(Video ends)
Janice Abram Springs writes, and I quote, “Most people wait for love to return before they’ll recommit to their marriage. I say it should be just the opposite. The couple has to recommit to the marriage before love will return. ” How many of you need to recommit to your marriage? How many of you look great on the outside; yet, if the truth were known, behind closed doors you’re empty and you feel like there is a chasm between you and your spouse? First, recommit to one another. Then, the feelings of love will flow. Begin to get under the influence of HD marriage and HD love. If you build your marriage on agape love, start committing to those things, and start doing those things like the hard cold steel of commitment, I’m telling you that the phileo and Eros stuff will flow. It’s easier to act our way into feelings than to feel our way into actions.
Remember — feelings get funky, they get freaky. We can’t base our marriage on that. We’ve got to base it on something higher, on something bolder, and on something bigger.
Maybe you’re saying, “Well, Ed, I‘ve gone through a marriage or two. What about me? I’ve blown this covenant. I’ve turned my back on it.”
I want to tell you something. Listen very, very carefully. God is a God of forgiveness. I’m going to talk about that in just a second. Studies show that 90 percent of single adults will get married. I would challenge you to start today to do it God’s way. I would challenge you, today, to say, “I’m going to build a high definition marriage.”
Here is what the Bible says about a house. I love this. Psalm 127:1 reads, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” That’s the problem with the world. We have a bunch of builders laboring in vain. They don’t understand what marriage is all about. They’re clueless about the covenant — clueless. So, you’re not going to find the answer through psychobabble. You’re not going to find the answer through the media. You’re not going to find the answer through movies, sitcoms, television shows or romance novels. That is a bunch of bunk! It’s just a bunch of paper houses. We’re talking about the real deal here. We’re talking about high definition love. So, when you glance at the screens, when you get up close to high definition marriages, you always see high definition, unconditional love. It’s not about you; it’s about your spouse.
You also see something else. You also see, and I gave it away a second ago, high definition forgiveness. When you have high definition, unconditional love it always segues into high definition forgiveness — high definition forgiveness. Forgiveness is the essence of the covenant.
What did Jesus do for us? He voluntarily died on a wooden Roman cross. He voluntarily spilled his blood on the cross for you and for me. Did he feel like it? Well, what did he do? Right before the whole thing, right before he was arrested, he knew what was going to happen. He said in Luke 22:43, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” He voluntarily submitted himself to his Father. He was committed to the new covenant and he did it because he had your sins and mine on his mind and on his heart. Jesus did the work on the cross. He has forgiven you and me for all of our sins past, present, and in the future. That is an amazing thing to think about.
So, all we have to do is think about the cross and we should run to forgive our spouse. All we have to do is think about the cross and we should, if we have violated our spouse, say those phrases that are so dynamic indeed: “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me? Will you forgive me?”
I like that word give — it’s right in the middle of forgiveness. Forgive. In the Book of Ephesians there’s a verse that is very, very potent. It is 4:32. It says, “Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” This verse is powerful.
My father recited that verse to Lisa and me when he married us 20 years ago. He said, “I want you guys to build your marriage, your home, on Ephesians 4:32.”
It’s the KFC verse. K-F-C. K – Kindness, F – Forgiveness, C – It’s all about Christ. KFC. Every time I conduct a marriage, I also recite Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another.” Why? Because, “God through Christ has forgiven you.”
Maybe you’re asking, “Well, you mean I should forgive my spouse? Why should I forgive my spouse, Ed?” The simple reason is because Jesus commanded it.
All you have to do is look at the cross, the vertical aspect of it and the horizontal aspect of it. If I have unforgiveness in my heart it will be like a blockade between myself and my spouse. It will also hinder my prayers before God. What if Jesus held grudges? Have you ever thought about that? What if Jesus held a grudge against me? What if tomorrow, when I have a time of confession, as I pray my prayers to the Lord, Jesus said to me, “Well Ed, last week you did so and so and I’m still mad at you for that. I’m just not going to forgive you, because that really hurt me and I just don’t feel like it.” Jesus doesn’t play those games. If we’re sincere, if we repent, if we confess — Bam! He forgives. We should do the same thing in our marriages.
Marriage should be a serving contest. Do you remember when we talked about marriage being like a tennis court? The husband has one side, the wife has the other side of the net and we should constantly serve one another. We should forgive one another. A lot of people here need to ask forgiveness. A lot of spouses need to go home and say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” You need to do that, because it will lift a burden of guilt off of your shoulders, it will reconnect the relationship, and it will bring you closer to the character of Christ. It will also move your marriage into a deeper level of intimacy; it will.
