Building a Marriage with a Mission

Building a Marriage with a Mission Week 2 – Roles, Expectations, and Intimacy in Marriage

This week… • What are the Expectations for Marriage • What is True Intimacy • What are Biblical Roles in our Marriages

Expectations for Marriage

What does the Bible say? Ephesians 5:23-32(ESV) • 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Expectations (MEN) • Love your wives like Christ loves the church • “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” 1 Corinthians 11:3 • “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church.” 5:25 • "Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them" Col 3:19

Expectations (WOMEN) • Love your husbands like Christ loves the church • “Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” Eph. 5:23 • “Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”Ephesians 5:24 • “and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Titus 2:4-5

Intimacy… • Intimacy in Marriage • We must define Intimacy…(it is not sex) • Dennis Rainey of Family Life Today: Intimacy means taking the risk to be close to someone and allowing that someone to step inside your personal boundaries. • God made us with the ability to have intimacy • As God is intimate with Himself, we can be intimate with each other • Trinity… • Marriage…

…Intimacy • What hurts our intimacy with God…is the same thing that hurts our intimacy with our spouse. • Sin • Confusion of what marriage is • Role flipping

Roles • In life, we all have roles… • Work • School • Starbucks • Church • Marriage • There are competing views on the roles that men and women play in marriage and in the home. • Complementarianism & Egalitarianism

…Roles • Complementarianism is the viewpoint that God restricts women from leading spiritually in the home and instead calls women to serve in equally important, but complementary roles. • Egalitarianism is the viewpoint that there are no biblical gender-based restrictions spiritual leading in the home or in the church.

…Roles • Complementarianism: Compliment one another in our marriage. • One leader, but both are equally important. • Egalitarianism: Equal • Two leaders

…Roles Egalitarianism • Essentially makes its case based on Galatians 3:28. In that verse Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

…Roles • The egalitarian view argues that in Christ the gender distinctions that characterized fallen relationships have been removed. However, is this how Galatians 3:28 should be understood?

…Roles • Galatians 3:28 fits into Paul’s argument that all who are in Christ are Abraham’s offspring by faith and heirs to the promise (Galatians 3:29). • The context of this passage makes it clear Paul is referring to salvation, not roles in the church. • In other words, salvation is given freely to all without respect to external factors such as ethnicity, economic status, or gender.

…Roles • Men and women are equally valued in God's sight and plan. • Women are not inferior to men. Rather, God assigns different roles to men and women in the church and the home because that is how He designed us to function. • The truth of differentiation and equality can be seen in the functional hierarchy within the Trinity (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:3).

…Roles • The Son submits to the Father and the Holy Spirit submits to the Father and the Son. This functional submission does not imply an equivalent inferiority of essence; all three Persons are equally God, but they differ in their function. • Likewise, men and women are equally human beings and equally share the image of God, but they have God-ordained roles and functions that mirror the functional hierarchy within the Trinity.

…Roles • Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons and distinct in their manhood and womanhood. • Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order, and should find an echo in every human heart. • Adam’s headship in marriage was established by God before the fall, and was not a result of sin.

…Roles “Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-toungued sarcasm. Instead, bless-that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing…” 1 Peter 3:8-12 (The Message)

Building a Marriage with a Mission