Love. Fight. Win.: Part 1 – Winners

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Love. Fight. Win.

“Winners”

November 5, 2017

Ed and Lisa Young

Success in anything requires more than just desire. It takes a willingness to work.

It’s true in the business world, the sports world, and even the relational world. But when we are willing to do the work, we will experience some amazing results. In this message, Pastor Ed and Lisa Young unpack the reality of God’s design for relationships and marriage. They help us discover the keys to success, what we need to work on, and how we can all become relational winners!

 

Transcript

 

[Ed] Here we are. Lisa just had knee surgery Wednesday, and look at her.

 

[Lisa] Thank you, thank you.

 

[Ed] Playing with pain.

 

[Lisa] That’s right. Oh, yeah.

 

[Ed] It’s really good. It’s not bad. How was the surgery? How was it?

[Lisa] Well, other than the videos that LeeBeth took of me while I was under the influence of drugs. Yeah. Don’t say you didn’t do it. No, you took a couple photos too.

 

[Ed] I did.

[Lisa] Yeah and they ended up on our little family text but that was good. No, it feels a lot better.

[Ed] Yeah, well, we’re here to talk about love and we’re here to talk about fighting and we’re also here to talk about winning. I do want to welcome all of our different environments here at Fellowship Church—one church and many, many different locations. I know today we’re doing a marriage seminar. After every one of our services, whether you attend on Saturday, whether you were there on Sunday, we have a marriage seminar for you. It’s really on not just marriage, but relationships and it’ll be led by Dr. Jonathan Cude. So we’re going to kind of open up talking about this thing called love and see where it goes, Lisa.

[Lisa] That’s right and I’m just going to take a seat. The reason that it’s important for us to look carefully at relationships is because marriages start with that love relationship. It starts with us meeting someone, getting to know someone, and then deciding that, wow, this could be the one. And so as we unpack this, we want to look carefully at what that love, fight, win looks like.

[Ed] Yeah, because we have a lot of people here, and most of us will get married one day as you’ve heard me say and stats would prove that. But so many of us are in search of this whole thing called love. And sadly in our culture I don’t think we really have any handles, great handles, we have some handles but we don’t have great handles on what love is about. The church is the only entity, the only institution that talks about real love. I mean, the church is it. You’re not going to find it reading some self-help book. You’ll find some hints or whatever, but not the real deal. You’re not going to find it in the corporate world. You know, Hollywood’s not going to, definitely not tell us about it, the real deal about it. You’re not going to find it on a soccer field or whatever. It’s going to take place when we acquiesce to the Lord, when we understand that God is the source of our love, and He has a course for our love to travel. And the church simply just highlights and underscores those transcendent values that God has given us. So really this whole thing about romance, and that’s where we’re kind of going, is founded on God.

[Lisa] That’s right and when you have the context of God in the equation, you have the perfect set up to understand what love is all about. I don’t know if you watched the World Series this past week.

[Ed] Anybody watch the World Series? Anybody watch the World Series? I have to admit, Now, Lisa, let me brag. Can I brag? I want to brag real quick.

[Lisa] Yeah, in just a second. I want to get, I will give context to your bragging so that you’ll know even more how special it is about what you’re about to say but Ed and I are those people that watch baseball when it gets to the World Series. So for all of those of you who, and all of our locations, who are baseball fans, fanatics, and you’ve watched from April on, I’m happy for you. But Ed and I, we start watching baseball at the very end. October is the month for us. So, go ahead.

[Ed] Yeah, so obviously the Astros won. And everyone, of course, is excited about that especially those of us who are in Texas. Years ago, I was the chaplain, in fact for two years, for the Houston Astros. And what’s so funny about that is, #humbled; what’s so funny about that is that I don’t know that much about baseball, but I would do all of these messages and Bible studies for all these super stars and I didn’t even know or really, I didn’t really care about who I was teaching. And my friends were like, “Man, do you know who that is? Wow, you talk to so and so.” I’m like, you know, now if it had been another sport, I’d have gotten excited so anyway

[Lisa] But don’t you think, I’m not sure who the chaplain for the Houston Astros is now

No. But I’m thinking that a lot of the foundation for this World Series was set back in 1986.

 

[Ed] Oh yeah. Exactly. I’m just thinking You look back, I’m tell you in the 80’s

[Lisa]That was the year!

