An Unwanted Gift
Mark 10:1-4

Marriage is a GIFT FROM GOD

If marriage is supposed to be a gift from God, why does it sometimes feel like a gift I'd rather return?

What is God’s desire & design for people?

To experience a level of intimacy in human relationships that is BEST EXPRESSED through the marriage of a man & a woman FOR A LIFETIME.

Single: prepare for marriage
(God’s PERSPECTIVE)

Married: improve your marriage
(God’s PRESCRIPTION)

Single again: learn to do life God’s way
(God’s PATH)

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

Mark 10:3-9

“What if God designed marriage to make us HOLY more than to make us HAPPY?”

~ Gary Thomas

Marriage is intended by God to be a lifelong, beautiful picture of GOD’S IDEAL RELATIONSHIP with us.

1.COMPANIONSHIP

“It is not good for the man to be ALONE…” Genesis 2:18

2. PLEASURE

“If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war… For one year he is to be free to stay at home and BRING HAPPINESS to the wife he has married.”
Deuteronomy 24:5

“…may you REJOICE in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breasts SATISFY you always, may you ever be CAPTIVATED by her love.”
Proverbs 5:18-19

WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MARRIAGE AS “INTOXICATING”?

The challenge is not to keep on loving the person we thought we were marrying, but to love the person we did marry.”

*Gary Thomas article

Why would God hold such an extreme view of marriage?
HE LOVES US.

3. HOLINESS

Ephesians 5:25-27

“A statement on divorce and remarriage in the life of Bethlehem Baptist Church”

“Divorce and Remarriage: a position paper” (John Piper)

DESIRINGGOD.ORG

What does it take to experience the beauty God intended in marriage?
HUMILITY
HARD WORK
EXTREME FAITH

God will use your spouse’s unholiness, to expose your own unholiness
and refine you both toward greater holiness.

MY LIFE IS A GARDEN.

I AM A FARMER.

What’s your farming STYLE?

Next steps:

- Consider how I arrived at my view on marriage.

- Dig deeper by pursuing one of the resources mentioned today.

- Initiate a humble conversation with my spouse, admitting an area of hardness in my own heart.

- Ask God to show me how He intends to grow me in holiness through my marriage.

- Ask God to give me a marriage that is intoxicating, and for the humility and faith to get there.