Sermon Tone Analysis

in one point of God’s law we are held guilty for all of God’s law, when we realize that God could just as well destroy us because we are so ugly down deep inside by nature—then is when we also need to hear from God that because of our sin, NEVERTHELESS, *He sent Jesus*, the very personification of His love, to die for us in our place.

As St. Paul wrote to the Romans:  It is a demonstration of God’s love for us that Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

And as St. John wrote in his first letter:  We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

So it is in realizing how patient and kind God is with me, in knowing He doesn’t get angry with me because of all the times I have let Him down, or hurt Him.

It’s in understanding and believing how much God loves me, that I in turn can love and keep on loving the way our text says we should.

Isn’t that after all, why we get married in God’s presence?

We come here not only to witness before God the love we want to have for each other, but we are here to confess our greater need;  that we want to have *God’s love* in our marriage.

It is in your ability to see that it is God who has joined you two together, and from Him that you will receive the love necessary to love each other day after day and more and more that you will accomplish the type of love our text talks about.

May you see, along with St. Paul, that the greatest gift and goal you can ever have in your marriage is to have love.

And as you strive for that goal, may you come daily to Him who is Love, as you read His word in our private devotions and in public worship and as you partake of His Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper, so that you may receive from Him all the days of your life His love that never comes to an end.

Amen! God’s peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus.

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

*1 Corinthians 13:1-13*

1*I may speak in the languages of humans and of angels.

But if I don’t have love, I am a loud gong or a clashing cymbal.

*2*I may have the gift to speak what God has revealed, and I may understand all mysteries and have all knowledge.

I may even have enough faith to move mountains.

But if I don’t have love, I am nothing.

*3*I may even give away all that I have and give up my body to be burned.

But if I don’t have love, none of these things will help me.*

4Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Love isn’t jealous.

It doesn’t sing its own praises.

It isn’t arrogant.

5It isn’t rude.

It doesn’t think about itself.

It isn’t irritable.

It doesn’t keep track of wrongs.

6It isn’t happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth.

7Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.

8*Love never comes to an end.

There is the gift of speaking what God has revealed, but it will no longer be used.

There is the gift of speaking in other languages, but it will stop by itself.

There is the gift of knowledge, but it will no longer be used.

*9*Our knowledge is incomplete and our ability to speak what God has revealed is incomplete.

*10*But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will no longer be used.

*11*When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child.

When I became an adult, I no longer used childish ways.

*12*Now we see a blurred image in a mirror.

Then we will see very clearly.

Now my knowledge is incomplete.

Then I will have complete knowledge as God has complete knowledge of me.*

13*So these three things remain: faith, hope, and love.

But the best one of these is love*.[1]

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

*Text:          1 Corinthians 13*

*Theme:     “Love in Marriage”*

*Date:         October 17, 1998*

*Occasion: Christian Marriage of Scott Stephens and Cheryl Liane Webber*

 

The Word of God chosen for this solemn, yet joyous, occasion is taken from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13.

Dear Friends in Christ—honored guests and relatives, and especially our bridal couple, Cheryl and Scott: I bring you greetings from God our Father who is so very kind to you and who gives you peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen!

The man or woman of the world may smile when they hear the words of our text read on such an occasion.

They may think:  Why talk about the obvious?

Why talk about love at a wedding?

Who could be more in love than two people about to be married?

In a sense, these people might have a point:  Who could be more in love than two people who are about to be married?

Yet our average man or woman of the world, the average person who knows nothing about God or of His Word forgets what man and woman are like.

They forget—as all of us are prone to do anyway—that really, deep down inside of all of us, we are ugly.

How easy it is for a new couple who have fallen in love to say that they are in love.

But how hard it is for a married couple to remain in love.

Because of all the ugliness deep down inside of all of us, that ugliness that the Bible calls *sin*, because of sin lurking deep inside of us, we need to know *how* to love and love in such a way that our love will /never end/.

We need to know how we can love each other not only during the happy moments but especially in those trying times of life.

I think that’s why you two chose this text to be read at your wedding.

Both of you know that St. Paul here in our text is describing a love that you would like to have in your marriage.

You want to love each other so very much that you can say as St. Paul does here in our text:  *Love never fails* (v.

8).

Let me ask those of you who are married:  Can we say of our marriages that we have the type of love St. Paul is describing here:  *Love is patient.

Love is kind* (v.

4)?

How easy it is for married people to find fault with our love ones, not only with our spouse, but even with our children in our family.

*Love is patient and kind*, says our God through His servant St. Paul, who wrote these words.

True love can stand the strains of life.

It can keep that kind and cheerful disposition when you realize that your life is so hectic that you seem to have less time alone together than you are apart or with other people around.

*Love is kind.*

Love isn’t jealous.

It doesn’t sing its own praises.

It isn’t arrogant.

It isn’t rude.

All that love is, it seems to me, is summed up in the words of St. Paul, when he says:  It doesn’t think about itself (v.

5).

It isn’t irritable.

It doesn’t keep track of wrongs.

It isn’t happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth.

How easy it can be for couples to fall apart because of some vicious rumor started about their mate or because of some injustice they assumed of their mate.

Our ears often itch, don’t they, to hear or suppose what they want to hear.

Love is happy with the truth.

Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.

Is there a human being alive in our midst this evening who can say he or she has experienced this type of love all of their life?

We know what our text is saying, maybe, because we have had some short glimpses of the type of love that our text is talking about.

But it’s pretty hard, isn’t it, to love the way our text says we should.

Do you see, friends, what the Bible means when it says that all people have fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23), that all of us are selfish by nature (cf.

Isaiah 53) each one going our own way, doing our own thing.

It’s because of sin that we can only « »try« » to do what our text says.

Yet God doesn’t want us just to try.

He wants us to be perfect in all that we say, do, or even think.

That is seen in Jesus’ explanation of God’s law in the Sermon on the Mount.

So what the solution, what hope can I give to you two so that you can have a marriage where love is like it is in our text?

Our solution is found only in God.

Remember what another writer said about God in the Bible.

What is the one word that describes for us what God is like?