Jennifer and Jerry Wedding Ceremony

GIVING AWAY THE BRIDE

Doubly blessed is the couple who comes to the marriage altar with the approval and blessings of their families and friends. Who has the honor of presenting this woman to be married to this man?

INTRODUCTION

We are gathered here in the sight of God and these witnesses to unite Jennifer and Jerry in holy matrimony. As followers of Jesus Christ, they believe that God created marriage. In the Book of Genesis, after God viewed all of creation, declaring it good, He observed that something was not good. What could possible be “not good” about the world God created? God explained, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” And so, God took a rib from Adam’s side and created woman, whom he named Eve. The two became perfect companions for each other. God continued to explain that this is why “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

Jennifer and Jerry, today, you will be making a covenant, declared through vows, that you are becoming one flesh. Take these vows prayerfully, for as you make them you are making an exclusive commitment one to the other for as long as you both shall live.  Your love for each other should never be weakened by difficult circumstances, and it is to endure until death parts you. As God's children, your marriage is strengthened by your obedience to God and His Word. As you give God control of your lives and your marriage, He will create your home as a place of joy and a testimony to the world.

Jerry and Jennifer, your church family is present with you today, excited to share this holy moment with you. Our presence is also a testimony that we stand with you as you grow in your love for each other and for Jesus.

Isaiah 43:18–19 has become a special Scripture in our church family, reminding us that God is always at work bringing newness to our lives. Listen to what God is saying to us:

“Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”

For more than a year, we have been asking God to do new things in our church family. I believe that this wedding is one of the new things God is doing in our church family. He has added you both to our family, and now He is doing something new in your life. As a church family, we rejoice with each other. So we are rejoicing with you today. As God is doing something new in your life, He is also doing something new in ours.

Jerry and Jennifer, please pay attention to what God is saying:

Don’t linger in the past. It’s behind you now.

Pay attention to what God is doing now, and look forward to the new God will bring in your lives from this day forward.

Take note that God is honest and real with us: there are challenges ahead. God calls them a wilderness and a desert. But God has promised to be with you, making a way in the wilderness challenges and creating a stream of living water in your desert experiences.

OPENING PRAYER

Join with me in prayer.

Our Father, love has been your richest and greatest gift to the world. Love between a man and woman which matures into marriage is one of your most beautiful types of loves. Today we celebrate that love. May your blessing be on this wedding service. Protect, guide, and bless Jennifer and Jerry in their marriage. Surround them and us with your love now and always. Amen.

Scripture Reading:

Ephesians 3:14–19 “For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

MESSAGE 

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church reflects what is promised in John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.”

For God so loved, He gave. For God so loved, He self-sacrificed. For God so loved, there was a bloody cross on behalf of guilty sinners. For God so loved, He gives the gift of eternal life to all who trust in Jesus.

The Bible describes the Son, Jesus, as the groom, and the church is described as His bride. The Son expresses His love for His bride in self-sacrifice—absolute self-sacrifice, self-sacrifice to the uttermost, love that knows no end, love that goes to a cross and is resurrected. The church expresses her love to the One that gives everything for her. The bride joyfully submits to her loving head, acknowledging him as her leader and following gladly where He leads. This is what every Christian marriage must reflect to all the world.

Jerry, this is your bride. You are to love her to the point of absolute self-sacrifice. Your love is to know no end. You are her provider and her protector. She should be able to sleep with a sense of peace that God has given her a provider and protector.

And Jennifer, this is your husband. No one has forced you to be here. You are to joyfully submit to him, to trust him, to follow his leadership. You are making a choice today that Jerry will be your provider, that he will be your protector and you are to love him through submitting to his leadership, supporting him, caring for him, and by being the companion that God has provided him.

As you stand here together, listen and heed the words of God in Ephesians 5:22–32 “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

The marriage between a man and a woman is to be living testimony of the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and his chosen people, his bride, whom he purchased with His own blood. The bride of Christ was specially chosen by the Father from sinful humanity for the Son. His love for her knows absolutely no end. Therefore to be unfaithful to this marriage covenant will not just bring shame upon you personally and lead to negative consequences in your life, to be unfaithful to this marriage covenant will be to lie to the world about Christ and His church. It would be as if saying that Christ is not a faithful husband, does not keep His promises, and that the church does not trust Christ. To walk away from this marriage covenant would be to trample the cross of Christ under your feet.

