Bree and Bolaji Ogbulu Homily

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Homily for Bree and Bolaji's Wedding. Focus: Marriage will be the ground where God will call you to mature in your faith and character. Function: Calling one another to let love to one another for the sake of Christ be the number one factor from which and for which they should have a healthy marriage.

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Giving the Bride away

Who gives the bride away?

Welcome

Friends, we are gathered together in the sight of God

to witness and bless the joining together of Bolaji and Brianna

in Christian marriage.

The covenant of marriage was established by God.

who created us male and female for each other

With his presence and power

Jesus graced a wedding at Cana of Galilee

And in his sacrificial love

gave us the example for the love of husband and wife.

Bolaji and Brianna come to give themselves to one another

in this holy covenant.

Please remain standing for the declaration of intention.

Declaration of Intention 5.1

The pastor talks to the woman and the man individually.

Brianna Evelyn Wood, will you have

Bolaji Michael Ogbulu to be your husband,

to live together in holy marriage?

Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him

in sickness and in health

and forsaking all others, be faithful to him

as long as both shall live?

Bolaji Michael Ogbulu, will you have Brianna Evelyn Wood

to be your wife, to live together in holy marriage?

to live together in holy marriage?

Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her

in sickness and in health

and forsaking all others, be faithful to her

as long as both shall live?

Prayer

Heavenly Father, Bolaji and Brianna

are now about to vow their unending loyalty to each other.

We ask you to accept the shared treasure of their life together,

which they now create and offer to You.

Grant them everything they need,

that they may increase in their knowledge of You

throughout their life together.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

To people: You may be sited

Scripture Readings by

Now, I will ask Pastor Matt Ness and Pastor Jamel Armstrong to read Scriptures for us.

The New International Version Chapter 13

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Matt Ness: ,

Jamel Armstrong: NLT

The New International Version Chapter 4

9 Two are better than one,

because they have a good return for their labor:

10 If either of them falls down,

one can help the other up.

But pity anyone who falls

and has no one to help them up.

11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.

But how can one keep warm alone?

12 Though one may be overpowered,

two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Meditation

Exchange of Vows Marco will read, Bolaji & Bree will repeat

Bolaji and Brianna we will now make the exchange of vows

Briee repeat after me:

I, Briee, take you, Bolaji,

to be my lifelong companion and friend. I will serve you with tenderness and respect,

while encouraging you in God's call on your life. I will work daily to inspire you in what you love

and to push you towards your dreams. And I will respond with gratitude, determination and liveliness

when you push me towards mine. God's faithfulness leaves me expectant

of a life with you that is good, but whatever the future holds

I promise to love you, stand by you

and to maintain this dream that is you and I.

Bolaji repeat after me:

I, Bolaji, take you, Brianna,

to be my lifelong companion and friend. I will serve you with tenderness and respect,

while encouraging you in God's call on your life. I will work daily to inspire you in what you love

and to push you towards your dreams. And I will respond with gratitude, determination and liveliness

when you push me towards mine. God's faithfulness leaves me expectant

of a life with you that is good, but whatever the future holds

I promise to love you, stand by you

and to maintain this dream that is you and I.

Blessing and Exchange of Rings

Now we will have the exchange of rings

These rings are the outward and visible sing

of an inward spiritual grace,

Signifying to us the union

Between Christ and his Church. 12a.1,

By your blessing, O God. May these rings be to Bolaji and Bree Symbols of unending love and faithfulness,

Reminding them of the covenant they have made this day,

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 12b.6,

While placing the ring on the third finger of the recipient’s left hand, the giver may say prompted, line-by-line, by the pastor:

Briee/Bolaji do you have the ring you have chosen for Bolaji/Briee?

Brianna/Bolaji turns to receive ring from Joel

Brianna/Bolaji you may place the ring on … finger and repeat after me:

Bolaji/Briee, I give you this ring

As a sign of my vow,

And with all that I am,

And all that I have, I honor you;

In the name of the Father,

And of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.12c.1

Declaration of Marriage

Bolaji and Briee join hands, and the pastor may place a hand on their joined hands.

Brianna and Bolaji,

By their promises before God

And in the presence of this congregation,

Have bound themselves to one another as husband and wife.

