I will occasionally post old wedding homilies on the blog.This one is from my son's wedding in September, 2022.
John and Madison — it is a great honor to do your wedding service today. John, it has been a great pleasure for your mother and I to raise you and we could not be more proud of you. Madison, we have been thrilled to get to know you and we are so thankful that God has brought you and John together. Proverbs says the godly man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord — and that is certainly true in John’s case. Madison, you are God’s gift to John. Proverbs 31 asks, "An excellent wife who can find?" But John has found one, and for that we all give thanks.
John and Madison, all your friends and family are gathered here today because we love you and want to celebrate this day with you. Your parents, pastors, teachers, and many others have poured into you, to prepare you for this day. Anyone who has seen the two of you together has no doubt that you were made for each other and that you’re ready to marry. Your friends and family would all say that your love for God and for his truth and for his Word are all evident. You have each trusted Christ, and you have each been seeking for many years now to build your life on the foundation of Christ. Today you come together to commit to building your household — that is, your new life together as a married couple — on the foundation of Christ as well. Today is a groundbreaking, as from this day forward, a new house is being built. In marriage, storms are sure to come; your house is sure to be tested. Some storms will be quickly passing thunderstorms, others will be hurricanes (that’s why the vows say "for better or for worse”) — but your marriage will endure them because you are building on the rock that is Christ. I am confident in the future of your marriage because you both know the True Builder, the Lord himself, and you trust him to be the Designer and Constructor of your house.
Let’s talk about this house that is being built: As God joins you together as husband and wife, he’s forming a new covenant household. He’s forming you into a little kingdom — John you’re the king, Madison you’re the queen, and perhaps one day little princes and princesses will join you. The mission of your household, the mission of your kingdom, will be to advance God‘s kingdom and build God's house, as you build your own house.
See, your marriage is much bigger than just the two of you. God wants to use your relationship to bless the world, to change the world. It’s not merely that the two of you are better together than apart — it's that the world will be a better place because you are together. The point is not just to build a life together but to build God's kingdom through your life together.
This marriage is for your good and for God's glory. God wants to use you in each others life to strengthen and sanctify you. Marriage has special power in our lives. Marriage is a very special kind of companionship. It’s interesting that in the Genesis creation account that we read, the creation of the man is given one verse, while the creation of the woman is given several verses. It is not just that it takes women longer to get ready (though there is evidence of that!!); it is that the man needs to learn something about himself — he needs to learn it is not good for man to be alone. The man needs a helper so he can fulfill the mission God has given to him; he can’t build his house on his own. He needs someone to walk with him through life's struggles and triumphs, someone with whom to share his pain and to multiply his joy, someone who can join him in this work of building a house to the glory of God, someone who can join him in the mission of building God's kingdom.
Marriage is God's answer to the one thing that was not good in the beginning, namely, Adam's aloneness. There really is something glorious and beautiful about a man and a woman meeting, falling in love, marrying, and then building a house together, building a family together, building a life together. Marriage is designed to meet many of our deepest longings. Charles Spurgeon once said "it should be the husbands pleasure to please his wife and the wife’s care to care for her husband,” and that’s exactly right. When husband and wife bless each other they bless the world. You fulfill the purpose for which God created you.
John and Madison, if you build your house according to God’s blueprint and design, you will look back on this day and remember it as the start of something incredibly special. And, so Lord willing, on September 24, 2072 you can celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary and you’ll be more in love with each other then than you are today.
John and Madison, there’s not anything I can tell you today that you don’t already know but I trust the Holy Spirit is sealing these words in your heart right now. To close my charge to you, I want to give you two keys to a happy and faithful marriage: the creational key and redemptive key — a key that comes from creation and a key that comes from redemption. If you want your house to withstand the storms to come, if you want your house to thrive, these keys will help.
