Wedding sermon for Kaleb and Lilianna Schnurr

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13

Sermon Theme: God’s Love Will Keep You Together

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in this day. Lilianna and Kaleb, today is a day to celebrate the love you have for each other. Today your families and friends will join you in celebrating. There will be hugging and kissing, jokes, and words of encouragement. There will be gifts, pictures, a wedding reception in Hartley, all in your honor.

The last verse of 1 Corinthians 13 in the Bible tells us: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). This verse talks of God’s love, not your love. That may seem like a strange thing to say at this time, but when this worship service is finished, the very second the service is finished, your wedding is ended and your marriage as husband and wife starts. As your marriage continues, you will have to rely on God’s love, which brought you two together, more than ever before. Disagreements will be come your way from time to time. Sometimes Lilianna will get her way. Sometimes Kaleb will get his way. Sometimes Otto will get his way.

If you ever expect your love for each other to grow stronger in the years ahead, you will have to rely entirely on God’s love for you in Jesus Christ, found in his Holy Word, the Bible. If you expect to love each other when the many problems of life pile up—after the good feelings of today—you will have to rely entirely on God’s love for you in Jesus Christ, recorded in his Holy Word.

If you expect to love each other when Otto wants more of your attention and life is a struggle, you will have to rely entirely on God’s love for you in Jesus Christ, found in his Holy Word. If you expect to love each other even as the years bring out bad habits that can be frustrating, you will have to rely entirely on God’s love for you in Jesus Christ, found in his Holy Word. If you expect to stay together in this world, where many things will try to pull you apart, you must remember that God’s love is the love that will keep you together.

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 and wrongdoing and death and the devil over us. Jesus rose again three days later to proclaim His victory, which gives us forgiveness of all our sins and wrongs and has won for us everlasting 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 Holy Word. 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 is why God’s love is greater than faith and hope.

Because Jesus loves you both so much, Lilianna and Kaleb, you, by the power of his love, are able to forgive each other and love each other in Christian love that seeks to understand, sacrifice, and communicate, share the good and the bad, trust, serve each other, be faithful, work together, encourage each other, and build each other up emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Because Jesus lives in your hearts, Lilianna and Kaleb, you will still have God’s perfect love if your feelings for each other at times might change.

You see, your Christian marriage today is a three-way marriage between you two and God, not just you two alone. When the link between you two is weakened, that weakness can and will be strengthened and repaired because of the links you two have with Jesus Christ through His love. Love will keep you together. Love will guide your life and enrich your life, but this will be God’s love that does this. This is the love so great that God, “gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 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.

God’s love will help you both to keep on loving each another. As 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13 reminds all of us here today: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. … So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” God's love is like the bond of a strong glue, holding us close to Him and to each other, even in the face of life's greatest challenges. In other words, God’s love will keep you together. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.