“Remember, Forgive, & Forget” 1 Cor. 13, Dorsett & Anderson Wedding, Aug. ‘19

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Megan & Hansel, what a memorable day! A day long awaited. A day that took great planning and preparation. During this process, you both made an invitation list. A list of names—family members and friends—you wanted to attend this wedding to witness your vows to each other. You both wanted certain people here today. And you invited God to witness and bless this day. I commend you for inviting the right guest.  In an age when people get family members and friends to officiate their weddings, you chose to do your wedding with me as your Pastor, to go through the premarital counseling sessions.  You chose to do the hard things in preparing for your marriage and I commend you for it.  Today you will hear from God’s Word that marriage is God’s institution and you want to receive the blessing for marriage from the one who created it.  So, Son of Adam and Daughter of Eve, congratulations, you didn’t keep Jesus as your Savior off the list.

2.                Before we continue, turn and face each other. Hold each other’s hands and affirm your pledge of love in these words. Repeat after me. “I bind myself . . . to thee for life. . . . Having chosen as I pleased, . . . I will spend . . . the rest of my life . . . trying to please . . . the one I have chosen” (source unknown).

3.                Turn toward me. Megan & Hansel, you’ve as chosen as you pleased. You chose to date. You chose to become engaged. And now, on this day, you have chosen to marry. On this day you stand before your Savior, your family, and your friends to affirm this vow: “I will try to please the one I have chosen.”  I want to talk to you briefly about a successful marriage, a marriage that is God pleasing, a marriage based on three things—Remembering, Forgiving, & Forgetting.

4.                First, a successful marriage is based on remembering.  Hansel, as one man to another, there’s one date you must remember every year without fail and that’s the Anniversary of your Marriage, August 17^th, 2019. All kinds of things will help both of you remember this date—video, pictures, wedding album, the ring on your finger.

5.                Why is it so important to remember this date? Because it’s the day you stood before your God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, your Creator, your Redeemer, your Sanctifier, and pledged your love and faithfulness. It’s the day you publicly affirmed, “I have chosen you Megan, I have chosen you Hansel, to be my lifelong companion.” This date you invited God to witness your commitment to each other and to take an active part in your marriage. A successful marriage is based on remembering.

6.                But on this day, God would also have you begin to forget. The Scripture you chose for this day is 1 Corinthians 13. A portion of that chapter on Christian love reads, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:4–7).

7.                This portion of Scripture has some wonderful things to say about a successful marriage. I want to focus on the phrase “love . . . keeps no record of wrongs.” Love is not only about remembering, but also about forgetting—especially forgiving.

8.                Your marriage may be made in heaven, but it will be lived on earth. Because we’re sinful people by nature, there’s one thing we do really well—sin. And the reality is that we hurt those we love most. There will be times when you will be hurt by the other’s actions.  When you won’t just get hysterical at your spouse’s sins against you, but also historical. That hurt will tempt you to forget your wedding vows and remember the pain. 

9.                There is one individual who doesn’t want your marriage to succeed—the Devil. Jesus reminds us in John 8 that the Devil has been a murderer and a liar from the very beginning.  He’s going to try to murder your marriage.  The Devil is the enemy of every family, and he will try to destroy your marriage. How? By causing you to forget what you are supposed to remember, and causing you to remember what you are supposed to forgive and forget. How can you have a successful marriage? By centering your relationship in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul writes in Colossians 1:17, “In [Christ] all things hold together” (Col 1:17).

10.             Jesus your Savior has a relationship with each of you. His relationship is based on three things—remembering, forgiving, and forgetting. He remembers your needs, your concerns, your dreams. He hears your prayers. He promises he will never leave you. He remembers. But he also forgets. He forgives, and forgets your sin.  In Psalm 103:12 God says, “12 as far as the east is | from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” In Hebrews 8:12 the Lord God says, “¹²For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

11.              Jesus died for you on the cross and by that act declares that he keeps no record of your sins. When it comes to our sins, God has divine amnesia. Your Savior says today, “Megan & Hansel, because I have kept no record of your wrongs, you also should keep no record of wrongs with one another.”  Remember, that you are never more like God than when you are willing to forgive.

