This is “Missional Marriage”. To hear more inspiring messages from Jentezen Franklin, visit http://jentezenfranklin.org/watch?cid… & subscribe to this channel: http://goo.gl/yfkXHy
♪ ♪
>> Welcome to Kingdom
Connection.
Thank you so much for
joining us today
and I am excited about
the message that
you’re gonna hear.
It actually was preached
at our annual
One Marriage conference.
And I encourage you
to listen and lean in.
There’s a prayer line available.
We care.
You can send in prayer requests
online and we pray over
those prayer requests.
You need to know
that your family
and your marriage
has God’s eye today.
Listen to this message
and let it speak to you.
I believe this word will
bless you and your family.
♪ ♪
>> So I wanna talk to you
for a few moments tonight,
I’m gonna share something
that I’ve never shared before,
never spoke this anywhere,
never heard anybody
preach on it.
It’s just kinda crazy, and,
but the more I looked into it,
I began to find material
and people who had picked up
bits and pieces,
but I’ve often wondered,
why is it in the New Testament
you cannot find many couples?
It’s like, in the Old Testament,
the Bible’s a Book
about couples.
It’s Abraham and Sarah.
It’s Adam and Eve.
It’s the famous couples,
and I could just go on and on
and on and on, naming couples.
You move to the New Testament,
and about the only couple that
I could find was
Mary and Joseph,
and he disappears at some point,
and she’s left by herself
at the Cross.
I mean, let’s just tell
it like it is,
it never mentions him
again after the birth.
[Laughter]
That’s in your Bible.
And so, and then I’m searching,
I’m like, I know that
Paul was married,
because to be a Pharisee,
in that sect, you had
to be married.
But, his wife
is never mentioned,
he ended up living by himself,
we don’t know if when
he got converted, you know,
because it was a major
conversion, and because
of the change of religion,
many theologians believe
his wife deserted him
and left him with the blessing
of the Jewish community,
because he became
a Christ follower.
We know that Peter was married.
The only way we know that
is ’cause his mother-in-law had
a fever, and Jesus healed her.
That’s all it says.
It’s just nothing in the Bible
about couples, it’s kinda scary,
and I’ve found one couple
that really are —
the more I looked at it,
the more powerful they became.
The more obvious it became that
there was more to their marriage
than a physical union.
There was absolutely a divine
assignment and mission
attached to this couple.
They’re found — their names —
and this is interesting, every
time their name is mentioned,
it’s together.
They’re mentioned eight times
in the Bible, in six different
passages, or six different —
yeah, six different passages,
and every time, their names are
mentioned together, and their
names are cool, too.
Their names are Priscilla
and Aquila.
That’s just nice names,
when you — you know that God’s
in it when your names rhyme.
Priscilla and Aquila.
It’s just good names,
Priscilla and Aquila.
They were a middle-class couple,
I’ll prove that scripturally.
They did not have
a prophetic ministry.
They did not sing in church.
They did not preach.
They did not perform
any miracles,
but they’re mentioned
eight times in the Bible,
and all they did was every time
that they’re mentioned,
they’re together, and yet,
there was a profound assignment
and mission to their marriage
that I pray you never
forget what I’m about
to share with you,
because I wanna preach tonight
on “Missional Marriages”.
If you’re gonna make
it together, sometimes,
life will try to pull you apart
because the enemy, Satan,
knows that there’s a mission
attached to your marriage.
There’s more to it than
just making love.
There’s more to it than
just living together.
There’s more to it than living
in the same house
and raising babies,
but there is a mission that
God has for your marriage.
There’s no doubt about it.
There’s no doubt about it.
So there are four phases
of marriage.
First of all, there’s
the attractional phase.
And that’s why you
married that person.
Marriage isn’t all spiritual.
Marriage has to do with
physical attractions.
Say “Amen,” somebody.
There’s the attractional.
I hope that you were
attracted to your mate.
Turn to your mate and say,
“At one time, you were
attracted to me.”
I don’t know how you’re doing
now, but at one time,
you couldn’t keep your little
beady eyes off my rear end.
