As he approached his death, Peter announced in 2 Peter 1:12-18 his purpose of ensuring that Christians would always be able to recall the truths of the gospel.

After and because God has given Christians everything we need to live, we should make every effort to supply what our faith needs in order to grow (2 Peter 1:5-11).

Second Peter 1:1-4 contains the startling statements that Jesus is God, God has given Christians everything necessary for godly living, and we share in his divine nature.

According to Ephesians 6:1-4, children are to obey “in the Lord” and parents are to nurture children in the instruction “of the Lord.”  That is, the gospel is at the center of Spirit-filled family relationships.

Although some adults tried to keep children away from Jesus, he welcomed them in Mark 10:13-16 as models of how to enter the kingdom of God.

Psalms 127 and 128 beautifully describe God’s perspective on children, which we need to recover, not only for our own happiness but also for the well-being of the world.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul reminds us that life is full of transitions from one state to another, for example, from unmarried to married to widowed to remarried. Therefore, we need to hold everything lightly, knowing that only one thing remains.

According to Ephesians 5:25-33, Christ’s death not only revealed the meaning of marriage, but also calls husbands to follow Christ by laying down their lives for their wives each day.

After seeing the original pattern for marriage in the previous sermon, we now look at what went wrong in Genesis 3:16 and how Christ transforms marriage on the wife’s side in Ephesians 5:15-24. (Husbands next week!)

In order to understand marriage, we need to go back to the creation of the woman in Genesis 2:18-25.