 

[Ed] The spiritual foundation and maturity just launched the Astros to where they are today. Thank you, Lisa. Yes. I’m sure.

That is so amazing. But the Astros, they won, and they acted and they’re acting like winners.

 

[Lisa] Oh my goodness, they took the shot of the locker room and all the people jumping up and down. And if you watch the last play which was the out that made them the World Series champions, you can just see the first baseman as he’s about to catch the ball and he’s having to so focus on catching the ball because that out is it! And at that moment, they’re becoming winners and they have won the World Series and just the jumping, the dancing, the hoopla, all of that, the parades

[Ed] The champagne in the locker room, the charter flight back to Houston, the parades and all of that. Obviously, they’re acting like winners. And when Lisa and I were talking about the World Series a little bit and then preparing for this talk, it was like we were going, “Isn’t it crazy that those of us who know the Lord don’t act like winners?” We don’t act like winners in life. Many times, we don’t act like winners in our marriage.

[Lisa] We behave like defeatists, as if we’re defeated, and we’re not. As followers of Christ, those of us who have a love relationship with God, we’ve already experienced victory. We’re winners.

 

[Ed] But Yeah, I mean, again Lisa, can you imagine the Astros acting like losers? Yes, as if they were defeated. Wouldn’t that be crazy? Here they’re winners but they’re acting like losers. So in Christianity, we win yet so often we are so defensive and we’re just acting like losers all the time.

 

[Lisa] And in our relationships especially whether it’s a friendship, a dating relationship, or in marriage. We see a lot of marriages that look more like loser marriages than winner marriages, and that often is by choice. It’s a behavior that’s made by choice.

 

[Ed] Yes, it is and that’s why too in the whole dating process, you need to really have the discernment and the wisdom, obviously, to date the right person. And you have to be able to see if they have that attitude, if they really understand the concept that we’ve talked about regularly here that, as Christ followers, we’re not trying to secure a win. We are winners, thus we should live and act and especially as this play out on the marital field.

 

[Lisa] Yes. So the first thing   we want to just give you three different things that you can take home if you will, that you can apply to your relationships, to your friendships, dating relationships, and your marriages is how to be a winner. And the first thing is to love like a winner.

[Ed] Well, there are different types of love mentioned in scripture. And you’ve probably heard this, there’s been a campaign out there, it’s kind of an old school thing, “love wins.” And it sounds so sexy, so cool, but you have to say what is love and define love. What does it mean to win? What does that look like? Well, the Bible breaks it down because again, God is the source of love and He’s given us the course of love which is marriage. And marriage is the main entity where spiritual maturity is played out. It’s in marriage. Marriage also is the only human relationship that’s illustrative of God’s relationship with His people. So this thing is massive.

 

So love in the Bible, you can really talk about three different types of love the first kind of love would be this covenant love. It would be known as Agape love, unconditional love. And if you’re taking notes, you might want to write “cool.” Just write cool beside that.

[Lisa] By Agape. By Agape, it’s cool. And you spell Agape, a g a p e.

[Ed] Yeah, Agape, Agape, Agape.

 

[Lisa] I’m a school teacher by trade.

 

[Ed] And that’s the covenant, that’s the unconditional love, obviously that God has for you and me reflected, it should be reflected in a gospel-centered marriage. And then from there you have Eros. You get the word erotic from that. And we hear a lot about Eros, erotic, that’s the passion, that’s the heat, that’s the testosterone and the estrogen. And you have to have that in a healthy relationship.

 

So you’ve got Agape, you’ve got Eros. You’ve got Phileo. Phileo, like Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Phileo is going to be more, kind of the friendship factor. I would say that’s warm. By Phileo write warm, and then obviously by Eros you can write hot. So those are the different temperatures that should be in a marriage.

 

Now they should be in a dating relationship as well. But let me say this, and I don’t want to rain on anybody’s sexual parade but let me just say, the Bible says from cover to cover that sex is reserved for the marriage bed. It’s like a fire. Fire works really well when fires in the fireplace but if you just start lighting fires everywhere, yeah, yeah, it’ll burn the house down. And we’ve seen, have we not, especially with what’s breaking loose in Hollywood it’s so sad, you see what the fire can do. You can see where Eros can take you outside the context of marriage, outside that fireplace.