You couldn’t keep —
your hands,
were like they had
magnets in it.
You ought to be attracted
to one another.
There’s attractional —
and we need to stay sharp
for one another.
Stay attractive for one another,
and look good for one another.
But that’s gonna change.
You say, “Well, I haven’t
changed in 30 years.”
Go look in the mirror.
And thankfully,
mirrors don’t lie,
and thankfully,
they don’t laugh either.
But, there’s the attractional
phase, it’s love at first sight,
it’s exciting, it’s powerful,
it’s passionate.
It’s real.
That attraction,
you’ve never felt
anything like that,
and it just is amazing.
And then, after you’ve
been married some time,
you don’t have to lose
that attractional phase,
it’s important.
But after you’ve done that,
then you move into,
most marriages,
the parental phase,
where the kids
start coming along.
But here’s the thing that
I want you to understand about
the parental phase.
It’s when things really
get crazy, because for us,
we just cranked ’em out,
one every two years
for five years.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Five children, and then life
becomes about diapers,
and homework, and soccer games,
and basketball and football
and cheerleading,
and one thing after
another after another,
and one of ’em’s sick,
and one of ’em’s got
an assignment,
and one of ’em —
and it just starts to get crazy.
And at some point,
you just wonder,
where did all the love go?
‘Cause you’re on edge,
and it’s tense.
But you don’t have to let
the children take the joy out
of your marriage,
and the romance out
of your marriage,
and the love
out of your relationship.
Then, there’s the third phase,
it’s the survival phase.
It’s just,
you go through seasons,
and this is serious
for a moment.
The average marriage
lasts 8.2 years.
Something happens after they get
married, the attraction is real,
it’s there, and then on top
of that, the children,
and all that that brings,
the challenges,
the car payment,
the house payment,
the insurance, the this,
the that, the all kinds
of things that happen in life.
The survival stage.
You go from attractional
to parental to, sometimes,
a marriage moves into
a survival stage.
But the fourth stage is the one
that will hold you together
through the tough times,
and it’s the missional phase.
That’s where this couple,
Priscilla and Aquila, show us,
I think, a remarkable example
of what our marriages
are supposed to be.
A common mission together that
God placed us together for.
When God put you
and your spouse together,
He puts couples together
on purpose for a purpose.
We’re joined together
as a missional couple.
God allowed us,
out of billions of people,
to gather and meet and fall
in love and get married,
and a marriage is two
funerals and one wedding.
You can’t have a marriage
without two funerals,
two people dying to self,
and becoming one.
He made you different
to make you one.
So you’re supposed
to be different,
but you have to have two
funerals at every wedding
if you’re gonna have a marriage.
>> ANNOUNCER: Fires caused
by rockets
and incendiary balloons
from the Hamas terrorist
group are a constant threat
to the nation of Israel.
In 2021 alone,
over 4,425 rockets have
been fired into Israel.
When these attacks are launched,
they cause massive fires
that threaten lives,
and also burn through large
areas of crops and farmland.
Remote places, like Eshkol,
the region in Israel closest
to the Gaza Strip,
are often left fighting
these fires on their own.
That is why Jentezen Franklin
Media Ministries has remained
committed to providing comfort
with grace to these
Jewish people in need.
Our latest initiative
is to provide fire stations,
fire trucks, and equipment
for the volunteer fire fighters
to protect their towns
and families.
>> The region of Eshkol
desperately needs additional
fire stations and equipment.
And because of our generous
partners just like you,
we hope to provide comfort with
grace to the people of Israel.
When you give
to a project like this,
God said in Genesis 12:3,
“I will bless those
that bless you, Israel,
and I will curse those
that curse you.”
Made that promise to Abraham
and you can be a part
of that blessing today.
Get in.
>> Israel is under constant
attack and your support today
matters more than ever.
These desperate Jewish families
urgently need your help.
Call now or go online today.
>> Aquila and Priscilla
were newlyweds.
When we first hear of them
in the Bible, they’re newlyweds,
and they’re living in Rome.
