Sermon Tone Analysis

Dengler Wedding, Colossians 3:12-14

*“Put on Love”*

Daren and Angela, the Scripture text I have chosen for your wedding is connected to a text that is very familiar to most people.

That familiar test is 1 Corinthians 13.

It is commonly called the Bibles chapter on Love.

You know the one…love is patient, love is kind, love is this, love is that.

It reinforces the importance of love and the understanding that after all other things fade away all that will be left are faith, hope and love…and the greatest of these is love.

In connection to these words, the Apostle Paul also wrote to his fellow Christians how love is to be expressed in their lives.

He writes, “Put on then, as God's  chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

The love about which this text speaks is God's own special kind of love, a love that lasts forever.

It is the one thing that existed before God created this universe.

Love was there within God Himself, in the Holy Trinity, between Father and Son and Spirit.

This is so true and profound that John, the beloved disciple of Jesus could say that "God is love" (I Jn 4:8).

Love, perfect love, binds everything together in perfect harmony.

It connects us together.

Love reaches out to embrace all those around it.

It was out of this love that God created the world.

In the Book of Genesis, we see God's love creating a universe where love is the center of harmony and connects everything together.

In the beginning this world was a magnificent place of beauty.

The evidence of this is seen all around us…the sun and stars, the plants and the trees, and flowers and the beautiful array of wildlife.

These are God’s gifts of love to us.

His final gift to us was marriage.

It is the pinnacle of God’s love for us as it was to reflect the special relationship that He wants to have with us.

God gives woman to man and man to woman to share their love and companionship and to share His love and companionship.

In marriage we have a taste of paradise.

Unfortunately, in this world, marriage is not only a taste of paradise, it can also be a taste of hell.

Many of you know the sad story of man’s fall into sin.

Sin entered into the world and with it, division, a break in the blessed relationship that was to be shared between man and woman and with everyone else.

It also brought about a break with our relationship with God.

We have seen the devastating effects of this fall in every relationship.

Think about it.

Who among us has a perfect relationship with every other member of our families, with friends, with husbands and wives?

The evidence of the fall into sin is all around us.

In spite of this, the fall and our sin, God’s love for us continued and it was expressed in His eternal plan to restore all things, make them new again.

God, in love, promised to restore the world to what he meant HE intended it to be.

The remainder of the Bible is the story of God's faithful love reaching out to bring people back to himself, love spreading itself out to close the gaps and restore oneness.

The culmination of this great story comes at the cross.

There God's love was given to us in the flesh of His one and only Son Jesus Christ.

He shows His great love for us in that even though He was scorned and ridiculed, though He is beaten and bruised, and finally killed, His love for us never gives up.

His was a sacrificial love, a love that doesn’t focus on the me, but rather the you.

This was the example that He gave us for marriage.

This is what it means to “Put on love.”

When Jesus died and rose again He made all things new again.

But is only by faith in Him that we can see or understand how this is true.

When we do, we understand God’s love and forgiveness.

God gave that same love to you personally and individually on the day you were baptized.

He said, "I forgive you your sins, your failures, your short comings.

He says, “I love you."

Nothing can change that fact.

His love is unconditional.

He says “I want to be in your life, always.”

Wow, those are all the things that we want out of marriage aren’t they?

On this day He wants to continue blessing you as He binds you together in His love as man and wife.

So God says, “Put on love.”

"Put on love."

That means to forgive one another, and you will need to forgive.

Love is not just a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Love is an act of the will.

It is a commitment that says no matter what, you are my husband, you are my wife.

To put on love means to commit yourselves to always communicating with each other.

There may be times when you won’t want to have anything to do with each other.

You may stop talking to each other.

But at times like these remember that the very life of your relationship and love is at stake.

It’s just like our relationship with God, when we no longer communicate with Him, worship Him, share His love with other people that that relationship to may be at stake.

When you feel like this with each other or with God, stop and remember, remember God’s promises to you, remember His blessings to you and then remember the promises that you are making to each other and the blessings of this day as you “put on love.”

Blessing.