[Lisa] That’s right. So we start out with that love and it says in 1 John 4:8 that God is love. He’s the source of our love and He sets the course for our love, whether it is Agape love, the love that He has for His people or whether it’s Phileo love, that brotherly love or sisterly love and friendship, or whether it’s the Eros love which is that hot, romantic, fiery love between a man and a woman in the context of marriage.

[Ed] But really, marriage though, Lisa, would be more about the warm love and the cool love. It’s not going to be based on the hot, Eros, love. It’s not. You have seasons. Eros ebbs and flows. You have to have Eros. You have to have that spark, but that’s not going to last. I mean, it can last in a marriage, if Eros is the deal, I think a marriage will last maybe 24 months but after that, you know, you’re in trouble.

[Lisa] So if we love like a winner, we’re going to look to God for the definition of love, and then we’re going to learn from the lessons that God gives us in His love. And one of those lessons is unconditional love. When we realize the unconditional love of God that He has for us, then we’re able to look at our spouse or that person that we’re dating with an unconditional love. It’s that love that comes down from God and then goes out from us. And so our relationship with our spouse is not based on “Oh, well, if they show me 50% love, I’ll love them back 50% and then we have 100% together.” No, they don’t have to offer anything. We give 100% unconditional love. That’s part of the math of marriage.

 

Another lesson that we learn is the forgiving love, that Jesus forgave us and in light of what God has done for us, it’s the Ephesians 4:32 principle, quote it. We should know this backwards and forwards, Ephesians 4:32, “ Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

 

Yes, Ephesians 4:32. That verse was given to Ed and me at our wedding, and it’s one that we have lived by because in light of the love that God has given us, that forgiving love, we can in turn forgive our spouse.

[Ed] But you know what’s so funny about that verse? “Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you?” You know we put that on coffee mugs or maybe you have this, someone is really good with calligraphy and they do a little thing for you and it’s like, “Oh that’s so sweet, that’s so nice.” The deal is, that is a verse of conflict. That’s a verse of the fight. In Ephesians 5 when it says, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church,” where it talks about the responsibility of the wife to the husband, the husband to the wife, those are words of conflict, words of battle. Yes, they’re sweet. Yes, they’re full of emotion. But I think so many times we think it’s just defensive and we think it’s just sweet and syrupy. But in reality, Lisa, you have to fight. You have to fight to win! You have to fight for all of that. Yes.

[Lisa] That’s right. The third lesson that we learn from God’s love is the leading love. God loves you and I enough to take us somewhere in our relationship. He accepts us where we are, but He loves us enough to want us to go further in our walk with Him. When we have that type of love operating in our marriage, we’re going to want our marriage to be better today than it was yesterday. And it’ll be better tomorrow than it was today. It’s that love that leads us into the future to be better and better together.

[Ed] Yes and as you think about marriage, marriage simply is a reflection of the gospel, the gospel of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. In a marriage, there should be a death, burial, and resurrection. Think about that. We should die and bury self, pride, envy, greed, et cetera. We have this resurrection of a new life and this oneness that Genesis 2:24 talks about and other places the Bible mentions it, one, this becoming one. That is very, very, very difficult. So many times you’ll go to a wedding, for example, and people don’t realize just the symbolism of a wedding. Yeah. The wedding is full of symbolism like you have the aisle in most churches or chapels where people get married, they walk the aisle. That’s a symbol of the death march. The death walk of a covenant.

 

[Lisa] Bet you didn’t think about that when you were getting married.

So, again, death, burial and resurrection. You got the wedding dress. That symbolizes the purity and the holiness of God. Jesus died, rose again, His resurrection was because of His holiness, His righteousness. You think about the exchanging of rings, that’s the resources. I’ve talked to too many couples who say, yeah, yeah, yeah, well I have my money and she has her money. Now, quite frankly, that’s stupid because, it really is, because there’s oneness there. There’s oneness sexually. I mean, you’re not doing sex that way. There’s oneness emotionally. You’re not doing emotion that way. So there’s got to be oneness financially as well but the exchanging of rings is about the whole resource thing. And then the unity candle, two becoming one, and that becoming part is difficult, is it not? The pronouncement. “Having pledged your faith and your love to each other, having sealed your solemn and significant vows by the giving and receiving these rings, acting by the authority vested in me by the State of Texas, and looking to heaven for divine sanction, I know pronounce you husband and wife, in the presence of God and these assembled witnesses. What God has joined together let no man separate. I present to you for the very first time, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Barry Young.” What are we doing?

