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For Discussion:
Dominate Thought: Your life on this earth, your relationships, your marriage, and even your family are not about you—they are a picture, a preparation, even a dress rehearsal for something far greater and much more long lasting.
Key Verses:
- Gen. 2:18-25—The Beginning of Marriage
- 1 Cor. 7:6-8 Marriage is not the highest calling of a Christian.
- 1 Cor. 7:32-35 Marriage and singles—caution about interrupting our “undivided devotion to the Lord.”
- 1 Cor. 6:16-20- Meaning of “one flesh.”
- Eph. 5:22-33 Husbands/wives and the great mystery…
Quote from the Message: “Husbands, it’s a picture of sacrificial love, and protection. A picture of initiating, not waiting for your wife to do this and this and this and then you will love her. No, it’s a picture of you going first. Nourishing her, cherishing her, cleansing her, pursuing her and loving her because she is a daughter of the King and He has entrusted his valuable daughter into your protection for a time to teach you how to love more fully than you would ever know on your ow, because that is the way He loves us.
Wives, this picture for you is one of not holding onto power over your husband, or attempting to guide, control or even manipulate his life. Instead it is one of fully trusting and surrendering yourself over to his care and protection. As I say those words I cringe knowing that there are so many stories in this very room of men who have abused that trust and used it to cause great harm. And if I’m very honest I know that there times that selfishness has caused me to overlook my wife, to not protect her, cherish her and value her the way that Christ wants me to. (Illustration—Mark grabbing Manna’s arm). Men we must repent of that now. But women God isn’t asking you to let go of that control and submit yourself to your husbands love and protection alone—he is asking you to do it as an act of submitting to Him—To God. He is saying, “Trust me.” Let go of control.
Does that mean you put up with abuse in your relationship? No, you don’t. And I don’t know fully what this looks like, or how exactly we do this, but we as a Church are called by God to walk with you and help you remove yourself from this and get the help you need. Does this mean you allow your husband or wife to do whatever he or she wants? No, there are boundaries that you set up through prayer and godly counsel. And you actually enforce them. It’s not loving to set a boundary and then allow someone else to bust it over and over—that’s more of a temptation than a boundary.
Singles, Young men and young women, Teenagers, Kids… You, like Paul, are meant to pursue and display and live out the kingdom of God on this earth and show the world what a man or a woman, teenage young man or young women, or a young boy or girl who is fully pursuing God looks like.”
Marriages will one day end. (1 Cor. 7:39, Rom. 7:2, Matt. 22:30)
Verses Used:
Rev. 19:6-9 – Picture of the bigger image that marriage points to.
Questions:
- How are our lives and our marriages a dress rehearsal for something far greater?
- Is this a different or new view of marriage for you?
- How would this change your marriage/relationships?
- What does it look like to “secure your undivided devotion to the Lord” even in the midst of your current relational situation? Is it possible?
- What does it mean to be “joined to the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17)? How would the idea that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” change your sex life?
- What do we learn about God from all of this?
- What do we learn about ourselves?
- What do you need to do in light of all of this?