Family Matters Week 1: Building a “More Marriage”
Family Matters Week 1: Building a “More Marriage”
Genesis 1&2, Ephesians 5, Dt 6,
February 2nd, 2025
Family Matters is a series about “making more” of your family!
We are not all on our own! We have…
Jesus as the change agent; His life transforms our life.
The Bible which majors on foundations and fundamentals.
The Holy Spirit who gives power and wisdom for shaping and application.
The Church from whom to borrow, lend and link faith.
Quick fixes, short cuts and trick plays don’t win championships. Championships take “more” commitment to the fundamentals.
Marriage Championship Fundamental #1
Your spouse is an image bearer. You are an image builder.
Genesis 1:26,27 (NIV) Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 2:7 (NIV) Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
God’s creative breathe is profoundly more purposeful and deeply more personal than we could imagine.
The Image of God is a physical manifestation of divine (or royal) essence that bears the function of that which it represents; this gives the image bearer the capacity to reflect attributes of the one represented and act on his behalf.
Genesis 2:20b-25 (NIV) But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
When God breathed into Adam, He established both male and female with that one creative act. God didn’t need to breath twice – one breath was enough to fill her, shape her and cast her in His image, just like that one breath was enough to fill us, shape us and cast us in His image.
The Hebrew word for helper doesn’t translate apprentice or assistant. The same word used elsewhere in the OT is a reference to God and His connection to Israel as their strength, rescuer and partner.
Man and woman become one in marriage for the expressed purpose of subduing and ruling together. Men and women are shaped differently, think differently and carry different roles and yet carry equal value and purpose.
Championship Fundamental Application #1
Your spouse is an image bearer… treat them that way.
You are an image builder…serve them that way.
Q: If you carried this understanding at a championship level into your marriage, how would it elevate your words, actions and family trajectory?
Championship Fundamental #2
Mutual submission empowers “more” marriages.
Ephesians 5:21-33 (NIV) 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Mutual Submission out of reverence for Christ is mission critical to a “more” marriage. Mutual reverence for Christ imparts His supernatural and powerful ways over our natural and limiting weaknesses.
Mutual reverence for Christ elevates our understanding of mutual depravity and thus our mutual dependence on the grace of God.
Mutual reverence for Christ links our mutual trust in Christ.
Mutual reverence for Christ imparts a mutual empowering of the Holy Spirit.
2 Sets of Championship Level Submission Instructions
For the wife, her submission instruction is to respect her husband.
For the husband, his submission instruction is to love his wife.
Cherish actions are submission actions out of reverence for Christ and love for her.
Honoring actions are submission actions out of her reverence for Christ and respect for him.
Mutual submission in marriage means humbling myself to fulfill my spouses greatest need. Together we are “more” and our “more” is less susceptible to the fractures Satan wants to introduce and exploit.
Championship fundamental application #2
Cherish and honor one another out of reverence for Christ.
Q: If you carried this understanding at a championship level into your marriage, how would it elevate your words, actions and family trajectory?
Dating Life Championship Foundations
1. Don’t settle for anyone that isn’t in awe of the image of God in you.
2. Ensure the person shares your reverence for Jesus.
This is a football!
Recognize each other as Image Bearers.
Bear responsibility as Image Builders.
Revere Christ above Yourself.
Cherish your Wife.
Honor your Husband.
The beauty of Christ reverence is that it comes with Holy Spirit power.