Biblical Marriage Part 3

pastor-jeff-smithJeff Smith

The very truths that I will preach about apply in many ways to those who are not married also. Let’s pray.

Lord, our God, we pray asking for the presence of Your Holy Spirit. That He would take Your truth and the principles of Your truth and apply them to every single heart, every life from the youngest to the oldest, whether married or not. We cry to You, that You would do this for Your glory, for the exaltation of Jesus Christ, and for the good of own souls and marriages. We ask these mercies in Jesus’ name. Amen.

In previous messages I started with some presuppositions that we must have. I would like to remind you of two.

PRESUPPOSTIONS:

1. The Bible is the Word of God.

From start to finish, from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is the Word of God.

2. Obedience to the Word of God is absolutely essential if you are to be a godly Christian husband or wife.

No obedience—then you’re not going to have a godly life, and you will not have a godly marriage.

DEFINITIONS ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE

If I talk about the word ‘sin,’ as an example, and you are thinking one thing and I am thinking something different, then we’re not going to come necessarily to the same conclusions. We have to look to the Bible for our definitions, not modern psychology, not American psychology, not American culture. In addition to embracing these presuppositions in our study of the Bible’s teaching regarding marriage, we must insure that we understand the Bible’s definition of some crucial terms that we will use in our study.

Definition #1: SIN

1) How does the Bible define sin?

1 John 3:4, “Sin is lawlessness.”

Sin is defined with reference to law; specifically God’s moral Law.

God’s moral law is clearly summarized in the Ten Commandments; and the Ten Commandments are further summarized in the command of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” Notice that God commands you to love. The idea that love is just an emotion that cannot be controlled is false. Love is a lot more than emotion. True love does involve the affections, the heart, the emotions, but God commands us to love God Himself, and the second is that you are to love your neighbor as yourself. This is a moral issue. If you do not love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you are sinning. If you do not love your neighbor as yourself, you are sinning. If you do not love your wife, you are sinning. It’s a moral issue. We need to see that from the Bible.

How does the Bible define sin? Sin is lawlessness. We need to remember that as we consider how to be godly in our marriages.

2) According to the Bible, what is the immediate source of your sin?

Matthew 15:18–20, “But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out of the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts: murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

Jesus is dealing with the reality of the heart and sin. What is He saying here? What is the immediate source of your sin? It is your heart. That’s what He says in verses 18 and 19. Of the heart these sinful realities come forth. According to the Bible, the heart is the seat not only of your thinking, but it’s the seat of your will and your emotions. It’s what makes you, you.

The Lord specifies violations of the moral law of God. He points out violations of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th commandments.

Lesson:

You are responsible for your sins: what you do, what you do not do; what you say, what you do not say. When you sin, your sins come out of your heart. Now, that’s a big problem in America. People don’t want to be responsible for their actions. They don’t want to be responsible, especially for their bad actions. But Jesus says you need to understand that when you sin it’s coming forth out of your heart. You do what you do because you chose to do it. You don’t do certain things because you chose to not do certain things.

Every husband and wife must come to grips with this basic, foundational, biblical reality. Your marital sins, whatever they may be, issue forth from your heart! Don’t blame your kids. Don’t blame society. Don’t blame your boss at work.

For example, you come home from work. You had a rotten day at work, and now you’re upset with your wife because something is not quite right in the home. You get upset and sin with your tongue. Then you want to think, “Well, it’s because I had such a rotten day.” No. No. No. You sinned because of your heart! Don’t blame other circumstances, other people. Don’t say, “I wouldn’t be this way if my wife acted differently. She is a little touchy, a little hypersensitive. If she hadn’t been that way, I wouldn’t have responded the way I responded!”

That is absolutely wrong to speak that way. It’s wrong to think that way. You sinned because you sinned from your heart. It came forth out of your heart! Your wife may have also sinned. I’m not denying that, but don’t justify your sinful behavior because your wife sinned. Don’t justify your sinful behavior, wife, because your husband sinned. See the root of your sin: it is your heart. If you’re a Christian, it’s not reigning sin, it’s remaining sin, but it is your sin.

