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 17th,
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.
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