Love Works
“LOVE WORKS”
For Jeff Kocab and Sara Smith Marriage
May 13, 2000
Love Works:
Because of Christ
Because of God
Jeff and Sara, what a joy it is to officiate this marriage on your behalf. I am joyful, both because of you, and in spite of you. I am joyful because I am convinced by God’s Love that Love Works. Instead of trying to explain how love works, and what it works, I want to focus our attention on why Love Works.
I know you both think that love somehow resides in you yourself. You have made a commitment, a promise to each other that the vows you are about to speak will express. Your commitment promises faithfulness to each other, no matter what: In plenty and in want; in joy and sorrow; in sickness and in health, or for what ever else you might experience in your marriage. This is what you think is love. I regret to have to tell you that it is not. I think after you hear this message to its completion you will understand how important it is not to confuse what we do with what love is. If we did that, we could never experience true love.
True love is expressed when the apostle Paul says, “submit to one another.” He says that not in a spiritual vacuum of what man is able to do, but in the Spiritual fullness of what Jesus Christ has done and is now doing. Submitting to one another then, reveres Christ who is Love incarnate in human flesh. The apostle John reveals what love is when he says: “Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” True Love does not reside in us. It resides in Christ.
Because of Christ, Love Works! It works because He has taken on your flesh and taken your sin and guilt to the cross. It works because He is no longer dead, but alive! The tomb is empty. God fulfills what the Word speaks, “God loved,” not because of you, but because of Jesus Christ, in spite of you. The best human love is only a poor reflection of His self-sacrificing love.
It is that love that comes to us when Christ makes us his holy people. He does that, Paul says, “cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.” Then he reveals why Christ does that, “to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” You see, unless you know His love, you cannot have true love for each other.
Even so, you do know his love. You are clean by the washing with water through His word, which you received in your baptism. You did not do it. God did it because he is love. Faith is the submission that accepts that love, that promise, that word, that washing, and that Spirit of grace.
Jeff, this is a hard pattern to follow in your marriage. In fact, you will fail because you are but flesh and blood. But Love, His Love, never fails. You can always count on it because His Love is perfect. His sacrifice in your place is what you are submitting to, in faith. So Jeff, when it says, “love your wife, just as Christ loved the church,” remember His sacrifice for you. And Sara, when it says, “submit to your husband,” remember that it is the sacrifice of Jesus that makes a person holy and beautiful, without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish in the eyes of God.
You see, Sara, it is not for yourself that you live in marriage. It is for him, your husband. And Jeff, it is not for yourself that you live in marriage. It is for her, your wife. That is the pattern of love. And that Love Works. Amen.