You may be wondering why the gospel matters, so we thought we would share with you why we called this course "Marriage and the Gospel." Friend, there is no real hope for change outside of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can try harder, to be better, and make lots of commitments to 'never do or say that again.' We have lived in these endless and hopeless promises that never worked. We lived apart from the gospel’s power for years, yielding the same dead fruit with the same dead results year after year. But why were we so stuck, year after year, yielding the same dead results in our marriage? We can find the answer to this question in Matthew 15.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
Matthew 15:19 NIV
Question 1. Can you see from the passage above why we were yielding dead fruit in our marriage? Please share.
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If you’re thinking it was because of our evil hearts, you’re right! But it gets even worse than having evil welling up from our hearts and vomiting out of our mouths at each other. The Bible says that we have "hard hearts" (Jeremiah 17:9) and that we have evil coming out of them all the time (Genesis 6:5). And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does. What could be worse than having hard, evil hearts? Well, consider the following passage:
Ephesians 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.
So our marriage began with evil coming out of our hearts, our hearts being hard as stone, and we were proving that we were dead in our sins and trespasses by living a flat-lined marriage. And no amount of "shocking" the heart would help. We needed a miracle! So it should be crystal clear why our marriage was a complete disaster! Although we said we believed in God, he was a very small part of our lives (calling upon him only when we needed something) and therefore not part of our marriage. It wouldn’t be our words about God that would radically alter who we were, but our faith in God, believing that God would send Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 2:29). This gospel alone would change everything!
"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved." Ephesians 2:4-5
This is the "good news" of the gospel, which can take any dead marriage and make it alive again. Anyone who believes the message of this gospel, that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins and that he rose from the grave on the third day, will never be the same. What does this mean for your marriage and life? Well, if you believe in the message of the gospel, then many things have happened to you. Your life has been radically altered—who you are and how you act toward others. This is the key that unlocks the door to a loving and powerful marriage. So, do you believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Question 2. Do you believe that Jesus died to forgive all your sins and that he rose in victory over death on the third day? Please share.
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"For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:3-4