Maximum Marriage - Responding to the GAP

James 4:1-2

Conflict is an inevitable experience of life, East or Eden and West of Glory. Till we all get to Heaven, we are not going to all get along. The principles we are

looking at today are true for any relationship - siblings, neighbors, work associates, you name it.

God knew, for you to become the person He designed you to be - it would require pressure. All of your anger would have to be brought to the surface, all of your rough edges would need to be filed down, all of your hangups would need to be exposed and dealt with - therefore to make you look less like you and more like Jesus, God gave you your spouse. Your spouse is God’s answer to your worldliness, selfishness, short temper, and laziness.

As such, your marriage is the laboratory of your sanctification. Your spouse is perfectly designed to push all your buttons. If you can figure out how to live with them joyfully, just maybe you will be ready for Heaven.

Martin Luther said, “Marriage did for me what no monastery could”

I heard a man say this week that when he was dating his wife he had a car that had been in a wreck on the driver's side. So he always parked in such a way that she never saw the dent. They were married before she realized there was a huge dent in his car. The fact is, we all do that don’t we?

Have you been married long enough to discover a few dents?

Today - I want to help you in that process. I want to help you to understand conflict and to know how to respond to it biblically.

James 4:1–2 (ESV)

1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel….Conflict is born in the gap between expectation and

reality.

Look at verse 2 again - 2 You desire (expectation) and

do not have, (reality) so you murder. You covet

(expectation) and cannot obtain (reality), so you fight and

quarrel….

2 Healthy marriages learn to respond properly to the GAP between expectation and reality.

Solomon said it this way in Proverbs 13:12 (ESV)

12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick…

In other words, when we have a hopeful expectation of something and it doesn’t go the way we expected, it can really affect our emotions. One of the signs of spiritual and emotional maturity is that hope deferred is not as devastating as it once was.

THERE ARE ALWAYS GAPS IN MARRIAGE.

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Maximum Life is the Media Ministry of Pastor Zach Terry.

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