You Remain Stuck in Your Marriage Because of This

Galatians 1:6-9 reveals the highly likely reason for where you are in marriage today: Anything that is Jesus+this or Jesus-that is a false gospel that keeps you stuck, frustrated, in conflict and not walking free. 

Dive into the one, true gospel and be free! You have received mercy; now walk free in it! Marriage is ground zero for this sanctification process to be magnified so you can be multiplied together pulling in the same direction, the very essence of God's mercy for the whole world to see. Not of either of you that you could boast but the power of God working in and through you both!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome back to the High Level Wife podcast. I'm Chelsea Holm, your hostess, and I am currently sitting outside in the sunshine with a cup of coffee under a tree in my little swing I got from Aldi last year, I think it was. No cushion. My cushion blew away in a storm. Um, but I wanted to talk today about Jesus plus anything is not the gospel, and Jesus minus anything is not the gospel. And what you're missing in your marriage, the reason that you are struggling so much is because you've either added to the gospel in an effort to fix yourself in your marriage, or you don't fully understand the gospel as it is Jesus. And so you've taken on those burdens yourself and trying to carry these things in your own strength and your own understanding with what your eyes can see. And unfortunately, at this point, you've trained your eyes to see everything that's wrong, everything that's broken. But what you're failing to understand is that you are a new creation. Like this is the gospel, okay? The gospel is that we are all sinners, right? That sin is passed down through Adam, right? So we are born sinners, meaning we are dead. We are dead, and a dead man can't bring themselves to life. But God has always desired and had a plan in place for our restoration and reconciliation with him, but he is holy and perfect. So no sin can be in his presence, right? And so what do we do, right? And so then the law, the law was given to help keep his children in his presence, but the law revealed with a magnifying glass how broken and sinful we are, right? So the plan was continued to be carried out that there would be an end to the law through the promise of Jesus, right? That freedom. And so the law is still good, but the law can't save us, couldn't save us, right? And only Jesus could. So Jesus, the word, became flesh. God sent his only son to dwell upon, dwell among us. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, meaning Jesus was born a baby, he took on flesh, came into this world, lived a perfect life, willingly went to the cross in all meekness. Meekness means great power and strength under control. He said, It's not you that that takes my life. I willingly lay down my life. So he went to the cross willingly, he kept himself there. He gave up his life, his last breath, as the perfect sacrifice to satisfy a holy God who justice had to be served. And so he took on our sins, he took on our sins and he died. And guess what? He defeated the grave. Satan thought he had won when Jesus took his last breath. But what he didn't realize was in that act of perfect submission on the cross, he he was defeated. Jesus defeated Satan. He overthrew a king, he took the king, the keys back to his kingdom. So Satan now runs around like this stupid king that's whispering lies, that he's still in charge, he still has control, he still has authority, but he doesn't. He was defeated when Jesus died and went down to the grave, and God raised him from the dead to newness of life. This is why in baptism it says you are buried with him in death and raised to newness of life with him, right? When you're dunked and you're brought out. That's what this symbolizes. And so the old is passed away. Behold, the new has come. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. You are a new creation. You are where you are right now because you are living a gospel that either is Jesus minus something, you don't understand the fullness of the power and authority that you have, the Holy Spirit that you have in you, enabling you to walk by the Spirit, enabling you to crucify the flesh daily, or you are walking in a false gospel that is Jesus plus something, Jesus plus you doing all the right things, checking all the right boxes, doing sorry, I just realized I'm swinging and making a terrible noise with my swing because yeah, ADHD.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Sorry, it comes out sometimes. Anyway, um I'll stop that annoying sound.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

So right now you are living under the false gospel of Jesus plus anything. Jesus plus anything is not a true gospel. And if you read through all of the epistles, all the letters from Paul and Peter and John, you see this. You see that people go wrong when they add anything to Jesus, right? We see this in Galatians when the the Jewish Christians were trying to get the Gentile Christians to still fall under the law. And that's not right. That's Jesus plus anything is not the gospel, right? Jesus plus anything is not the gospel. And so what you're looking for in your marriage, the only thing that is going to transform you, that's going to transform your marriage, is you understanding the one true gospel. This is what allows you to take off all of these burdens, to lay it all down at the cross, to enter into the burden that is easy and the yoke that is light with Jesus, because he took it all on for you. And so now you walk in this newness of life. You are a new creation. You walk in the righteousness of Jesus. This is over you and in you. You are kept by Jesus. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit. The only way that the enemy has any power over you is if you continue to walk in the flesh rather than crucifying it. If you continue to struggle with sin, with pride, with self-righteousness, it's because you haven't learned the one true gospel. You're not living in it, and you don't understand that you need to crucify your flesh daily, and you have to walk in the spirit. But here's the cool thing: you are enabled to do that by the power of the Holy Spirit in you. That's why Jesus said, My spirit I leave with you, and you will do greater things than I have done. What does that mean, right? All of this, understanding the one true gospel and applying that to your marriage and walking in the truth of the cross, what it does is it transforms you and your marriage. It allows your you to get your marriage out of your way so that you are pulling in the same direction. And through that, God multiplies his impact for the building of his kingdom. And the enemy can't stand against you. James 4:7 says to trust in God, to draw near to God, to resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Submit yourself to God. That's what it says, actually. Sorry. Submit yourself to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. The reason that you think the enemy is attacking you all the time is because you've mistaken your flesh for the enemy, and you need to crucify your flesh. And really, where the enemy has strongholds, where you've given him strongholds, is your thought life. Any thought that is not of the Lord, any thought that is not aligned with the heart of God is your flesh, is a stronghold of the enemy. And the way that you break that is to pick up your weapons, not of the flesh, but your weapons of the spirit that have divine power to break strongholds. The only strongholds the enemy can have in your life is your mind. So your thought life is very important. And this is why we have to take every thought captive to Christ. This is why it says to renew your mind, to not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Thoughts come. I'll tell you what, thoughts come, right? Not every thought you think is your own. And here's the thing: some of those thoughts that you're thinking, those are actually your flesh. They're not the enemy whispering to you. Some of them are, but not always. Uh, not usually. Usually it's your flesh, right? Because our flesh, we want to be justified. We want to be right. We want to be the victim. We want to be the martyr, right? We want to be the one that's like, woe is me, right? Look at look at all these hurts, look at all these hangups, look at all of this crap, right? Like, hello. Those are strongholds when we feed those thoughts rather than crucify them and take them captive to Christ. And that's why you continue stuck in the same patterns because you're staying stuck in your thought life. You have allowed it to become a stronghold for the enemy, and it must be destroyed by divine power, which is our weapons of war, not of the flesh, but of the spirit. And this is the cross at work in our marriage, in our lives. This is what overflows around us. This is what the Lord uses to multiply as we pull in the same direction as two becoming one flesh. Do you understand me? Are you hearing me on this? My friend is pulling up right now, so I am going to leave you with that. And I will see you on the next episode.