”So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." 14.3

Blessing of Marriage

O God,

You have consecrated the covenant of Christian marriage

That in it is represented

The covenant between Christ and the Church

Lord I pray that you will establish Briee and Bolaji’s marriage

That they may find delight in each other

And grow in holy love until life’s end. Amen

The Kiss

Bolaji Ogbulu you may kiss your bride.

The Presentation

Bolaji and Briee, you may turn to the congregation.

It is my privilege to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Bolaji Ogbulu

Directing people to reception

Before we conclude this time with the benediction

Briee and Bolaji would like to invite all of you

to follow the wedding party to the reception.

The reception will be next door at the couple’s house.

Sending Forth

Dismissal with Blessing.

Pastor talk to all

Bear witness to the love of God in this world.

so that those to whom love is a stranger

will find in you generous friends.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God

and the communion of the Holy Spirit

Be with you all. Amen

Intro:

This is it! Here is the day both of you have been waiting for for a while.

Bree and Bolaji we are excited to be invited to be part of one of the most special days of your life.

I’m thankful that God has brought you together up to this point. Both of you already have a trajectory together: from high school, track team, youth group, college, and all the way to here. Howver, any other day pails in comparison to this day because today stand before God and all the people gathered here to vow your loyalty and lifetime commitment to one another. Before I go on, I’ll ask to to turn around and see the people who have come here to this very special occasion.

Introduce the couple:

How did they meet. How was their relationship formed. What was fun back then and what is the goal in the next season of their lives.

We are witnesses of a covenant

1. Be generous

We are witnesses of a covenant

We are here not only as guest but as witnesses of your covenant relationship with each other and God. This is a significant moment in your lives because now you are moving from living two independent lives to become one. You are no longer a youth from living as a youth but now both of you choose to intentionally become an adult.

Let me be honest with you, this is one of those passages that can sound like a Hallmark card if we don’t take it seriously. It could be very easy to avoid what it’s trying to tell us as long as we keep a distance between the text and our personal lives.

Marriage as a rite of passage

Now I want you to look at one another. Realize that you are no longer kids. You are adults who are consenting to start a new life. Jesus reminds us the passage in the Bible that states that: a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife. Bolaji, becoming a married man will mean that you will need to step into the realization that this marriage thing is not for your personal benefit.

We can’t wait to see the future God is preparing for your marriage. We want both of you to have the most amazing years of your life ahead of you. But in order for you to enter into this new season of your life, you will need to become a new you together. Moving forward, for the rest of your life you will need to choose to be a adult, to treat one another as an adult. Today you are choosing to put behind you the life you’ve been living as single young adults and take on the life of an adult.

What does an adult look like? There is much research done to what an adult should look like. When you ask people in our society they will tell you that an adult is someone financially independent, someone who has a career, and perhaps someone who doesn’t live any longer with their parents. That make sense to me. And yet, I wonder if there is more to being an adult than becoming financially independent, and have a career. Perhaps these we get to miss out on maturing while looking as adults in the outside. Perhaps we need to rethink the scorecard of what an adult looks like.

There are two things in my heart that I want to encourage you to do as you enter into holy matrimony:

1. Be generous

When we look into the timeless truths of the Word of God I cannot help but think, what if our aim to what it means to become an adult is flawed. What if we should change the scorecard for adulthood?

If you have your Bible with you, I’ll ask you to turn to the book of . We read some of this passage a few minutes ago, but this time, I would like to put take a few minutes to put this passage in its proper context. So we will go to :

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

But as I prepared for this text, I realzed, this is the description of an adult. Then, I became uncofortable with this text. Let me be honest with you, this is one of those passages that can sound like a Hallmark card if we don’t take it seriously. It could be very easy to avoid what it’s trying to tell us as long as we keep a distance between the text and our personal lives. So we read, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, yada, yada, yada. Great!

What this passage is saying, there were behaviors, attitudes, and thoughts that are ok for us to have when we were kids. A child is the center of the universe in their own mind. That’s normal and expected. When we were kids it was cute when we made a big deal of things not going our way. It was cute when our socks were on the floor two days, or if we didn’t do our chores and attended to our responsibilities for a couple of days. It was ok if we went to hangout with our friends at the end of the day without having to tell anyone else. It was ok if we didn’t put all our effort in our responsibilities or of we spent all our savings on new toys. A child talks then thinks, a child has no idea of the way that their words will impact the lives of the people around them.

