1. Please pray
with me. May the words of my mouth and
the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and
our Redeemer. Amen. Deborah and Carl, today is a day of celebration.
Today is a day of celebration of the love you have for each other. Today your
families and friends are joining you in this celebration in a very direct way. Today,
there already has been and will be hugging and kissing, crying and
well-wishing. There will be traditional ceremonies, gifts, photos, eating and
drinking, all in your honor. Later in life, all these people will still be
celebrating your love with you in a less obvious and direct way. Or will they?
Sure, they’ll still be interested in all the things that happen to you in your
life together, but will they be celebrating your love?
2. The answer is no. They won’t be celebrating your love.
They will be celebrating God’s love, which he’s given you by his grace
through faith in Jesus Christ as your only Savior. This is the love you two as
Christians are celebrating today and will be celebrating the remainder of your
lives together. With your life of love together as God’s redeemed and forgiven
children, you are living God’s love, you are sharing God’s love. And, when you live and share with each other
God’s gift of perfect, forgiving love, that love, His love, will help your
marriage last, for our God is the God of love and the author of all love.
3. Let’s read about that love of God from His Holy Word
in 1 Cor. 13:13: “So now faith, hope, and
love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Notice how this text talks of God’s love, not
your love. That may seem like a strange thing to say at this happy and excited
moment, but when this worship service is finished, your wedding is ended and
your marriage starts. When your marriage starts, you’ll have to rely on God’s
love, which brought you two together, more than ever before.
4. Carl & Deborah, if you expect your love for each
other to grow beyond the newborn state, you’ll have to rely entirely on God’s
love for you in Jesus Christ, found in his Word and Sacraments. If you expect
to love each other when the many problems of life regain your attention—after
the joy of today, after your honeymoon, after the newness of your relationship
has worn off—you’ll have to rely entirely on God’s love for you in Jesus
Christ, found in his Word and Sacraments.
5. If you expect to love each other as the two of you
continue to grow older and your hair becomes grayer you’ll have to rely
entirely on God’s love for you in Jesus Christ, found in his Word and
Sacraments. If you expect to love each other even as the years bring out the
less-than-perfect-realities that may not yet be obvious in the person you’re
marrying, you’ll have to rely entirely on God’s love for you in Jesus Christ,
found in his Word and Sacraments. If you expect to stay together in this world,
where many things could easily pull you apart, you must remember that it’s
God’s love that will keep you together.
6. God’s love is the love that sent his only Son, Jesus
Christ, true God and true man, to live a perfect life for us. Jesus died for us
on the cross of Calvary to destroy the power of all our sin, death, and the
devil. Jesus rose again three days later to proclaim his victory over death,
which gives us forgiveness of all our sins and obtains for us eternal salvation
in heaven. We have these blessings only through faith in Jesus as our Savior,
which the Holy Spirit works in us through God’s Word and Sacraments. We have
the sure hope of salvation because of the saving faith God gave us in his love
in Baptism. Therefore, our faith and hope are results of God’s great love for
us in Jesus Christ. That’s why God’s love is greater than faith and hope.
7. Because Jesus lives in your hearts, Carl and Deborah
you, by the power of his love, are able to forgive each other and love each
other in Christian love that seeks to understand, adapt, accept, sacrifice,
submit, communicate, share the good and the bad, trust, serve the other, place
the other first, be faithful, work together, encourage each other, and build
each other up emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Because Jesus lives in
your hearts, Carl and Deborah, you will still have God’s perfect love if your
emotional love wavers and erodes.
8. You see, your Christian marriage today is actually
between you two and God, not just you two alone. When the link between you two
is weakened, it can and will be strengthened and repaired because of the links
you two have with Jesus Christ through his love. Christ’s love will keep you
together. This is the love so great that God, “gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). This is the saving and caring love you live
in each day until your last day. This is your love. This is God’s love. Amen.
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