Religion: 'My identity is built on being a good person.' Gospel: 'My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on Christ's.'

In short, the enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any 'broader good' such as reflecting God's nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly but surely, this newer understanding of the meaning of marriage has displaced the older ones in Western culture.

We need to remember that we are saved by grace when we fail. But we need to remember it much more when we succeed.

Marriage is so much like salvation and our relationship with Christ that you can’t understand marriage w/o looking at the gospel.

Let us preach grace till humility just starts to grow in us.

To love our success more than God and our neighbor hardens the heart, making us less able to feel and to sense.

If you have money, power, and status today, it is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health, none of which you earned. In short, all your resources are in the end the gift of God.