Designed For Connection | Designed for Relationship Week 2 | Pastor Andrew Cromwell

What is Marriage

1. Marriage is .

Ephesians 5:31-32 NIV
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a —but I am talking about Christ and the church.

2. Marriage is .

• The world calls marriage a .
• God calls marriage a .
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Matthew 19:5-6
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together,

Exodus 34: 6-7

The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generation. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected— even children in the third and fourth generations.”

When marriage is a , love is .
When marriage is , love is .

3. Marriage is

Sacrament: An outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.

The Many Graces of Marriage

• Marriage Delivers Sanctifying Grace
• Marriage Delivers Covenantal Security
• Marriage Delivers Embodied Forgiveness
• Marriage Delivers Self-Sacrificing Love

4. Marriage is .

“What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”

– Gary Thomas

Ephesians 5:25-28 NIV
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Ephesians 5:29 NIV
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.