Now, here’s what happened.
Aquila was a Jew,
he got saved in Jerusalem,
your Bible says that.
He then goes to Rome,
and when he goes to Rome,
he meets a Greek girl,
who was Roman,
meaning she’s from
the city of Rome,
and he falls in love with her.
They’re from
different religions,
they’re from different
backgrounds.
She was a pagan, but he,
because he had Christ,
won her to the Lord.
And now, they’re living
as a young couple in Rome,
and they’re having
their honeymoon.
I mean, how romantic would
that be to live in Rome
on your honeymoon,
and while they’re living there,
on their honeymoon,
something happens.
There is racial tension,
like we would call
it racial tension, in that —
the Roman culture despised Jews.
They were very prejudiced
against Jews, and Emperor
Claudius did something,
he expelled all Jews from Rome.
Therefore, this young,
newly-married couple,
who had both been converted
to Christianity,
he out of Judaism,
she out of pagan worship
of idols,
but they’re passionately
in love with Jesus and have
been changed and transformed,
and now something
amazing happens,
as this Emperor Claudius
decrees that all Jews
have to move out of Rome.
And so, now, they’re forced
in an injusticed situation,
in a brutal situation,
to leave everything
that they have,
and they have to go to Corinth
to find another home.
It was a big deal for a young
couple, and here’s the point.
They had a chance to allow
bitterness to get in their
heart in that moment.
They had a chance to allow
unforgiveness against the people
who had done something
to them that was unjust,
it could’ve got in their heart.
And the Lord spoke to me
when I read that,
and He said that one
of the greatest enemies
of the mission that God has
for our marriages is bitterness
and unforgiveness,
and sometimes,
that can be from the outside
situations that you’re
dealing with,
or it can be from inside
your own marriage.
When the enemy wants to destroy
the mission of a couple,
he comes with his number-one
weapon, bitterness
and unforgiveness.
But missional couples don’t
get hung up on bitterness
and unforgiveness,
their mission was driving them
to a greater place of destiny.
So they go from Rome, and now,
this new couple moves
to Corinth, and while they’re
in Corinth, something amazing
happens to this young couple.
They’re there, and there happens
to be a guy by the name of Paul.
Very few people have ever heard
of him in the body of Christ.
He has recently had an encounter
with Jesus Christ,
and he’s stopped killing
Christians and persecuting
Christians, and God is doing
work in his life.
He doesn’t have anywhere
to live, he’s gone through such
a transformation that all of his
peers, his Pharisee friends,
have kicked him out.
He’s homeless, and this couple,
in the Bible, in Acts 18,
take an unknown guy by the name
of Paul into their apartment.
They had an extra room,
and they gave it to him,
and this is what
I thought was interesting,
and Paul lived with them
for 18 months, in their home.
Can you imagine?
The great apostle Paul,
the man who wrote half
the New Testament,
living in your house
for 18 months?
And they didn’t know that
the guy in their little
apartment was writing half
the New Testament.
They didn’t know that he would
write words that we would sing,
that would shake us
and comfort us.
“If God be for me,
who can be against me?”
Words like: “I can do all things
through Christ who
strengthens me.”
Watch this.
Paul felt led by the Spirit
in Acts 19 to leave them after
18 months, and go to Ephesus.
Now, I’m just teaching tonight,
can I just teach?
You with me?
You okay?
I’m talking about
missional marriages.
And he leaves,
he leaves Ephesus —
or he leaves Corinth,
and he goes to a city
called Ephesus,
and it was exceedingly wicked.
And revival breaks out,
and the whole city turns to God.
The Bible said they turned
from their idols,
and they’re having
revival in Ephesus,
and in Acts 19,
Paul sends for Priscilla
and Aquila to come and help him
start the church in Ephesus,
and your Bible said that they
turned their home into
the first church in Ephesus.