God is telling us, you could expect of a child to be impatient, if they aren not always kind, jealous, if you would compare yourself to others, or prideful. You can expect a child to be self focused, or easily lose their temper.

But Paul is saying, I put the ways of childhood behind me. The tense of this verb in the original language expresses an act that was done in the paste that has a continued, lasting, and tangible effect.

Verses. 4-7 read:

We can expect a child to be self centered. A child is the center of the world and everything is about them. It is normal to expect a child not to be generous. it was just find when you were younger and self centered. But today I’m asking you to become generous.

Today, you can choose your heart to be like a well or a spring. Getting water out of a well takes effort. You have to go deep. A well is not generous. It keeps its treasure deep down inside. It hides what it has to offer. But a spring… a spring is always available to give itself away.

I wonder what would happen if our marriages would look more like springs than wells. I believe you can become that spring for one another. So choose to be generous toward one another.

If your marriage will succeed it will be because each of you will choose to be generous toward one another. Be generous on your patience, kindness and humility. An adult does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. So be generous speaking words of encouragement to one another. An adult always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Going back to my question: what is an adult? what are the markers of an adult? is someone who is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud. An adult does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. An adult always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

The New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. Print.

I’m going to be honest with you, being an adult is not easy. Being an adult is not a matter of age, or financial stability. It’s a matter of willing to give up those attitudes, thoughts, or predispositions to be child-like. God is challenging you today to take responsibility for the way you relate to one another.

My first advise is chose to put the ways of your childhood behind you by becoming generous in your love.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NASB95

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 The Message

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

My first advise is chose to put the ways of your childhood behind you.

1 Corinthians 13:

1 Cor 13:4-7

Transition:

But as we pay attention to the word of God and we change seats, and we ask, what does this passage say about me everything gets a little more personal. This passage is challenging us to think, are you willing to take your role of an adult in this relationship? Should you expect from one another the attitude of maturity that marriage requires?

There’s a high cost for choosing a marriage filled of love. Now you may say, this list is unrealistic, and idealistic. No one can follow this list! And I would say, yes! You cannot meet the expectations of an adult… unless… Unless your union tonight is more than a union with one another and you ask God himself to be the bond that holds you together.

2. Making God the person who holds both of you together

You will need God’s supernatural power to show patience, kindness, generosity, humility, and meekness to one another. You can choose today to aim at having just a fine marriage where you get to fully express your right unrestrained individuality. Each of you can do your own thing, your own way, at your own time and eventually realize that you are living two separate lives in one house. Or you can come together as a couple to God an confess to God: God we need your guidance to become everything you have in mind for us.

Someone said once that the purpose of marriage is not to be happy but to be holy. What they meant by this was not that marriage should be boring, or stale, but that happiness is the outcome of living fully alive. The only way to become fully alive is if your relationship with Jesus is the most important relationship of all.

reads:

Ecclesiastes 4:9–11 NASB95

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone?

Don’t live marriage as two individuals who live under onecontract. Look after each other. Care for each other. Be curious about the needs, dreams, and aspirations of one another.

But not only that, shows us that the truth of the matter is that marriage requires more than the effort of two well intended and capable spouses.

reads:

Ecclesiastes 4:12 NASB95

And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

What does this mean? Your marriage will do just fine if you only focuse on each other. But you will never see it thrive uness you make God the reason to be together and the reason to stay together. This passage is saying, you can make a strong rope with two strings. But marriage requires more than a fine rope. You need a three strands to secure your life. You want to have full security that your marriage will stay strong even when the storms of life come your way. One of the greatest mistakes we can make in our married live is to expect our spouses to satisfy the needs, direction, and purpose that only God can satisfy.

The most important person in this party is not Bolaji, or Bree but God. My exhortation for both of you is to remind one another that the covenant both of you together will make to God should be the cause for which you choose to mature.

Bree, you are marring an adult. As such, the best thing you can do for Bolaji is to treat him as an adult who is committing to love you with the love of an adult. Someone who is patient, kind, humble, meek, who is not willing to brag about himself, or becomes arrogant. As an adult Bolaji is committing today to honor you, seek after your personal needs and put you ahead of his own, and not to be easily angered.