We need to understand that that’s what the Bible teaches. You will not have a happy, joyous marriage, you will not make progress in grace, if you are not owning responsibility for your real sin coming forth out of your heart in your marriage.

Definition #2: CONFESSION OF SIN

1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

This is another reality that needs to be understood from the Bible if we are to have good, healthy, happy marriages, as Christians.

What does the Apostle John mean when he tells us that we are to confess our sins? Biblically speaking, to confess your sins means to speak the same words as God with reference to your sins. It means you will have the same judgment as God concerning your sins. It means you will own your sins, your guilt, your responsibility to God, in a sincere, transparent, and comprehensive confession to God; and as we will see, when necessary, to other human beings, like your spouse.

Genuine confession of sin is not an expression of an opinion that is actually contrary to truth and reality. If you’re just giving your opinion about something, that’s not confession of sin.

Genuine confession of sin does not include blame-shifting, rationalization, minimizing of your sin, self-justification. Confession of sin is not going to the Roman-Catholic priest and saying certain things. You have to get all of those wrong ideas out of your mind. It is agreeing with God 100%.

You see, that’s a big problem in America also, and no doubt our world. In America, it’s very clear that people think you can take a man and a woman, live together, not married, fornicate, and that’s okay. No. That is not okay! If you’re guilty of that sin of fornication, you must call it what God calls it. He calls it ‘sin, uncleanness, immorality, ungodliness,’ and that is what you are to call it, as well, and confess it as such.

Psalm 51:4, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in Your sight; that You may be justified when You speak, and be clear when You judge.”

As you know, Psalm 51 was written by King David after Nathan the prophet had confronted him about his sins: his sin of adultery with Bathsheba, his sin of murdering Bathsheba’s husband Uriah.

Notice how David confessed his sin, “Against You, You only, have I sinned.” For David, when he came to that place of confession of sin, it was like there were only two individuals in the entire universe. No one else on earth mattered to David at that point in time. David was fully conscious of the fact that God, the living God, saw all the sin that he did. David understood that he had sinned against Bathsheba, but at this point his concern is to confess the fact that he sinned first and foremost against God.

Notice what he calls his sin. He says, “I have done that which is evil in Your sight.” When you sin, as a husband against your wife, by the way you treat her sinfully, by the way you speak to her sinfully, by neglecting her sinfully, however you sin against her, you must understand that first of all you’re sinning against God, and you must understand that what you’re doing is evil. It’s not okay. It’s not justifiable. You need to see it and feel it as God sees it and God feels it: as evil. That’s what David did here. He saw and he felt and he confessed the reality that what he had done was truly evil in the sight of God.

Do you see your sin, Mr. Husband? Do you see your sin against your wife as really evil? Or do you just think, “Oh, I sin everyday against my wife. This is just life”? Is that your attitude? Or do you see it and feel it as evil?

That’s what David did. David could have minimized his sin of adultery. It was only one act of adultery with Bathsheba, you know. So what’s the big deal? Just one act of fornication, one act of adultery. He could have minimized it, but he doesn’t do that. He could have blamed Bathsheba. What in the world was she doing bathing out in her outdoor courtyard at night so she could be seen? He could have blamed her, but he didn’t. He could have rationalized his sin of murder. “Well, I didn’t actually kill Uriah. I wasn’t even at the battle.” He could have rationalized it, but he didn’t do that. He owned the reality of his sin. He truly confessed his sins to God.

Confession of sin in your marriage must begin with the ‘vertical,’ confessing it to God. Then it must proceed to the ‘horizontal.’

James 5:16, “Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.”

In this portion James is dealing with the reality that sometimes sickness is connected to sin, but the principle here is the same, whether it’s sickness-related or not.

Here is a simple instruction for you, as husbands and wives, for all of us. We are not only to confess our sin to God first and foremost, but when we sin against our spouses, we are to confess our sin to our spouses. We are to do the same thing with them that we do with God in the sense that we own the reality of our evil sin in our marriage, our guilt, and we call it what God calls it.