12.             It’s been said, “The key to a successful marriage is to keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half closed after.” During your life together, may your eyes be wide open and focused on the cross of Jesus Christ and closed to each other’s sins. Do these three things in your marriage—remember this day and your commitment to each other and the promises that you have made, forget each other’s faults and failures—forgive one another, for love keeps no record of wrongs. May God bless you with his love and forever dwell in your home.  Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.

“Living in the Truth of God’s Word” (Jeremiah 23.16–29), Proper 15, Aug. ‘19

1.      Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The message from God’s Word today is taken from Jeremiah 23:16-29.  It’s entitled, “Living in the Truth of God’s Word,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.      Have you ever had the feeling that you are living a lie? If so, you know it’s no way to live. As the old adage puts it, every time you tell a lie you have to tell still more “cover up” lies. Sooner or later it all gets out of control. We also get tired of it.  The Lord, who desires truth in the inward parts, has long since grown tired of it. God wants us to live in his truth. You can’t live a lie. Besides, the Lord has given us a tremendous truth in which to live.  You can’t live a lie. Yet we try. We should pay attention here not only to the lies we ourselves tell but also to the lies we get swept up in. 

3.      Hans Christian Andersen wrote a celebrated story called “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” In it, two tailors make an emperor a set of clothes that can be seen by no one who is incompetent or stupid. The emperor is surprised that he can’t see the clothes himself, but of course he won’t admit it for fear of being thought stupid. No one else can see the clothes, either, for the tailors are nothing but swindlers. They haven’t made a thing. There really are no new clothes, but no one wants to say anything. Everyone gets swept up in this lie, and so they tell their own lies about seeing the clothes. Finally, it takes a child to point out that the emperor has no clothes. 

4.      Have you ever been in a situation like that? The kingdom of Judah was in such a fix. Young King Josiah had cleaned the idolatry out of the temple. It came as a surprise to the people when he died in battle against the Egyptians. Then the Egyptians deposed one of Josiah’s sons from being king and put another son of Josiah on the throne. Judah proved vulnerable. At this time, people started thinking about that temple Josiah had cleaned out. They were taking far too much comfort in it. They thought that the presence of this temple would save them. This was a great lie, yet many people got swept up in it. False prophets happily confirmed the fiction. Still, it remained just that: a fiction. In the text, the Lord was assuring his people that he had not sent the various prophets of false comfort. He had sent Jeremiah. In effect, the role in which God had cast Jeremiah was in some ways like that of the child who said the emperor had no clothes. All the lies to the side, the temple itself would not and could not save Jerusalem. 

5.      To this day, people get swept up in lies. One way is through diversion. Observers from the 17^th century philosopher Blaise Pascal to the 20^th century filmmaker Woody Allen have noted how responsibilities and duties get crammed into human lives. You might think these heavy burdens would make people unhappy. However, we find them a source of happiness, or at least of diversion. Woody Allen had one of his film characters say that people are “constantly creating these real neurotic problems for themselves ’cause it keeps them from dealing with the more unsolvable, terrifying problems of the universe.” With enough diversion, we might not even have to think about God.1 Quoted in Thomas V. Morris, Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 32.

6.      A related lie in which many get swept up today is the postmodern claim that no one can know absolute truth about anything, certainly not about God. This kind of thinking appeals to sinners, for it enables us to dilute God’s law. If my conscience bothers me, so what? If I can’t know the truth about God, then I can easily conclude that my bad feelings result from running behind on my quota of self-esteem any given day. Flirting with this lie can turn into blatant idolatry, a way for us to try to be God and to fashion the world the way we would like it to be. 

7.      The truth catches up to us, in any case. You can’t live a lie. In fact, lies kill. Jesus warned that from the beginning the devil has been both a “liar” and a “murderer.” This combination of terms is no accident. We all know that in everyday affairs it makes a huge difference—a life-and-death difference—whether or not the gun is really loaded, whether or not the brakes really work, whether or not you really have an infection. The Lord was giving his people a dose of reality therapy through Jeremiah. It came not only in the things God gave his prophet to say but also through the things he had Jeremiah do. Jeremiah ruined a linen belt to show the ruin coming upon Judah. He smashed a clay jar to show the way God would smash the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. The prophet wore a yoke around the city to show Judah under the control of Babylon. All of these efforts seemed to go to no avail. People preferred to believe the lies.  Lies kill. In their lying, people can even try to kill one who tells the truth. So, Jeremiah was placed on trial for his very life. And so at length Jesus was tried, condemned, and crucified. Yet the truth catches up to everyone eventually. We cannot live a lie. 