Bolaji, today you are marrying an adult. As such you can expect that Bree will honor you, keep no record of evil, but will be quick to forgive, will not try to compete against you in the relationship, but will rejoice in speaking truth to your life. She will use her attitudes and words to protect you, she will always trust you, always hope, and always persevere for the sake of honoring God and for the sake of your marriage.

Closing:

We can’t wait to see the future God is preparing for your marriage. We want both of you to have the most amazing years of your life ahead of you. As enter into this new season of your life, I encourage you become a new you together. Moving forward, for the rest of your life choose to make God the anchor of your life. Let your relationship and dependance in God nurture your marriage. Choose to be a adult, to treat one another as an adult. Today you are choosing to put behind you the life you’ve been living as single young adults and take on the life of an adult.

The Marriage (Vows)

Exchange of Vows Marco will read, Bolaji & Bree will repeat

Bolaji and Brianna we will now make the exchange of vows

Briee repeat after me:

I, Briee, take you, Bolaji,

to be my lifelong companion and friend. I will serve you with tenderness and respect,

while encouraging you in God's call on your life. I will work daily to inspire you in what you love

and to push you towards your dreams. And I will respond with gratitude, determination and liveliness

when you push me towards mine. God's faithfulness leaves me expectant

of a life with you that is good, but whatever the future holds

I promise to love you, stand by you

and to maintain this dream that is you and I.

Bolaji repeat after me:

I, Bolaji, take you, Brianna,

to be my lifelong companion and friend. I will serve you with tenderness and respect,

while encouraging you in God's call on your life. I will work daily to inspire you in what you love

and to push you towards your dreams. And I will respond with gratitude, determination and liveliness

when you push me towards mine. God's faithfulness leaves me expectant

of a life with you that is good, but whatever the future holds

I promise to love you, stand by you

and to maintain this dream that is you and I. Blessing and Exchange of Rings

Blessing and Exchange of Rings

Now we will have the exchange of rings

These rings are the outward and visible sing

of an inward spiritual grace,

Signifying to us the union

Between Christ and his Church.

Prayer

By your blessing, O God. May these rings be to Bolaji and Bree Symbols of unending love and faithfulness,

Reminding them of the covenant they have made this day,

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

While placing the ring on the third finger of the recipient’s left hand, the giver may say prompted, line-by-line, by the pastor:

Briee do you have the ring you have chosen for Bolaji?

Brianna/Bolaji turns to receive ring from Joel

Brianna you may place the ring on Bolaji’s finger and repeat after me:

Bolaji, I give you this ring

As a sign of my vow,

And with all that I am,

And all that I have, I honor you;

In the name of the Father,

And of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Bolaji do you have the ring you have chosen for Briee?

Bolaji you may place the ring on Brianna’s finger and repeat after me:

Briee, I give you this ring

As a sign of my vow,

And with all that I am,

And all that I have, I honor you;

In the name of the Father,

And of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Declaration of Marriage

Bolaji and Briee join hands, and the pastor may place a hand on their joined hands.

Brianna and Bolaji,

By their promises before God

And in the presence of this congregation,

Have bound themselves to one another as husband and wife.

”So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

Blessing of Marriage

O God,

You have consecrated the covenant of Christian marriage

That in it is represented

The covenant between Christ and the Church

Lord I pray that you will establish Briee and Bolaji’s marriage

That they may find delight in each other

And grow in holy love until life’s end. Amen

The Kiss

Bolaji Ogbulu you may kiss your bride.

The Presentation

Bolaji and Briee, you may turn to the congregation.

It is my privilege to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Bolaji Ogbulu

Directing people to reception

Before we conclude this time with the benediction, Briee and Bolaji would like to invite all of you to follow the wedding party to the reception at the couple’s house. But before that, we ill ask you to help us bringing your chair to the reception area.

Briee and Bolaji would like to invite all of you

to follow the wedding party to the reception.

The reception will be next door at the couple’s house. But before that, we ill ask you

Sending Forth

Dismissal with Blessing.

Pastor talk to all

Bear witness to the love of God in this world.

so that those to whom love is a stranger

will find in you generous friends.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God

and the communion of the Holy Spirit

Be with you all. Amen

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