Therefore, in the light of these Scriptures, husbands and wives, it is not satisfactory because it is not biblical, for you to simply say to your spouse, “I’m sorry.” When you sin and say to your spouse, “I’m sorry,” and that’s all you say, you’re telling your spouse how you feel. You’re saying, “I feel sorry.” You should feel sorry if you’ve sinned, but it’s not enough to say, “I’m sorry.”

You shouldn’t simply say, “I apologize.” It’s okay if you apologize. It’s good if you apologize, but we also apologize for things that have nothing to do with sin. When you confess sin, you need to do more than apologize. Certainly, you also shouldn’t be saying, “I didn’t really mean it. I know I did it, but I didn’t mean it.” Well, you did do it. You did sin. It’s not right to say, “I didn’t mean it.” You did it.

Of course it’s even worse, husbands and wives, to say nothing, to pretend that you didn’t really sin, to ignore it, to go to bed not having confessed your sin, to have days go by when you don’t confess your sin to your spouse. That is sinful in itself.

Confession of sin means saying to your spouse, “Honey, please forgive me for my sin of speaking harshly, unlovingly to you. That was not like Jesus Christ. Christ commands me to love you from my heart, with my words, with my deeds. I didn’t. Please forgive me for my sin.” That’s what I’m talking about, and therefore you’ve got to make time to do it. That means if you’ve got kids running around in your household, you either get them into the living room and you go off into the kitchen, or if they’re so young that they can’t be left alone, somehow you’ve got to work this out so that you do not delay confessing your sins to God and to your spouse.

Definition #3: REPENTANCE FROM SIN

What is repentance? We live in a time and culture when repentance is generally not proclaimed from many pulpits or by Christians. Repentance is ignored; it is not mentioned; or, it is superficial in nature and watered down whenever it is discussed or taught. What does the Bible teach us about repentance? What is genuine, biblical repentance?

When you sin in your marriage, you not only need to confess your sin to God and confess your sin to your spouse, you need to repent of your sins. So, what is repentance? Without that repentance you will not have a happy marriage, you will not have a godly marriage. You need to have biblical repentance in your marriage.

Repentance—according to the Bible, in the Old Testament and the New Testament—is a changed mind. It starts with the mind. It’s thinking differently about yourself. It’s thinking differently about your sin. It’s thinking differently about your relationship with your spouse. Repentance is a changed mind. Instead of thinking that your harshness or your impatience or your irritability with your wife is okay, you now think God’s thoughts and you say, “Not only is this not okay, this is evil.” You think God’s thoughts about your sins.

Repentance is also a changed heart. Your affections are going to change. Instead of thinking that the sin you commit repeatedly in your marriage is basically no problem, you now begin to have a heart of hatred towards your real sin.

Repentance also issues in a changed life. It’s not just a changed thinking and even a changed heart, but your spouse will see the fruit of repentance in your marriage and in your family. There will be a change in your life, in your marriage.

2 Corinthians 7:9–11, “I now rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye were made sorry unto repentance; for ye were made sorry after a godly sort, that ye might suffer loss by us in nothing. For godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation, a repentance which brings no regret; but the sorrow of the world works death. For behold, this selfsame thing, that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you, yes what clearing of yourselves, yes what indignation, yes what fear, yes what longing, yes what zeal, yes what avenging! In everything ye approved yourselves to be pure in the matter.”

You see, Paul says here that first of all there are two kinds of sorrow. There is a worldly sorrow for sin, and there is a godly sorrow for sin. You must make sure that in your marriage, in your life, your sorrow over your sin is not worldly sorrow, but rather godly sorrow. You see, sorrow itself is not necessarily a sign of repentance. You can meet people who are very sorry for their sin, but not with a godly sorrow. They’re really sorry about the consequences. They’ve made a mess of their lives, and they see that their sin—they even call it sin—has made a mess. They’re really not sorry about the reality of their own heart’s sin. You see, even self-condemnation, even some remorse for sin is not necessarily a sign of repentance. True repentance will have that aspect of self-condemnation and remorse, but it will be more than that.

Judas, we are told, repented. He had self-condemnation. He had some degree of remorse, but that was all a worldly sorrow, that was not genuine repentance. Godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation. It is a turning away from your sin, whatever the sin may be. It is a turning back to God, through Christ, with a full purpose of heart to live a life of holiness.

