Marriage and the Mercy of God February 1, 2010

I was unprepared for how this past weekend was going to affect me.

Metro Life Church had a marriage retreat for our region of churches entitled Marriage and the Mercy of God. Dave Harvey spoke three times on how to apply the mercy and grace of God in our marriages.  I was intrigued to see that none of his primary texts were traditional “marriage passages.”  Rather, he used 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 6:27-36 and Titus 2:11-15 in each of the messages respectively.  (Take a moment to open your Bible and take a look at this passages and see if you’re as intrigued as I was.)

Over the next couple of weeks we will be sharing from what we learned this weekend.  How many times have I left a conference, seminar or retreat thinking, “This was life changing”?  I guess only time will tell if it will be the case, but I do believe this could be a life changing weekend for me…and many others after the conversations I’ve been having during the past 24 hours.

We will be providing links to the messages on our blog soon; until then you will be able to find them at www.metrolife.org sometime this week.  Whether you are married or single, please take the time to listen to Dave’s effective, insightful and self-disclosing look at passages I heard for the first time applied to marriage.  The thought that keeps coming back to me is this:  “Because of the cross, weakness becomes the place for patient ministry in marriage.”  We were skillfully reminded that:

• My husband’s sins against me don’t compare to my sins against a holy God.  If we remind ourselves regularly of God’s lavish love and forgiveness of our many sins against Him, we will be increasingly eager to demonstrate this love and forgiveness to our husbands.  (Dave made some kind and sensitive comments to those who have experienced serious suffering and abuse, and who are facing the painful consequences of the grievous sins of others.  Perhaps that is you…)
• Because as wives we didn’t get what our sins deserved, so we “shouldn’t hold our husbands hostage to their sin” by our bitterness, self-righteousness and selfish expectations.
• God has provided ample grace to give us the power to change!  This hope for ourselves is also the hope of which we need to remind our husbands in their battle with remaining sin.  All our (and their) attempts to change must be connected to the gospel: then as change comes we can thank God for the power to change rather than put the accent on our/our husband’s efforts.

Oh, there is so much more!  We’re excited to share with you how the Spirit of God worked in our hearts this weekend.  So join us as we learn more about Marriage and the Mercy of God.

A special word to those of you who are in marriages to unsaved or difficult men.  I was touched and inspired by several women who attended the retreat without their husbands.  And by others who came with little hope for change in longstanding issues in their marriages.   Please resist the understandable temptation to believe that more teaching on marriage is not going to help you.  Just today I talked to a friend who came to the retreat hopeless…and left with fresh faith that God is at work in her heart and marriage.  Give the truths of God’s word another opportunity to fill you, too, with hope God gives to the hopeless.  I sincerely believe if you listen to these messages, you won’t be disappointed.

Posted by Sheree