First, the creation key. God made the man and the woman different from one another, so they can complement one another. That should be obvious. It’s right there in Genesis. It's all over the place in the Scripture. It's obvious from the world all around us. In Genesis 2,we see that the man and woman will have different natures, different roles to play. The man is given the job of guarding and cultivating the garden before the woman is even created. He is to guard and cultivate the garden, which means he is to protect and provide; that’s his mission. She is created to be his companion and helper. Obviously, then, the husband and wife have different roles to play. These roles are suited to how God made them. And the differences in how he made us are designed to draw us together. Masculinity is different from femininity, and the masculine and feminine are drawn to one another, they need one another, they are attracted to one another. It’s actually this polarity that drives attraction -- it’s our differences that draw us together and bind us together as a man and woman. In a healthy marriage these differences are appreciated — and these differences create the spark, the fireworks, the chemistry between the two of you. In a fallen world the differences between man and woman can become a source of frustration because masculinity and femininity are impacted by sin, but you need to continually remember God's design -- God made you different from one another for a reason. Delight in the created differences.
One of the most interesting things about Ephesians 5 is that God gives different commands to the husband and to the wife. The verbs given to the husband include love, sacrifice, and cherish. The verbs given to the wife include obey, submit, and respect. God gives each spouse commands that will meet the needs of the other. If God commands the man to cherish his wife that’s because his wife needs cherishing. Women are empowered by the love of their husbands. A man is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. He represents Christ in how he loves her. His job description derives from Christ's example. Interestingly, the woman is NOT commanded to love her husband. Now, Madison it’s OK if you want to love John, that’s fine, I won’t say it’s not allowed (see Titus 2). But you’re not commanded to love your husband; you’re commanded to respect your husband. Respect and love are not identical -- which indicates a man's needs are not identical to a woman's. What is respect? What does it mean to respect a husband? It has to do with admiring him, it has to do with how you speak about him when he’s there and even when he’s not there, it has to do with appreciating and thanking him for the ways he protects and provides. I've heard it put this way: It’s like men run on diesel and women run on gasoline (we need to use these kind of analogies while we still can, before combustion engines are outlawed!). A woman who respects her husband enables him to fulfill his mission in life — his wife’s respect empowers him. Likewise, a woman wants more than anything to feel loved and cherished by her husband — she draws her strength from the sacrifices he makes for her, from feeling cared for by him. God commands the man to give what the woman needs, and he commands the woman to give what the man needs. That's the wisdom of God. That's the creation key.
Then second, there is the redemptive key. This is God‘s redemptive and transforming grace at work in our lives. God’s grace given to us enables us to show grace to each other. God forgives us our sins and that enables a husband and wife too forgive one another. This grace is like oil in the engine; it keeps the friction from building up and the marriage melting down. This grace frees you from having to keep score, from competing with one another to see who does more in the relationship, from trying to take more than you give. This grace is just the gospel applied to your relationship. Your marriage should not only symbolize the gospel (the Christ/church relationship), it needs to be shaped by the gospel in your every day interactions. This grace enables you to serve and bless one another in good times and bad. This grace frees you to really love one another. John and Madison, today you’re going to make promises that you cannot fulfill in your own strength. You can only keep these promises as God‘s grace enables you. God’s grace enable your to forgive and to bear fruit, and that makes your marriage work. Grace is the ties that binds.
That’s it, John and Madison: You need to have the creational key to your marriage because without it without that polarity, without recognizing and appreciating the differences between you, there’s no romance in the marriage and you become like roommates. Headship and submission are romantic necessities.
But you also need the redemptive key, the transforming grace of God. Without God‘s redemptive grace at work in your life there can be no peace. The marriage becomes a constant power struggle, a contest, a rivalry with a winner and a loser. In reality you will win together or lose together. The way to win together to is to rely on God's grace continually.
But you also need the redemptive key, the transforming grace of God. Without God‘s redemptive grace at work in your life there can be no peace. The marriage becomes a constant power struggle, a contest, a rivalry with a winner and a loser. In reality you will win together or lose together. The way to win together to is to rely on God's grace continually.
John and Madison, today the work of building your house together begins. God is the ultimate Builder, but he will use your efforts to build your household into a glorious house filled with happiness and holiness. Build according to God’s design and build on the rock that is Christ.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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