Notice in verse 11 of 2 Corinthians 7 some of the characteristics of genuine repentance.

There is no longer indifference. In your marriage you’re not going to have the ho-hum attitude about the sin in your heart, in your marriage. Rather, you are going to be swift to deal with your sin before God, with your spouse, in your family. You are going to be determined to hate it and reject it and forsake it.

You will have a clearing of yourself, Paul says. You will make matters right. So, when you’ve sinned against your husband by being insubmissive as a pattern of life, genuine repentance means you’re not only confessing it to God, you’re confessing it to your husband, and your children who have seen that insubmission are going to hear your confession as well. You’re going to be determined—with purpose of heart—to forsake your insubmissive, snotty ways with your husband. You’re going to be determined to make every matter right. Where you have been insubmissive and rebellious towards your husband, you’re going to do whatever you have to do to set things right in your marriage and in your family.

That may mean that you have to go to somebody else here in the church. You may have to go to another sister and say, “You know, I have gossipped with you about my husband, and I blamed him, but I actually have been a terrible wife. I have been insubmissive to my husband, and I never told you that. I made you think it’s all my husband. It’s not all my husband. It’s me!” That’s what’s meant by clearing yourself, and if you need to do that and you refuse to do that, that is not genuine repentance.

You might say, “Well, if I had to do that, that would be so humiliating.” No. That would be called: rightly humbling yourself before someone else. That would be very good for your soul. “God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.”

Furthermore, in 2 Corinthians 7, Paul says true repentance has some indignation. In other words, you are angry not with with your spouse, you are angry not with God. You are no longer saying, “Why did you give me this husband?” Or, “Why did you give me this wife?” That is wicked thinking, and wicked speaking, and a wicked heart! When you begin to truly repent, you have an indignation and anger at yourself and your sin. No longer are you angry at everyone else. You’re angry with your sin, and you start to repent and deal with it.

That genuine repentance has other aspects, and it’s important to see those from the Scripture.

Lesson:

In your marriage, that genuine repentance will always be joined to faith and hope.

Joel 2:12–13, “Yet even now, says Jehovah, turn unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repents him of the evil.”

Joel has proclaimed that God will bring dreadful judgment upon the people of God. His purpose in that proclamation was not simply to terrify the people of God and leave them in despair. He did want them to be sobered and in one way to be terrified, but he did not want to leave them in despair. His purpose was to move them to act, to repent of their sins, and return unto God. He joins his exhortation to repent, to an encouragement, to hope in receiving mercy from God!

1) Notice from this passage that it is the Lord Himself who is exhorting sinners—and in our context here, sinning husbands, sinning wives, or any sinners—to repent. Verse 12, “Yet even now, says Jehovah.” God Himself is exhorting sinners to repent, and you are to recognize that’s what God is doing for you right now. You may not be married, you may be indulging some sins in your heart, in your life, and no one knows about it, but God does. Your dad doesn’t know. Your mom doesn’t know. Your friends don’t know, but you’re indulging that sin, and God Himself is telling you right now: repent.

2) Notice also in verse 12, it is not too late to repent. He says, “Yet even now…” Though you have abused God’s patience, though you have refused God’s mercy in the past, God is saying to each one of you, “Yet even now, turn unto Me, and I will pardon you. You may indeed have rejected me for years. You may indeed have abused My patience, but yet even now, if you turn, God offers hope and mercy and salvation for you.”

3) Notice also this turning to the Lord is to be wholehearted. “Return to Me with all your heart…” Not with half of your heart, with all your heart. This, I think, is often the very touchstone, the crux, the main problem with many in their marriages: they’re not repenting with their whole heart. There’s some degree of genuine, sincere sorrow before God for the problems and the sins; there’s confession to God; there’s even confession to spouses; but there’s not this wholehearted repentance. There’s not a wholehearted forsaking of the sin.

When that does not happen, that’s because you don’t really hate your sin the way you should. You don’t really see it the way God sees it, because if you saw it the way God sees it, you would begin to hate it the way God hates it, and that is necessary if there’s going to be a wholehearted turning unto God in repentance.

