Winning at Marriage

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#Winning

• God

• Marriage

• Parenting

• Work

• Money

3 keys to winning@marriage

• PRIORITY
  
  Marriage is not complicated, but it isn’t simple.
  
  Ephesians 5:1,2 (Message)  
  1-2 Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
  
  Ephesians 5:21 (Message)
  21 Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another. 
  
  Ephesians 5:22-33 (Message)
  22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands. 25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage. 29-33 No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.” This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
  
  Submitting to your husband looks like prioritizing his foundational need for honor and respect as unto the Lord. 
  
  Submitting to your wife looks like prioritizing her foundational need to be loved above our selves with the same kind of sacrificial love Christ gave each of us. 
  
  What stands in the way of this prioritization? Stubbornness. 
  
  

• UNITY
  
  Marriage is not complicated, but it isn’t simple.
  
  Genesis 2:18-24 NIV
  18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” 19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
  
  Suitable
  When God creates Eve, He creates not someone who will do, He creates the perfect fit.
  
  Helper
  A helper isn’t an inferior force nor a superior force but a perfect fit bringing to bear what would otherwise be missing to accomplish the objective. 
  
  Stubbornness works against Priority
  Selfishness works against Unity. 
  
  A compromise marriage falls short of a covenant marriage. It may keep the peace for a period of time but compromise is a marriage hack not a marriage foundation. 
  
  Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NIV
  “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. 11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? 12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Three strands – husband, wife, God working together in unity.
  
  Shooting from the hip and hitting a moving target only works in the movies, the rest of us have to aim.
  
  

• INTIMACY
  
  Marriage is not complicated, but it isn’t simple.
  
  Philippians 10:3a Amplified Classic Version 
  10 [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection…
  
  Intimacy is knowing and understanding. 
  
  “Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” - Mark Twain
  
  3 Enemies of Intimacy
  - Sin
  Sin’s antidote is Repentance. 
  Repentance and Forgiveness create intimacy!
  - Secrets 
  Secret’s antidote is Trust. 
  Trust creates intimacy!
  - Silence
  Silence’s antidote is Active Listening. 
  Active Listening create intimacy!

3 Keys to #WinningatMarriage are… 

• Priority. Priority is opposed by Stubbornness and is countered by Submission.
  

• Unity. Unity is opposed by Selfishness and is countered by having a Plan and Practice.
  

• Intimacy. Intimacy is opposed by Sin, Secrets & Silence their antidotes are Repentance, Trust and Active Listening.