And we have the whole Book
of Ephesians and all
the miracles that God did from
a couple that obeyed God,
opened their home up,
realized they had a mission,
that, yes, they had to go to
work every day and make tents,
and yes, they had to pay bills,
and yes, they had to put food,
and yes, they had to raise kids,
and yes, they had struggles
and things that
were aggravating,
and things that were going —
but they were understood,
and we have the Book
of Ephesians, because
this couple had a church.
And the sermons that you read,
and the scriptures you
read in Ephesians,
came from the church
that was in their house.
And while they’re there,
a guy by the name of Apollos,
who was a great speaker,
very eloquent in speech,
but he only knew
of the baptism of John,
he had never heard
of the baptism
in the Holy Spirit,
and the Bible said
Aquila and Priscilla,
after he gave a speech,
pulled him off to the side
of the pulpit,
and laid hands on him, said,
“We wanna show you
a better way.”
And when they laid hands on him,
the Bible said he was filled
with the Spirit
and began to preach.
That’s a missional couple.
And then, something
tragic happened.
There was a guy by the name
of Nero who didn’t like
what was going on.
And so, he burned the whole
city down and blamed it
on the Christians,
and it’s a historical fact
that in that city,
he burns down the city,
and he burned their home down.
And now, they’re being forced,
this generous, hospitable couple
are being forced now to leave
Ephesus and go back to Corinth,
because a man burned
their house down.
This super-effective couple
in the gospel, they’re doing
so good, and then a fire comes.
But see, when the fires come
and when the troubles come,
and when the issues of life
come, when bad things come,
when you’ve got a mission
to your marriage,
you just grab hold
of each other and say,
“We’re going through this.”
God’s not taking us out of it,
we’re going through chemo.
We’re going through this,
we’re going through this attack.
We’re going through
this setback.
You got laid off,
you’re not alone.
We’re gonna make it, baby.
We’re gonna make it through
this, because God is with us,
and He’s got a mission
on our life.
But here’s what got me.
Here’s what got me.
This no-name couple, had such
a touch of God and a mission
assigned to their marriage
that in the Book of Romans,
or 1 Corinthians, it’s actually
Romans 16, I knew it was.
Listen to what Paul said.
“Greet Priscilla and Aquila,
my co-workers in Christ.”
That’s a very important phrase,
I looked it up.
Paul is saying, he’s using
the same word that Jesus used
when He said He thought it not
robbery to be equal with God.
Paul says, “I want you
to know there’s a couple
in the New Testament,”
they did not have a ministry,
they didn’t pastor
a mega-church,
they didn’t have a television
ministry, they weren’t
a musical band.
They were not famous
for anything spiritual,
they were tent makers,
but there was such a touch
and such a mission
on that couple,
that they became co-equal
with me in the ministry.
Everybody thinks about
the great apostle Paul.
But he says, “When I look
back over my ministry,
when I look at how
God has used me,
I have to say,
the only reason that I have
been able to do what I’ve done,
write all these books
in the Bible,
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
is my co-laborers were
a power couple,”
who had more than
modern-day feely love,
that threw in the towel when
the thrill was gone.
But they made it through
the fire and the burning
of their house.
They made it through being
done wrong, bitterness
and unforgiveness.
They didn’t let it ever take
up root in their heart.
And because of it,
and then he goes on to say,
in the next verse, he says,
“They risked their own
necks for my life.”
You ought to do research
on that.
He said — somewhere,
the theologians said somewhere,
the literal Greek means they
were almost killed for my sake,
and many theologians believe
it was when Paul was being
followed by assassins,
and they placed him in a basket,
and the Bible said
that there was those,
his friends, the Scripture
called ’em his friends,
I forget where
it’s at in the Bible.
But it said that he lowered —
his friends lowered Paul,
assassins are knocking
on the door, and this couple
puts him in a basket.
They’ve got the New Testament,
half of it, in that basket.
Everything’s swinging on the end
of that rope, the gospel that
we celebrate and preach so much,
“I am not ashamed of,” —
all of that is hanging by rope,
and guess who’s holding it?
A couple with a mission.
And Paul says, “I can’t leave.”