4) Notice from this passage that the Lord says to turn with sincere grief for your sin and for offending God. He says, “Return to Me…with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.” There’s to be a grief in your heart, not worldly sorrow, not just sorrow because of the mess you’ve made of your life, but there’s to be a grief. Do you have grief over your sin? Do your marital sins grieve you? You need to turn to the Lord with fasting and weeping and mourning.

It could be that indeed you maybe do need to actually set aside a time of fasting. Tell your wife, tell your husband, “I don’t grieve over my sin in the marriage with you as I should. I need to repent more wholeheartedly with grief. I’m going to fast for the next three days, and I’m going to plead with God that He will hear my prayers in fasting, break into my heart, and give me the grief that I need for my sin.” Maybe you need to do that. You must see your sin as God sees it.

5) Notice now in verse 13, the Lord also says repentance involves humility of heart. Verse 13, “Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God.” There’s to be humility of heart. In the Old Testament especially, we see that when someone was manifesting repentance, they often ripped their garments, their clothing, put dirt on their heads to show outwardly repentance towards God, sorrow for sin. Here God, through Joel, is saying to not do that with your clothing, to do it with your heart. He is not interested in outward drama. That doesn’t mean God doesn’t want to the outward realities, He does. What He is saying is that your repentance must begin in your heart.

Sincere grief for your sin must be joined to humility of heart. Humility begins inwardly. It’s a tearing apart of your heart in sorrow before God. It is saying, “I am nothing.” Do you ever say that to God? “I am not somebody great. I am vile.” If you’re a Christian, you can confess, “By the grace of God, I am not what I once was, but in my remaining sin, I am guilty. I am helpless.” You see, there’s a breaking of the heart. A broken and contrite heart God does not despise. That’s what true repentance in your marriage will manifest, will bring forth: a broken and contrite heart before God.

Illustration:

When I was in the business world for a number of years, I worked on a major project involving carbon fiber table tops. It was for a company called Siemens. Carbon fiber is a fabric made out of carbon. When carbon fiber items are made correctly they are very lightweight, and yet extremely strong. Many parts on airplanes are made out of carbon fiber. This project was a carbon fiber treatment table for radiation oncology. Cancer treatment. So, it was intended to be lightweight, but very strong, and radiation could go through it. It was virtually invisible to radiation. Radiation didn’t really do anything when it went through it. It was like it wasn’t there. When made correctly it doesn’t break. We were instructed by Siemens that these carbon table tops had to have a safety factor. They said, “Well, the heaviest patient is probably 500 pounds. You have to make it to support three times that weight, 1500 pounds, but it still has to be lightweight, basically invisible to radiation; and it can’t break.” We did make the carbon fiber treatment tables.

Your heart is not supposed to be that way. Your heart is not to be like that treatment table made out of carbon fiber that doesn’t break even when you put 1500 pounds on it. Your heart, with reference to your sin, is to be like an Italian pizzelle cookie. They’re very thin, they have a fancy design, and they’re very pretty and tasty. But guess what? They break very easily. It doesn’t take much pressure to make it break. That’s what your heart should be like, with reference to your sin. Your heart should not be like a carbon fiber table top that doesn’t break, but like an Italian pizzelle cookie. That when the Word of God, when the correction of the pastor, when the exhortation of your spouse about a problem, a sin in your life comes to you, you are quick to break. Not in emotional tears, but you’re quick to break before God, confessing your sin to God and to your spouse.

“Honey, you are right. I sinned in that way. Please forgive me.” It has to be instant, not one hour later, not six hours later, not a day later, not a week later. Your heart needs to be tender, breakable before God and before your spouse. That happens when you are humble, when you have humility of heart.

6) Notice from verse 13 that in repentance you turn to the Lord in faith and hope. Notice what he says there. “Turn.” Why? “Rend your heart.” Why? “Don’t tear your garments.” Why? “Turn to God.” Why? The reason is given. “For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and He will relent from doing you evil.”

