Jul. 02, 2023

Marital Chaos

Confronting the Chaos Series 

July 1 & 2, 2023

Primary Text: Ephesians 5:22-33 

Last Teaching: Personal Chaos

1)  Who Am I? 

Psalm 139:13-14:  For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.

DQ 1)  How does the modern world define “self”?  In other words, what does the world say are the determinants of who and what we are?

DQ 2)  What unique characteristics does God specifically give to each person?

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2)  Predestined

Romans 8:28-30:  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 

DQ 3)  What does it mean to be “conformed to the likeness” of Christ?

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3)  Advanced Preparation

Ephesians 2:10:  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 

DQ 4)  What are “good works” that have eternal value?

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This Week’s Teaching: 

1)  Husband & Wife

Genesis 2:24-25:  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.  The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. 

Genesis 3:6:  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.  She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

DQ 1)  Define marriage.

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2)  Submission & Sacrifice

Genesis 3:16-17:  To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."  To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.”

Ephesians 5:22-28:  Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.

DQ 3)  Why should every human being learn “submission”?

DQ 4)  What do submission and sacrifice look like in a healthy marriage?

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3)  A Great Mystery 

Ephesians 5:29-33:  After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of his body.  "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."  This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church.  However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. 

DQ 6)  What are the mysteries of marriage?

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