Ethyn and Emily Van Camp
Notes
Transcript
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, 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. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Having affirmed your love for one another and your willingness to enter this union, we turn to God’s word and the passage you have chosen for this day: Colossians 3 verses 14-17, and I’m going to exercise a bit of pastoral flexibility and start at verse 12.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Ethyn and Emily, I think it’d be kind of fun to play a game of Family Feud. Maybe the wedding party would be your teams. There would just be two rounds. For the first round, the question would be, “What are the characteristics of a believer?” If I was being surveyed, there might be 12 answers on the board. A believer would bear the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. On top of those, I’d include humility and forgiving and gratitude. Many of those virtues and actions we heard in this passage.
Maybe you’re trying to figure out who would win or lose that round, but let’s jump to the second round: “What are the characteristics of a good spouse?” This one might be tougher. For some people, the answers would be the list of things that attracted them to their boyfriend or girlfriend, their fiancé or wife or husband—appearance-related or a sense of humor or the things that interest them. Maybe you guys would think about what we discussed in our counseling: a good spouse is a strong communicator, willing to resolve conflict, someone who manages money well, or someone who shares your beliefs. Perhaps the top answers would boil down to ideals like compatibility and commitment, patience and trust.
What hopefully becomes apparent for Christians who marry, though, and maybe this is what drew you to this passage, is the overlap in these two callings. In your walk with the Lord, yes, you’re surrounded by others who believe, you have the community of a congregation, but your focus as a believer is the Lord. You guys have likely both heard me preach about how the church is the bride of Christ. I mentioned before how we see that in the book of Ephesians, how Christ loves and cherishes the church, cleansing and purifying her, making her holy, and the church submits to God—that is imaged by marriages that follow God’s intentions.
We could go and on with characteristics and virtues and actions that are part of what it means and looks like to be a Christian or to be a good spouse. But at the forefront of both faith and marriage is love. As verse 14 said, “Over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” It’s easy to think of love as a feeling. I’m hoping today as you hold hands, as you stare into each other’s eyes, as you laugh together and take everything in—there’s a lot of that love feeling—you hopefully can’t imagine being with anyone else. This is what over 5 years of dating, many miles, and transitions have led to and we pray will carry on for many more.
In his letter, though, Paul isn’t just talking about a feeling. He’s talking about the agape kind of love, which often gets touched on, the unconditional and unselfish love—a love that is perfect and will be right and good for the one its being expressed to. That’s the kind of love God has for us, the love that is completely intertwined with Jesus be willing to die on a cross to save us from our sins. God also created each us to express such love to one another.
The apostle Paul was talking about love being a sort of clothing that covers and binds or ties all these other characteristics together. If we think about different kinds of line and rope that binds, all of it is prone to failure, it’s prone to break at some point. Even the best fishing line, the most braided rope, even a heavy strength strap for ratcheting things down when you move, it can eventually fray and become unusable. It’s no longer good for its intended purpose.
The love, that strengthens our faith, that builds up our hope in Jesus Christ for this life and the life to come, if held by Christ, will never fail. The love for God that I’ve heard and seen in the two of you as individuals continues to deepen. It’s my hope that continues to happen—that there is never a day or time when that ceases to be.
We’ve talked about, though, how marital love and being a good spouse, is not always easy. There are times when you will see knots get in the way of things, times when there may be a frayed section; you’ve experienced some wear. If we took more surveys of everyone here today who’s married and asked if they’ve ever had hardship or found it difficult to fully love their spouse, to pour themselves out for them, to have a 100% success rate when it comes to patience and forgiveness and gentleness and humility—we would see the wear and tear that eventually affects most individuals and couples, even the most happily married.
It will likely be true for you as well. Hopefully not too soon, but a day will come. Your love, your concern, your energy for your husband, for you wife, will be threatened. There will be stress on the binding of you in this relationship. When those difficult days come, those days when you feel like giving up or saying you don’t care, the hope of your marriage’s present and future rests at one level on this commitment, this covenant you’re entering today. But far greater, as Christians, it rests in your trust in God to bring you together to a point of repentance and forgiveness; to bring you to a point of healing and finding strength. The God who you both believe in, who has put up with so much from every single one of us when it comes to sin—he promises to be with us, and I believe you can take that promise into your marriage. The whole goal of keeping him at the center of your lives is partly you won’t have to search far when stress is applied.
Keep God and the love he has at the center of your lives and what you put into practice is the first point. The second comes from what follows in the rest of the passage, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since…you were called to peace. And be thankful… [have] gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, do it all…giving thanks to God the Father through [the Lord Jesus].” The second point, live your lives seeking peace and exuding thankfulness.
When most people talk about peace today, we’re talking about it as the opposite of violence or war, or particularly thinking of you right now as a law enforcement officer, Ethyn, we’re in this contentious time of defining what’s peaceful protest and what is rioting. If we bring the concept of peace into the marital relationship or family or even an organization, and we often hear of just wanting to keep the peace. Don’t stir people or issues or things of the past up. Just let them be.
When Scripture talks about peace, it’s often referring to a sense of wholeness. I’m sure you’ve heard the Hebrew word “shalom.” That word as well as the Greek word, from which we get “peace” in this passage, imply a sense of things being complete, even perfect. At the level of our relationship with God, wholeness being restored, there actually being peace in our lives, requires redemption and being made new, and that enabled by and carried out by our Savior. So too, most couples want wholeness and peace together. Even couples who don’t mind fighting or bickering occasionally usually want to know that at the end of the day there is peace between them.
Yet the peaceful marriage that I’m encouraging you to pursue and that Scripture encourages is not just calm, but it is a wholeness of who you are and who God has made you and called you to be. To be whole isn’t necessarily the old movie quote, “You complete me,” as much as it is advice that encourages ongoing learning about one another and from one another. To be whole, to be at peace means honestly caring for your spouse, paying attention to her emotions and hurts and joys, paying attention to his passions and pains. To seek peace involves the willingness to wrestle and struggle through your differences. It is to value your spouse and to pursue, not only your growth, but theirs, as well, especially in the Lord.
If you’re willing to do this kind of hard work to have a peaceful marriage, I have no doubt that you will have a marriage that thanks God. You’ll be able to say thank you for creating this man, this woman. Thank you for the way I can push her and she can push me. Thank you for the ways he gives me a different perspective. Thank you God for the way that we have grown in our faith and can use our gifts and talents wherever you call us for you glory. Even when things are difficult, when you have hard conversations over disagreement, when you don’t see the other person pulling the weight or putting in the effort you think they should, if the marriage “what God has brough together.”
No matter how great or poor you did at Family Feud at the beginning of this message—what are the characteristics of a believer and of a good spouse, I don’t have $20,000 to give you or a certain amount for every correct answer. I do pray, though, that God would be with you in the days, months, and, Lord-willing, many years to come. Continue to love Christ first and love one another. Continue to seek God’s will for your lives and home, and see wholeness and peace as individuals and as a couple. Put your trust not in your own strength or competence, but trust always in the Lord. Amen.