So, we’ll talk about some of these things over the next several weeks as we continue to talk about the power of covenant marriages. But remember something. There is high definition love, there is a higher definition, but there also has to be a higher definition of forgiveness. In Colossians 3:13 it says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
I’m mindful of a parable that Jesus told in Matthew Chapter 18. Let me tell it to you, quickly. There was a king who had a lot of money and he loaned ten million dollars, Jesus said, to a guy that worked for him. There was a set, appointed time when this guy was supposed to pay the king back the ten million dollars. Well, at the appointed time the guy did not have the money and the king was going to throw the guy to the tortures. But then the guy begged for mercy saying, “King, have mercy on me. Give me an extension. Please.” And the king said, “OK, I’ll give you an extension.” Well, the extension came and went and the guy still didn’t have the money. Do you know what the king did? Do you know what the King said? He said, “I’ll forgive you the debt. Don’t worry about it.” He just forgave the guy a ten million dollar debt!
Now, put yourself in the forgiven man’s sandals. If I was in his sandals, I would be like, “Wow, man, this is incredible! I’ve been forgiven a ten million dollar debt! I’ll forgive anybody. I mean I’ll forgive you and you and you because of what has happened to me.” Well Jesus said this forgiven man, after the king forgave him the ten million dollar debt, went out and found a guy that owed him $17. He started choking the man because he hadn’t paid him the $17 yet. Jesus then said the king heard about it and threw the forgiven man to the torturers. Then, Jesus concluded the parable with this verse in Matthew 18:35: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
We desperately need this power, don’t we? We desperately need to be under the influence of high definition forgiveness. If you’re not a Christ follower, why unconditionally love your spouse? Why? Why forgive your spouse? It doesn’t matter. Just leave that marriage behind and move on to another person. What does it matter? But we (Christ followers) have the answer, we have the key, we have the foundation, we have the house, and we have the highest definition, which is — our marriages should reflect Christ’s relationship to the church.
There’s another thing that we see as we get up close and personal to this high definition marriage. We also see high definition unselfishness. Wow, that hurts! That four letter word, self, S-E-L-F, is one that I have the most trouble with. If you think about it, selfishness causes most marital conflict. Let’s just be bold and honest here; it causes most of the marital conflicts. Self. It’s great to know that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but it’s better to know that men and women have been made in the image of God. We have chosen to rebel against God, and it is the sin of selfishness that is messing up our marriages.
People say, “Well, I’m not happy. I know God wants me to be happy, so I’m just going to bolt out of this marriage and find somebody who will make me happy.” You’ve got it all wrong. If that’s your mentality, then you’re an egomaniac. You’re a selfish man or a selfish woman. That’s not the deal. It’s not about you; it’s about the other person, because you are in covenant with the other person. There is no way we can contain “self.” We can’t do it on our own. We can conquer “self” only by the power of covenant love.
Do you remember what I talked to you about earlier? When a person would get into covenant with another person they would take an animal, split it, arrange the halves opposite of each other, and they would take the “walk of death.” What were they saying? They were saying, “I am dying to ‘self.’ I’m dying to ‘self.’ I’m in this thing for life. I don’t care what happens. If you’re broke, busted, and disgusted. Come hell or high water, I’m in it for life because this is before God and I’m committing myself to you — no matter what — warts and all. No matter what. Selfish and all, I’m giving my life to you before God.” It’s a blood bond for life; it’s a commitment on steroids. It’s about unselfishness.
Here’s what the Bible says about unselfishness. Ephesians 5:21 says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Submit. Marriage should be all about submission. I’ve got to submit myself, my needs, my agenda, and my deal to God and to my spouse. She has to do the same thing to God and to me. We have to submit. When we truly submit out of reverence for Christ, then it totally smacks feminism and male chauvinism right in the face, doesn’t it? It’s not about that, because the ground is level. When we talk about high definition marriages, the playing field is level at the foot of the cross.
Are you unselfish? Are you selfless in your marriage? Do you think about yourself less? Have you taken that walk of death? Have you died to yourself? Do you love your spouse unconditionally? Do you forgive your spouse regularly, biblically, and strategically? How about Jesus? Jesus, was he the ultimate expression of love or what? Was he the ultimate expression of forgiveness or what? Was he the ultimate expression of unselfishness or what? It’s amazing!
Author Larry Crabb says the goal of oneness can be almost frightening, when we realize that God does not intend that my wife and I find our personal needs met in marriage. God wants our relationship to validate the claims of Christianity to a watching world. He wants marriage to act as an example of Christ’s redeeming love, overcoming the divisive effects of sin.
The world is dying to see true, authentic, high definition marriages. The world is dying to see high definition love, high definition forgiveness and high definition unselfishness. Where are they going to see it? Where? They want to see it in your marriage and mine. They want to see it.
