Sermon Notes

Intimate Relationships According to God:
Marriage NOT According to "Everyone Loves Raymond"

September 27, 2009 – Gary and Gloria Merritt

Ephesians 5:22-33 (English Standard Version)

Wives and Husbands

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Message in Summary:

Faithfulness:

1) God is faithful to His ______________ and when we demonstrate ________________ to His Word, we will see ______________ in our relationships.

2) God calls us to faithfulness in the area of ___________ with our spouse. We should ______________ that area with whatever ways we need to, staying ________________ to our spouse and his/her needs.

3) Husbands need unconditional ___________from their wives. Wives need unconditional ____________ from their husbands.

4) God calls us to faithfulness in our _____________. He _________ His faithfulness to us when we take a _________ of faith in ________________.