 

[Lisa] That was so sincere.

 

[Ed] You’ve got a new name that you’re taking so marriage is a major step. And, Lisa, what’s so funny is; well, it’s not funny, it’s sad. We were talking as we were preparing for this talk that marriage is kind of on the outs. I mean marriage used to be hot now it’s not and you were throwing some statistics…

[Lisa] In the past 50 years, living together, the percentage has increased 900%, in the past 50 years. Is that unbelievable? So that’s why I’m so excited for a church like Fellowship that talks so openly and honestly. I actually have some opinions. I know that’s hard to believe, but I have some opinions about the trend for living together. One, that trend I think is due to the number of divorces. A lot of children are being raised in split homes. And we know that divorce happens; it’s not the unpardonable sin, it’s just something we deal with in society and there are biblical grounds for divorce. But yet, there are biblical grounds for divorce and then there’s divorce that’s convenient. And often, couples throw in the towel versus staying in the game of marriage because it just seems easier.

[Ed] And let me throw this in. I would say in most Christian marriages, most of them, generally speaking – my attorney’s here, generally speaking, see I can’t get too specific, that’s funny, isn’t it? Generally speaking, divorce is the wrong call. There are some exceptions, obviously, and the Bible talks about this. I’m not talking about the exceptions. We’re not talking about that now, but generally speaking, when it comes to Christian marriages throwing in the towel, most should not. Because however high that price tag is, no matter what, it’s always higher when you divorce.

[Lisa] Absolutely and so you have children that are growing up seeing a relationship modeled that has failed and they don’t want to be failures, they want to be winners. We all want to be winners. We want to be the Astros. We want to be that team that takes home the pennant and so they say “You know what? It’s just not worth it.”

 

Another opinion that I have is that people, like you just said, they’re not willing to work. And it’s a laziness factor. And so why should we go to the trouble of being married when we can just live together, play house, take care of each other as long as it’s convenient. And then if it’s inconvenient, we can step away.

 

God has so much more for us. It’s so much more than that, but we have to look at what the love of God, the context of the love of God in our relationship.

 

And that brings us to seeing marriage the way God sees marriage which is for our perfection. It’s a covenant. It is something that refines us. I am a better individual because of Ed. Ed is a better individual because of me.

 

[Ed] That’s the truth!

 

And both of us are self-centered sinners. And yet we’re still better because of each other. Why? Because our sins are covered by Christ. Our relationship has been solidified by Christ. And as we grow closer to God through Christ, we grow closer to each other. I’m just going to tell you, for those of you dating, you’re single, you’re looking for a relationship or maybe you’re in a relationship. You have to find that person who has said yes to Jesus, that they are being refined individually by Christ so that when you come together, together you’re going to be refined so that that person will make you a better person. Ed and I’ve been married for 35 years.

 

[Ed] 35, I started thinking. Lisa, you know what? I don’t, people have said before we’re experts. I don’t think we’re experts although we’ve written a lot of books about marriage, we’ve been married 35 years. Now we’re grandparents. I think we know a good bit. We’ve lived for the Lord but I wouldn’t say experts. I would say we’re still learning.

[Lisa] We better be. I mean, you know what I’m saying?  I mean none of us has arrived.

 

[Ed] But we do want to pass on the knowledge that we have gained in our lives which –

 

[Lisa] All I was going to say is 35 years in, we’re so much better off than we were in year one.

[Ed] Oh, yes!

 

[Lisa] In year one, we thought we had arrived. In year 35, we know we haven’t arrived. And we’re still Improving and moving toward that prize, the goal. But I’m here to tell you in 35 years, the sweetness of marriage, even through some bumpy, rocky, what do you call ’em, those, what are

[Ed] Potholes.

 

[Lisa] Yeah, potholes. I was like pit stops? No, that’s not what it is. Potholes! That’s the word.

 

[Ed] But she still has the anesthesia excuse. I had that for like a month and I didn’t know they were going to put her all the way out. They put her all the way out! It wasn’t like that twilight stuff.