If we bow the knee to Christ, if we allow the covenant to influence us, then we’ll find ourselves doing things we normally wouldn’t do, saying things we normally wouldn’t say, and acting out things we normally wouldn’t act out. We do this because we are under the influence of covenant love.
This past Thursday I had some dental work done. I was in the chair for three or four hours — something like that. I have a great dentist. His name is Dr. Brad O’Neill. I don’t like the laughing gas stuff they put on you; that stuff just messes me up. So I said, “Brad, before this procedure do you have any pills that you can give me that I can take that would knock me out? He said, “Yeah.” So, he prescribed these pills to me and he said, “Ed, remember when you take these pills you cannot drive and you cannot operate heavy machinery for 24 hours, because you’re going to be kind of out of your mind.” I said, “OK, no problem.”
So, Thursday morning I got up real early, popped these pills, and I had someone drop me off. After the procedure, Lisa walked in to pick me up and she drove me home. When we got home I said, “Honey, I’m hungry.” So, I made myself a little bowl of cereal and ate it very gingerly. After I ate the cereal I said, “Lisa, I feel normal. I feel great. I’m going to go to the office.” She said, “No you’re not! Look at the warning label on the pills. You cannot drive, Ed. You cannot do that!” I said, “OK,” but I didn’t mean it.
I waited in the kitchen and I acted like I was going to stay at the house. She walked downstairs to do some work in the kids’ rooms, I grabbed the keys to my car, and I was gone. She did not know where I was. And I was flying! I was as high as a kite. I’ve never been drunk in my life; I’ve never done any drugs, but man I was out of it!
I drove to this coffee shop in the area that a man and a woman who go to Fellowship Church own. I don’t know why I drove there; I was out of my mind. But, I pulled up, I walked in, and later on the woman was telling me, “Ed, you were kind of swaying back and forth and saying some strange stuff.” She told me this woman came up to me from Fellowship Church and she was asking about a program at Fellowship and I went, “What are you talking about?” And the woman told me I ordered four Espressos. She said I just — bang! — drank them all and then I just sat on the couch there in the coffee shop for an hour. She told me I said a prayer with her, right in the middle of the coffee shop. I don’t remember any of that, but I do have little snap shots of a couple of things I did.
I remember going out to the parking lot and every single car in the parking lot looked like my car! I was going up to every car pushing the key pad. The whole time this is happening, Lisa was on the phone calling anyone that she could think of. I wasn’t answering my cell phone, and she didn’t know where I was. She didn’t know if I was in some kind of wreck or something. And then I drove to church. I can’t believe I made it here. I do remember looking back in the rear view mirror and seeing like thirty cars lined up behind me, because I was going so slow!
When I got to my office, my assistant, Leeann, said that I was moving like I was in slow motion. I said, “Leeann, please find me every single picture of me smiling. I’ve got to see my teeth!” And, as she began to find these pictures of me smiling, I started a meeting with Preston.
Then she said I began to type in my message. Well, the message was already done, but I began to type some more stuff. She was looking at me typing and I was repeating myself — HDM, standing for HD Marriage. I wrote that like 50 times. I was writing all these weird things. Then, I picked up the phone and called an attorney. I thought I was on the phone with the guy for like five minutes, but Preston later told me I was on the phone for an hour! I’m sure that attorney loved that! Cha-ching! Do you know what I’m saying?
I was totally, totally out of my mind. I was under the influence of this drug. Finally, the next morning when I woke up, all the effects were gone. But, I had to track down everybody I talked to and explain, “Hey, I was under the influence of this drug that I took for this dental procedure…” It was really, really funny — really, really funny. So, if you saw me on Thursday and I was acting crazy, that was the problem.
What was happening? Well, I was taking this drug and, because I was taking the drug, I was doing things I normally wouldn’t do, I was saying things I normally wouldn’t say, and I was acting things out that I normally wouldn’t act out. The same is true with covenant love right? The same is true with covenant forgiveness. The same is true with covenant unselfishness. The same is true with a high definition marriage. When we are empowered by this stuff, the God stuff, the spirit of the Lord, what’s going to happen? We’re going to do things in a marriage we normally wouldn’t do, we’re going to say thing we normally wouldn’t say. We’ll look at it and say, “I can’t believe I’m saying this. This is amazing!” And, we’re going act out things we normally wouldn’t act out in the natural, because we have the supernatural power, because we have this agape, unconditional, covenant stuff driving everything we say. And that, my friends, is the key to having high definition marriages.
So, let me ask you a question. As the Lord looks at your marriage what does he see? As a watching world gets up close and personal to your marriage, what do they see? Do they see it as a conventional marriage — all the pixels, all the lines, all the cloudy stuff the closer they get? Or do they see the vividness, the brightness, and the depth of a high definition marriage?