The below texted version of this message is basically a word for word duplicate of Andy Standley’s series called I marriage. The message that was given at our church was my edited version of this text with additions, changes and deletions. I give Andy Stanley all the credit for this message series. My intention of posting it is to give God the glory, and so that it might be used to build up His Church.

Hi, for the next 3 weeks we are going to be talking about marriage. And if you’re like most couples, the wife, she’s really excited that we’re going to be talking about marriage, but the husband, he doesn’t really want to talk about marriage. Women often times want to talk about it and understand how it should work. Guys on the other hand don’t want to understand it, they just want it to work.

Women will drive a car until it breaks down and the mechanic will say to her, didn’t you hear a horrible metallic clicking sound and the woman will say yeah. Well, the mechanic says to her, if you had brought the car to me when that began it would have went a whole lot better, but now it’s really going to cost you.

Women want their car to work, they just don’t want to work on them. They just drive them until they break down. Men on the other hand, don’t like to work on relationships. We want our marriage to work, but we don‘t want to work on it . We’d sometimes rather drive it until it breaks down and then trade it in on a new one, instead of fix it.

So here’s the deal, we want our marriages to work and we don’t want them to break down, and we don’t want to trade them in, because that’s not God’s plan for our lives and it’s not good for anybody.

Marriage is much more important then your car’s maintenance and so this morning we’re going to start a three week series devoted to marriage. Read the rest of this entry »

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5-9-10 Lost

 Have you ever lost something that was valuable? Have you ever lost something that you treasured? Have you every lost something that you stopped everything that you were doing in order to search for what was lost

 I was working in Puerto Rico when I realized that I had lost my wedding ring. That ring was one of the most important possessions that I had because it had been with me every day, and every moment of my married life and to me it symbolized all the goodness and the blessing that God had given me through my wife, Shannon. I was just sick thinking about the loss. I went crazy looking for it. Have you ever lost something valuable?

 Have you ever lost your wallet or your purse, or maybe a lot of money? When Faith was young she lost her purse in a department store. We were all sick because she had all the money that she had in the world in that purse. We looked everywhere for it.

 Have you ever lost your car keys? Those are pretty valuable aren’t they? Especially if they are the only ones you have? You go through the house, the pockets in your coats, your pants pockets, check all the counters, the dressers and when you don’t find them there, you get a bit desparate, where in the world could they have gone. You tear the place apart looking for them because they’re lost and you need to find them.

 A salesman that Shannon works with lost his Day Planner. This Salesman had all his appointments, all his contact names in it, everyone’s birthday in it, it had everything on every client that he saw and he lost it. He was just sick. He backtracked the countryside looking for his planner. He tore apart his car, his office, everything that he owned until, three . . . days . . .later another office staff person found it where he had already looked three times.

 Have you ever lost a possession that was really valuable to you, something that was very important to you? How did you feel when that happened? For me it’s like everything else becomes less important. When I lose something valuable everything else stops, becomes less important, takes a back seat to finding that which is lost.

 One day Jesus said some really unusual words. He said, “the Son of Man, Jesus is talking about himself here. the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Luke 19:10 (NIV) 

  Read the rest of this entry »