 

[Lisa] He’s like, “You really have to put her all the way out? “She’s supposed to speak this weekend.” He tried to talk the doctor out of it but…

 

[Ed] Lisa, so you would say, what does that look like in dating then? So you said you’ve got to find, I like that what you said…

 

[Lisa] Well, you’ve got, your major connection with the person of the opposite sex needs to be their relationship with Christ. Then get all the chemistry going and that but set chemistry aside unless there is the relationship with Christ. Because one thing that 35 years will tell you is that things change physically. We get older and yeah, I’m just going to leave it there. It just changes! The wrinkles come. The gray hair comes.

[Ed] But I’ve added some!

 

[Lisa] The bad knee, yeah. The bad knees. Whatever. I mean, you get older so if everything in your relationship is based on Eros, that physical, you’re going to be disappointed.

 

[Ed] But Lisa, I would say this though. I might correct you on, I’ll give you my opinion. No, no, I’m saying. As a guy, you’re not, let’s say you’re a single guy, you’re not going to look at a girl and go, “Oh wow, where is she spiritually?” That’s not going to be the first thing, that you think.

 

[Lisa] That’s because guys are known to have things out of order. Guys are known to have things out of order. They should be saying that.

 

[Ed] No, no, I’m saying. A Christian guy is going to go, “Whoa, woot, woot,” you know, wow, okay? And I get it! Then after you see and are attracted to her, then you can tell that they’re…

 

[Lisa] But you’ve got to be smart enough to go, “Whoa.” Not whoa like “whoa that’s a hot girl,” but “whoa that’s a hot girl who doesn’t have her life together. Whoa, that’s a hot guy who doesn’t have his life together.”

 

[Ed[ That’s right. And you got to step back. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Yeah, you’re right, you’re right.

 

[Lisa] Because if you don’t say whoa, you’re going to get whopped in the head with pain. You’re going to get hurt! You’re going to get hurt. You’re not going to go where you need to go relationally. I get it. You have to be attracted first.

 

I know, I know. I mean, when, I mean when I first saw you, the first thing I thought was not “Where is she spiritually?” I mean, I knew.

 

[Lisa] But we met in church.

 

[Ed] I know, see, again we met in Sunday School. I knew, though, it was in the right context because it was in church. And too, some singles, Lisa, when they whatever you call it, date, talk, text, whatever, some are like “I’m not sure if this person is a believer. I’m not sure if they’re really genuine.” I’m here to tell you the Holy Spirit of God will reveal to you rapidly where they are. If you have to guess or wonder or like I’m not sure, then that person is not for you because life is too short to be connected with the wrong person.

[Lisa] That’s right.

[Ed] It is. That’s why we’re doing this seminar. And we’re doing this seminar too, because once you’re in marriage, then that is the true context of where all of these different types of love can reach their ultimate.

[Lisa] That’s right. So those are some lessons from love. So we want to love like a winner. We want to live like a winner. Philippians 3: 14-16 says, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”

 

Live like a winner. That’s what we were mentioning earlier. Don’t expect too little from your relationships. Expect victory in your relationships. Don’t just have the status quo. Have people looking at the way you live your life with your spouse, in your marriage, and going “Wow, I want to have what they have!”

 

The greatest compliment that Ed and I have ever received is when we were, I guess it was around our 30 year mark of marriage and we were working out and we stopped and walked into a shop and the girl was, said, “Hey, how are y’all doing?” We got to talking to her and she said, “So what are y’all up to?” And we said, “Well, we’re here for our anniversary.” “Oh, really? “So how long have you been married?” “30 years.” “Really? “And you like each other?” I mean, that was the response. And I think it’s because of expectations, people’s expectations are so low and the greatest compliment any of us can ever have is that people look at our relationship and think, wow, that’s what I want. I want a marriage like that. Again, there have been potholes and road blocks and all types of…

[Ed] And conflict!

[Lisa] Conflicts which next time we’re going to talk about fighting like a winner.

[Ed] And we’re going to talk about something that we’ve never talked about in relationships and, again, we’ve lectured about this in a lot of different places and written about it. But we’re going to talk about the top three conflicts, specifically, that Lisa and I have had during our 35 years of marriage and amazingly…

[Lisa] So it’s going to be very vulnerable.

 

[Ed] …they tend to be recurring. That’s next week.

[Lisa] That’s right. So we love like a winner, we live like a winner, and we work like a winner.

