Wedding: Smith-Chen

Patton Shinall

Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

Ephesians 5:22–33

0 ratings

· 6 views

Notes

Transcript

Welcome

Good afternoon! My name is Cole Shinall and even though we can’t all be together today, I want to welcome you as we celebrate the wedding of James Smith and Christine Chen.

Our Lord Jesus said Mark 10:6-8 From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.

We have come together in the sight of God to join James and Christine in marriage which was instituted by God himself at the beginning of creation to show us the significance of the spiritual union Christ has to his Church through his sinless life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection.

Charge

James and Christine, today you are presenting yourselves before your friends and family to declare your intention to share one life to the glory of God.

You are making two commitments:

First, to each other. To love one and commit to one another for the remaining years of your life, and

Second, to God. That your marriage would be a picture to the World that displays Christ’s love for his church, and our commitment to love and follow him.

So James, will you have Christine to be your loving wife? Will you love, honor, and cherish her, forsaking all others, remaining faithful to her as long as you both shall live?

“I will.”

Christine, will you have James to be your loving husband? Will you love, honor, and cherish him, forsaking all others, remaining faithful to him as long as you both shall live?

“I will.”

Then let’s start with a prayer.

Prayer

Five Things

Now before we get to the vows, I wanted to help set the stage for why James and Christine want to be married in the first place.

We are here, after all, to celebrate their love for one another and the commitment they are about to make.

But what’s unique about days like today is that some of you are here because you know and love Christine, but you don’t really know James.

Others know and love James but not Christine.

(The rest of you, I regret to tell you, must have gotten lost and accidentally ended up at the wrong wedding).

But so all of us can celebrate their love together, I asked James and Christine to each tell me 5 things that they love about the other person, which I want to share with you now.

Groom

Her faith.

James says that her commitment to Christ is one of the things he loves most about Christine.

And I will tell you from first hand experience a godly wife is one of the greatest blessings God can give.

Her laugh.

Her attention to detail.

Her personality because she is the complete opposite of him, which I’m sure keeps things spicy.

And finally, her eyes.

And this is the sweet one. James says he loves her eyes because they remind him of when he first fell in love with her.

Bride

He is kind and considerate of others

He is responsible and trustworthy

He is humble and always willing to learn

That one will definitely come in handy.

He is patient and forgiving of my mistakes

Also helpful in marriage.

He has a great sense of humor and always plays along with my silly antics

Transition to Sermon

These 10 things give everyone here a picture of how much you love one another. After all, that’s why we are all here today.

But what is truly amazing about your love for one another is that it is only a shadow of Christ’s great love for us.

Ultimately, God calls your marriage to glorify him by showing the world a glimpse, a small picture of the kind of covenant-keeping love Christ has for us through the gospel.

Sermon

According to the Bible, marriage exists to give us a picture of Christ’s amazing, covenant-keeping love for his Church.

Marriage wasn’t our idea, it was God’s. Because ultimately God gave us marriage to display his glory and salvation that only comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

After God created everything that he has been made, He looked at Adam in the Garden of Eden and said something very peculiar.

Genesis 2:18 It is not good that the man should be alone.

Why that is so peculiar is because up to that point, everything God had created he said was good, including Adam.

But Adam being alone. That was not good. So God determined to fix that. He said Genesis 2:18 I will make a helper fit for him.

And what does God do? He causes Adam to go into a deep sleep, and while he slept, God took one of his ribs and used it to make Eve (Gen. 2:21-22).

Then, in the first wedding ever, God brought Eve to Adam and gave away the bride.

And after marrying Adam and Eve God said in Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

In this passage, the words hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh, tell us that marriage is something far greater than the flippant relationship our culture sees it as today.

In a world where divorce and adultery is rampant, God says marriage is a sacred covenant. A solemn commitment between two people meant to stand against every storm of life, how do we say it in our vows? “as long as we both shall live.”

That’s exactly what Paul says when he quotes Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5:31-32 saying Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

When Paul says This mystery is profound, he is giving us the interpretation of what it means that a man will leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

And he says it refers to Christ and the church. In other words, marriage is meant to give us a small, imperfect picture of Christ’s covenant love for his church.

In fact, Jesus even talked about himself as the bridegroom who came to marry his bride which is the church, the people of God.

Through his death, Christ brought his people into a New Covenant relationship with God. An unbreakable “marriage” between God and his people where God promises to forgive our sins and save us from his wrath.

The Bible is clear. All of us have sinned against God, and deserve to suffer under his wrath for all eternity separated from him.

But the good news of the gospel is that God did not leave us in our sin. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, our great Bridegroom to live the sinless life we could not live, die the death we deserved to die, and rise again three days later.

On the Cross, God placed our sin upon Christ so that we could be forgiven.

Colossians says it this way Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Be sure you see this wonderful truth. God took all of your sins that placed you squarely in his wrath and set them aside. How? By nailing it to the Cross.

Jesus became our substitute and suffered our punishment that our sin deserved so that instead of receiving God’s judgement we would receive his love and grace.

And this God did for anyone that would confess their sin and trust in Christ for salvation. Everyone is invited into the New Covenant love of Christ if they place their faith in him.

As Paul says, Romans 10:9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Through faith, you can be born again to worship God instead of living for your sin. By God’s grace in Christ, you can be brought into the New Covenant people of God, the church, and be saved. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

And we will experience this eternal life in the unbreakable marriage of the New Covenant.

James and Christine, this is the foundation of your marriage. You are both a son and daughter of God, born again to glorify his name and show the world the kind of love God offers freely in Christ.

By God’s grace, let the way you love one another from this day forward, be a picture of Christ’s amazing, covenant-keeping love for his Church.

Now has come the time we’ve all been waiting for. Are you ready to celebrate your covenant love for one another in marriage?

“Yes.”

Vows

Then please turn and face each other and join hands.

James, please repeat after me.

I James, take you, Christine

to be my wedded wife,

to have and to hold from this day forward,

for better or for worse,

for richer or for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love and to cherish,

with God as my witness,

I give you my promise.

Now Christine, will you repeat after me.

I Christine, take you, James

to be my wedded husband,

to have and to hold from this day forward,

for better or for worse,

for richer or for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love and to cherish,

with God as my witness,

I give you my promise.

Rings

James and Christine will now exchange rings as a symbol of love and commitment to each other.

These rings are a reminder of your covenant, and a symbol of the lifelong commitment that you have made to each other and to the Lord.

James, take Christine’s ring and place it on her finger, holding it there and repeat these words to her.

Christine, I give you this ring

as a symbol of my love and commitment to you

and with all that I am,

and all that I have,

I promise to honor you

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Christine, take James’ ring and place it on his finger, holding it there and repeat these words to him.

James, I give you this ring