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Passage: Mark 10:1-12

Title: Marriage

Theme: Jesus points to the wonder of God’s plan of love in marriage and warns about hard hearts.

This passage is not all about divorce. In the middle, Jesus speaks about the wonder of marriage. Consider the depth of meaning of “the two will become one flesh” and what that looks like for husbands and wives.

Engage

Marriage

1. The danger of being hard hearted

1 Corinthians 13

A Person of Love:

• Is patient

• Is kind

• Rejoices with the truth

• Always protects 

• Always trusts

• Always hopes

• Always perseveres

• Love never fails

A Hard Hearted Person:

• Envies  

• Boasts 

• Is Proud

• Is Rude

• Is Self-seeking

• Is Easily angered

• Keeps record of wrongs 

• Delights in evil 

2. Marriage is a picture of Jesus and the church, so we need to apply Jesus’ teaching to our marriages:

• Failure without prayer

• Servant and last of all

• Causing others to sin

• Cutting out our sin

• Asking the right questions

3. Two become one

Extend

Stephen pointed out in his introduction that there a 3 reason why it is important that disciples take seriously this teaching of Jesus.

• Marriage is about love and commitment so there are general principles that are relevant to us all, as we are called the love God, the world and one another.

• The Pharisees were seeking to use Jesus’ view of marriage against him, similar is true today, many non Christians are seeking to use the Biblical view of marriage to damage the church.

• The Pharisees mangled the teaching of God to lessen the bond of marriage so that divorce could happen for any reason, now we see the government seeking to introduce no fault divorces which will further dilute the commitment within marriages.

What do you think about these statements and what should the disciples response be?

In verse 5, Jesus points to the problem of hard hearts. Above we see a list from 1 Corinthians 13 describing ‘a person of love’ and a ‘hard hearted person’. Carefully and prayerfully go through these lists, how does each help or damage a marriage or church family.

Stephen mentioned that a sign of a hardening heart is negativity, how can we take steps to be positive?

Think of some of the teachings of Jesus so far in Mark, how can the application of them help our marriages?

Think about these two statements from Francis Chan’s book, ‘You and Me Forever, Marriage in the light of Eternity’.

“Draw close to God and let your marriage be the overflow of that. When things are right with God, your marriage can actually become what it was designed to be.”

“Many people will tell you to focus on your marriage, to focus on each other; but we discovered that focusing on God’s mission made our marriage amazing.”

Vision

As you finish, think through this passage, how can it help you to become more like Jesus and introduce others to him.