8.      In his autobiography, Booker T. Washington related a story about a teacher who went from village to village after the Civil War. Someone asked him whether he taught that the earth was round or flat. He said he could do either one, depending on the preference of the people in the town where he was.2 What a shame! The shame is that you cannot live a lie. Sooner or later the truth about the roundness of the earth would catch up to people. Still more, though, this man was missing an opportunity to teach the truth. For there is a great truth in which we can live. So it is for the shape of the earth, and it is even more so for our shape before God.2 Concordia Pulpit Resources 14 (Pentecost 15–Last Sunday in Church Year, 2004): 6. 

9.      For the Lord gives us a tremendous truth in which to live. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” said Christ (John 14:6). By him we have full access to the Father. Christ came not only to tell us true things, but even more to bring the most important truth of all into the world. He embodies that truth.  Jesus didn’t merely talk about going to the cross. He went. In him “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14). In Christ, God has redeemed you, called you by name. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This means you! And “if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received reconciliation” (Romans 5:10–11). Yes, we rejoice. We take the truth of this great good news on our own lips and speak it. 

10.   Because of Christ, our lying can cease. We can quit trying to defend ourselves against the truth and face it because we know that ultimately the truth is on our side. The Lord wants us to believe the truth he has given, the truth of a Savior who loved us and gave himself for us and of a risen Lord who lives and rules over all. He tells us, as truly as he rose from the dead, that our sins which were once as scarlet are now as white as snow. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we believe this tremendous truth. God has given us this truth and the faith to live in it.

11.   Similarly, God gave to Jeremiah. When he called Jeremiah to be a prophet, he said he had chosen Jeremiah before forming him in the womb. He put his words in Jeremiah’s mouth. Jeremiah was to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, including himself. Jeremiah’s call as a prophet was as much a gift from God as his own salvation was a gift from God.  Living in the truth also comes as God’s gift to us. He gives it in his Word. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,” Jesus said, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).  Notice that last word. It is “free”—not “easy.”

12.   As Jeremiah learned from experience, in this sinful world living in the truth can put you in some pretty difficult and conflicted situations. Much more than we can perhaps imagine, Jeremiah stood alone against the crowd. He said things that were enormously unpopular. He even got folks to hate him. At times he complained to the Lord. Yet this prophet could never refrain from speaking God’s Word. He said: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). The powerful Word had to come out. Jeremiah likened it to a fire and a hammer, which can be destructive but can also be quite constructive. Living in the Lord’s truth is the only way to live, for only it offers the mercy and power of God to the human heart.

13.   You can’t live a lie. In fact, it’s pathetic to see people trying to eke out an existence trying to be tentative about everything because they have been burned by so many lies. That reminds me of an 18^th century explorer who arrived at the Mississippi River in winter. The river was frozen well enough at water’s edge, all right, but how solid was the ice in the middle? The explorer started across. Pretty soon he got down on his hands and knees, moving very slowly and distributing his weight just in case the ice turned thin. It looked like it was going to take him a couple of hours to cross the river this way. By the halfway point his hands and knees began to bleed. Then he heard a sound. Looking up, he saw a man who was driving a four-horse wagon full of coal, roaring right across the river. The driver had been that way before. He knew the ice was thick enough to hold him and his load. Red-faced with embarrassment, the explorer stood up and walked across the rest of the way. From Guido Merkens, Breakthrough for You: Practice Spiritual Principals [sic] to Lift You to a New Level of Living (N.p., 2001), 172–73. 

14.   Stand up. Stand on God’s truth in Christ. It’s much more solid than you may have thought. Live in God’s truth in Christ. It’s far more forgiving than you might have dreamed. Lift up your head. Your redemption is drawing near.  Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.