You are to think about God in this way. God is not a harsh God. God is not an unloving God. God is a God who delights in mercy, and He is gracious and merciful. He is slow to anger. If you stop and think about it, as a husband or a wife, you should realize that indeed God is very slow to anger, and He is abundant in lovingkindness and mercy. That’s what you are called to do by God in His Word today: to think right thoughts about the living God. That He really is a God who is gracious to sinners like you.

Your marriage may be on the brink of divorce—I hope that’s not true with any marriage here—but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a marriage here that’s on the brink of divorce. You may think, “We can never be different. I hate my wife.” A sinful statement. “I hate my husband. We’re only together because of the kids.” If you truly confess your sins individually and together as husband and wife, and truly repent—as we see in the Bible, as we see in Joel chapter 2—God is a God who delights to be gracious to vile, helpless, sinful sinners just like you. That’s what He is, and you need to make the time to think about these realities.

I do this, and I have recently done it. When I look at the sins in my own heart and I look at the sins in my life—and by the grace of God they’re not breaking forth outwardly, but if God removed His hand they would break forth outwardly—I am endeavoring to mortify my own remaining sins by the Spirit of God, with the Word of God. I have a wonderful marriage, but I see much in my heart that is very wicked and evil and sinful, and I confess it to God. I endeavor to repent from it, but what really breaks through to my heart is when I think about the fact that God has been so patient with me. God has been so slow to anger with me.

When you think about God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s love, it starts to melt the hard heart and it shows you how ugly your sins are. Then you go further and contemplate that that same God sent His only begotten Son into the world to take on human flesh, and He lived a perfect, sinless life for me. Never once did He sin in His thoughts, in His emotions, in His words, in His tones, in His body, in His imaginations. Never once did He sin, and from before the foundation of this world, God—in sovereign electing grace—chose to save Jeffrey Alan Smith from his sins. He sent His Son to die on the cross so that all of my sins would be punished righteously in Christ, and Christ’s righteousness would be transferred to me. So that I’m accepted by God now, in Christ Jesus.

When you think on those realities, it makes your heart humble, and it overwhelms you with the love of God, and then you want to hate your sin, and you want to repent of your sin. You thank God for who He is, and it makes you want to love your wife as Christ loves the church. Or it makes you want to submit to and honor and revere your husband, as you’re commanded to by God through Christ.

You need to not only think of the law of God—don’t ignore the law of God, you need the law of God—but you need to see that God is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness to sinners who truly repent and come to Him in Christ Jesus.

You may say, “Well, I feel like I am a hypocrite. I feel I am a slave to my lusts. I have lied to my spouse repeatedly.” As we saw, confess all of those sins to God through Christ. Confess them appropriately to your spouse and others. Call upon God through Jesus Christ. Think upon the reality of who God is, who Christ is, what Christ has done. Think long enough, until those truths and realities melt your heart in gratitude to God and lead you to repentance. The goodness of God is intended by God to lead you to repentance. Think on those realities.

Therefore, if you’re going to think on those realities, you need to make time to think on those realities. “I’m too busy.” You can cut out television. You can cut out sports. You can cut out Facebook. You can cut out all sorts of things and make time to think, to meditate upon these realities, so that your heart is impacted.

Regardless of whether you’re married or not, if you’re not a Christian, you need to see your sins the way God sees them. You need to call upon God now and ask Him to show you your sins, to convict you of your sins, to see them the way He sees them. You need to ask God to show you His mercy in Christ. You need to begin there. You need to ask! “You have not because you ask not. You ask not because you want not.” You do not want because you love your sins, but God commands you to repent and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Begin today, do not delay. Let’s close in prayer.

Lord, our God, we cry out unto You. We pray that gospel realities, that the realities of Jesus Christ and His grace and mercy and salvation would break in by Your Spirit to all of our hearts. Lord, we pray that You would radically transform every single marriage. That each and every marriage would honor You by being a godly marriage. Lord, work that we may indeed be daily confessing our sins, and daily repenting of our sins, and daily trusting in Jesus Christ alone for forgiveness and cleansing and transformation. Please, work in a mighty way in our midst, in our hearts, in our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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