FUEL: Refuel your Marriage
Galatians 5:16-26
Connect:
Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.
Discuss how resolutions made last week in “growing more like Jesus” worked themselves out— what did God do in and through you (Phil 2:13)? Celebrate those together!
Prayer:
Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.
Review:
Remind the group of the focus of this series:
o This series looks at what Scripture says about health in various areas of our lives— places where the truth and grace of God can shine through and sustain us as well as those around us.
o Last few weeks, we looked at refueling in friendships, stress, failure, leadership and future
o this week, we looked at refueling in the area of our Marriage!
The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…
o What did you learn about God?
o What did you learn about people?
o What did you learn about yourself?
o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?
Reflect:
Ask someone to share about a conflict they went through in their marriage/ a relationships that now seems so small (looking back), but the focus of conflict made it seem ENORMOUS!
What are some myths about conflict that you believe(d)— where did that take you when it comes to conflict— what normally happens?
Conflict is BAD
Conflict occurs when one is RIGHT and the other WRONG
Conflict should be ABSENT from GOOD marriages/relationships
Conflict is to be AVOIDED to keep PEACE
Differences are God-given! Read Romans 12:4-6. Discuss the passage:
o Why don’t the different parts of the body fight each other? What would happen if they did?
o Why do differences cause us conflict?
o Paul wrote that “…Each part BELONGS to all the others…” What does that mean in the context of a human body? …in a marriage?
Expectations before marriage can become frustrations after saying “I do.”! Read James 4:1-2. Discuss the passage…
o It sounds like James is saying that the conflict first begins inside ourselves! What did he mean by our desires “battle within us”? Compare the nature of that relationship to what Paul describes in Ephesians 5:21-28. Why would that end differently?
o Frustrated desires seem to lead us to a quarrel, fight, even a kill! Why do we feel we have the right to trample on others’ when our own existence/ambitions/desires feel threatened? Compare that to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:1-12, 38-42. Why would that end differently?
o What is your default “mode” when facing a conflict?
Withdraw into self
Win at all costs
Avoid all together
Compromise to continue
Resolve and reboot?
Resolution takes vision, and vision is fulfilled step by step, choice by choice, life on life. Read and discuss the following Scriptures:
o Read Ephesians 4:2-3. How does “unity in the spirit” and “bond of peace” create both a goal and guard rails to “Bearing with one another?
o Read James 1:19: What does it require of an angry person for them to Listen? How does that change the way conflict works?
o Read Colossians 3:13. What does this verse tell us about the reason to forgive? Is there any relationship at all between that reason and the “desires that battle within us”?
o Read Galatians 5:16-26. This passage essentially says that our destiny is a product of what drives us— gratifying our sinful nature or living by the Spirit. What does it mean to “live by the Spirit”?
Marriages CAN grow MORE healthy over time— when we allow God’s Holy Spirit to work in our OWN hearts, everything changes because the source of conflict in the marriage becomes a source of confidence!
Respond:
o Get into groups of guys and girls. Share your aspirations for a marriage that honors God as the Holy Spirit brings life to your marriages. Pray for each other to nurture that commitment within your marriages.
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