 

The first time I ever won anything, I was 10 years old. My family went to a garden center and they had a little contest and you could write your name and drop it in a little bucket and they were going to draw a name to see who would win something very exciting—a potted plant. A chevalieria, I think is what it was called. Well, I won. My name was drawn and I was so excited. I thought, “I won! I won!” I mean, you know it was just a potted plant and it didn’t live very long but I did win it. It was sweet, but there’s nothing like winning something that you’ve worked hard for.

 

The Astros? They worked hard. Various teams, they work hard. They’ve put in time and energy and it means so much more when you win because you worked really hard. God has already said you are victorious in your relationship. He set us for winning. Just look back in the Garden of Eden.

[Ed] Yeah, they were set up for winning!

[Lisa] He set us up to win. He set us up to win. He’s given us the church to come alongside of us in our relationship. He’s given us our small groups that we can do life with. He’s given us every opportunity to win. But we’ve got to do our part, too. We’ve got to jump in and work. We’ve got to be willing to go after that date night. We’ve got to put the marriage at a top priority above the children.

[Ed] And we have to have conflict.

[Lisa] Let me say that again, above the children. We’ve got to work through conflict. I just had this knee surgery. Do you know there’s never a convenient time to have surgery, ever? Never. But you can either live in pain or you can say, “You know what? I’ve got to set aside time and deal with this.” Too often in our relationships we just live in pain and say “Oh well, one day. Maybe one day. Oh, I’ll just put it off.” No, now is the time. Do the work. Deal with it, because God wants your relationships, your marriage, our marriage to be victorious. He set us up to win.

[Ed] And Lisa, one of the things that we’ve learned over the years, obviously, most marital conflict is recurring conflict. But one of the things we’ve learned is to fight – and we don’t always follow the rules we should but most of the time we do. When we don’t, things can get…

[Lisa] There are rules in marital warfare.

[Ed] And you don’t want to break the rules.

[Lisa] That’s right.

[Ed] You know, if the Astros, to continue to wear out this metaphor, hadn’t played by the rules, they would not have won the World Series so we have to play

[Lisa] What if you had the red flag in football that you could throw down after a play?

[Ed] The challenge? The challenge. The challenge!

[Lisa] In marriage, next week we might have challenges. Okay. Yep, might just do it and then we can review the play and see if the call was right.

[Ed] What’s so scary about marriage, you know one of my friends has lived with this girl for six years. And recently we’ve been spending some time together and I’ve been coaching him and telling him just about what Scripture says regarding marriage. And he’s a great guy and I’ve met his girlfriend. She’s a really sweet girl, but as you said earlier, Lisa, you can just see the fear because right now, he has the best of both worlds he thinks, free sex with no real strings attached. And if you think about it, that fire is for the fireplace. He’s afraid of the heat. He’s afraid to really be in this thing like “I’m in this thing for life.” And probably he’s afraid of work. He’s afraid of what true love is all about. And he might even be afraid of winning. Have you ever thought about that before?

 

[Lisa] I think most of the time it’s because they just don’t know how great God’s plan is.

 

[Ed] Yes. And we need the information about what marriage is because then God of course through the Holy Spirit gives us the application about what marriage can be and how to do this thing right.

 

[Lisa] Yeah. That’s true. I’m looking forward to next week. Penalty flags.

 

[Ed] So to wrap this up I’m not letting that go. To wrap this up, marriage though is a covenant within the covenant. We’re people of the covenant as we talked about in Candyland, God established that covenant. Go back to the Book of Genesis. So within the covenant generally, specifically, we’re in covenant with our spouse. So you have the gospel—the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. So when a Christian marriage doesn’t work, someone, Lisa, has really forgot to obey the gospel. So what we’re talking about here, the guts of this talk, is the gospel.

 

That’s what love is all about. Jesus won our salvation, correct? He’s a victor. And because he’s a victor we are victors as well. We’re winners as well. So let’s talk like it. Let’s act like it. Let’s get involved in our devotions this week that are online on our app which will underscore and highlight these values. Let’s go to these seminars that Dr. Cude’s going to do for us and I’m telling you, I don’t care if you’ve been married 3 1/2 years or 35 years, great things will occur in all of our lives.

[Lisa] That’s good.

[Ed] Let’s pray together.