He’s given his final goodbyes,
and he writes a greeting
to a power couple, and he says,
“Your marriage was so missional
in my life that I see you
as co-equal with everything I’ve
done for the cause of Christ.”
I want that kind of purpose
on my marriage.
I want that kind of purpose
on my family.
I want that kind of purpose
on my home.
♪ ♪
>> You may be watching this
program right now
and you feel like
your marriage is crumbling
and falling to pieces.
I have such compassion
for you today.
I know Jesus cares.
The first miracle Jesus
ever performed happened
at a marriage.
And maybe you’ve tried
everything in your power
to keep your family together.
And you’re staring at the screen
today and you’re listening
to this message
and you’re starting
to lose hope.
But I believe God
had you hear this so that
you could know He put
you together.
Even if the circumstances
that brought you together
were not perfect in God’s eyes,
He makes all things new.
And when you got
married to your spouse,
God said, I lay
my hand of blessing,
because you’ve done
it under the Lord,
upon this marriage.
He can renew your relationship,
He can heal your family,
and what you need to do
today is trust Him
and put Him at the center
of your home
and your marriage.
Remember, marriage isn’t a duet,
it’s a trio.
It’s man, it’s woman,
and it’s Jesus Christ
intertwined as the glue
holding the two together,
making the two one.
And it’s so powerful
and so holy,
your marriage,
that God even likened
the husband and the wife
relationship to Christ
and his bride, the church.
And all of Heaven
is about a marriage,
the marriage supper
of the Lamb,
between the church,
the believers,
being married for
eternity with Jesus Christ.
Maybe you’re watching this
as a couple, why don’t you —
maybe you’ve been so mad at each
other you haven’t touched,
you haven’t even hardly
talked to one another…
Why don’t you just grab that
husband or that wife
by the hand and get on your
knees right there in your home
or wherever you’re
watching this.
I’m gonna tell you just that
simple of an invitation
to God in your home
and in your marriage.
To get down on your knees
together and hold hands
and say, “God, we don’t have
the answers.”
Be honest.
“I’m mad, she’s mad,
we’re angry,
but we need You today.
We invite You today.”
Do it.
“We invite You today,”
say those words,
“into our marriage,
into our home,
into our family.
Oh God, Prince of Peace, Jesus,
bring peace to our lives,
bring love.
Renew, restore, and give us
a mission for our marriage.
In Jesus’ name, we pray.”
Go to the phone if you
would like prayer.
You can dial the number
that’s on the screen
or send us your email today.
We would love to hear from you.
It means so much
to hear from you.
Thank you so much for praying
with us and believing with us.
♪ ♪
>> ANNOUNCER: Fires caused
by rockets
and incendiary balloons
from the Hamas terrorist
group are a constant threat
to the nation of Israel.
In 2021 alone,
over 4,425 rockets have
been fired into Israel.
When these attacks are launched,
they cause massive fires
that threaten lives,
and also burn through large
areas of crops and farmland.
Remote places, like Eshkol,
the region in Israel closest
to the Gaza Strip,
are often left fighting
these fires on their own.
That is why Jentezen Franklin
Media Ministries has remained
committed to providing comfort
with grace to these
Jewish people in need.
Our latest initiative
is to provide fire stations,
fire trucks, and equipment
for the volunteer fire fighters
to protect their towns
and families.
>> The region of Eshkol
desperately needs additional
fire stations and equipment.
And because of our generous
partners just like you,
we hope to provide comfort with
grace to the people of Israel.
When you give
to a project like this,
God said in Genesis 12:3,
“I will bless those
that bless you, Israel,
and I will curse those
that curse you.”
Made that promise to Abraham
and you can be a part
of that blessing today.
Get in.
>> Israel is under constant
attack and your support today
matters more than ever.
These desperate Jewish families
urgently need your help.
Call now or go online today.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
>> We hope you’ve enjoyed
this teaching
by Jentezen Franklin
and thank you
for your continued support
of this ministry.
For more information
about this message
and other ministry resources,
visit us online
at JentezenFranklin.tv.
♪ ♪