Jerry and Jennifer, your marriage exists because of the gospel, and it must be built upon the gospel. Your marriage is not to say to the world, “Look at a perfect couple.” But your marriage is to say to the world, “Look at two people who are sinners and are needy of grace, who have found that grace in Jesus Christ.” He is our Lord. He is our Savior. He is our only hope now and forever. He is the great promise keeper and his promises will all be fulfilled.

When you experience life together with all of you weaknesses and your struggles, may you remember that each one of you are needy of grace and may you, in response, show grace to each another. The difficulties you will face in marriage are no reason to walk away. The more difficult it gets, the more opportunity you have to show love. Remember that Christ died for the ungodly, and the commitment that you make here today is regardless of whether the other person holds up to their end of the commitment.

Jennifer and Jerry; be content with what you have. I want you to know that through all your weaknesses, Jesus Christ is perfectly content with you. Be content with one another. Jerry and Jennifer, do not forsake one another. The Lord Jesus Christ will never forsake you. 

Finally let me remind you that in choosing each other, you are choosing never to pursue any other. You are uniquely God’s gift to one another, to become one flesh, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

We read in Hebrews 13:4–5 “Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.”

Your fidelity and commitment to each other reflects to the world God’s commitment to us.

Let us pray:

Lord, in the sight of these assembled witnesses and in your sight as well, you have reminded us of the beauty of your love and grace, and the gift of marriage. Lord, I pray that these realities will be lived out for your glory. Lord, as the wedding vows are made, may it be obvious to all who are gathered here, that these are not just words and that this is not simply religious formality. This is a holy commitment in your sight. Lord, we pray that these vows will never be broken. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

CHARGE

Jerry and Jennifer, I charge you both, as you stand in God's presence, to remember that love and respect, both in your relationship to each other and to God, will serve as the foundations of a happy and enduring home. If the solemn vows which you are about to make are kept permanently, and if you steadfastly seek to do the will of God and follow Jesus, every day of your life will be full of peace and joy, and the home which you are establishing will abide through every change. 

VOWS

Jerry

In the presence of God,

our family and friends,

I, Jerry,

take you, Jennifer,

to be my wife,

to have and to hold

from this day forward,

for better, for worse,

for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love and to cherish,

as long as we both live.

This is my solemn vow.

Jennifer

In the presence of God,

our family and friends,

I, Jennifer,

take you, Jerry,

to be my husband,

to have and to hold

from this day forward,

for better, for worse,

for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love and to cherish,

as long as we both live.

This is my solemn vow.

RINGS

May I have the rings? Let us pray.

Bless, O Lord, the giving and receiving of these rings. May Jennifer and Jerry abide in your peace and grow in their knowledge of Your presence through their loving union. May the seamless circle of these rings become the symbol of their endless love and serve to remind them of the holy covenant they have entered into today to be faithful, loving, and kind to each other. Dear God, may they live in Your grace and be forever true to this union. Amen.

The wedding ring is a symbol of eternity. It is an outward sign of an inward and spiritual bond which unites two hearts in endless love. The ring is the symbol of the commitment which binds these two together. There are two rings because there are two people, each to make a contribution to the life of the other, and to their new life together.

And now as a token of your love and of your deep desire to be forever united in heart and soul, you Jerry, may place the ring on the finger of your bride, and repeat after me:

Jennifer, I give you this ring

as a symbol of my love

and of my faithfulness to you.

By the same token Jennifer, you may place the ring on the finger of your groom, and repeat after me:

Jerry, I give you this ring

as a symbol of my love

and of my faithfulness to you. 

Closing Prayer

Join with me as we ask God's blessing on this new couple.

May the love of God be above you to overshadow you, beneath you to uphold you, before you to guide you, behind you to protect you, close beside you and within you to make you able for all things, and to reward your faithfulness with the joy and peace which the world cannot give — neither can it take away. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be glory now and evermore. Amen. 

Pronouncement and Declaration

Because Jennifer and Jerry have desired each other in marriage, and have witnessed this before God and our gathering, affirming their acceptance of the responsibilities of such a union, and have pledged their love and faith to each other, sealing their vows in the giving and receiving of rings, I do proclaim that they are husband and wife in the sight of God and man. Let all people here and everywhere recognize and respect this holy union, now and forever. Jerry, you may kiss your bride.