Jakeb & Kathrin
Notes
Transcript
Dear Jakeb & Kathryn, family & friends, dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Probably too young to remember but, Phil Collins sang a song about the type of love that a couple settles into - compromises fights and make up, enjoy companionship, - Baby you and me we got a groovy kind of love. He’s speaking about a good natural kind of love, certainly includes romance but also the friendship forged over years together. Just like love a parent naturally has a for a child, marriage inevitably needs that kind of I like doing life together with you kind of love, But that love has its limits particularly in a fallen world - where me-centered marriage, selfishness ends up with relationships that are not shooting for and based on a deep oneness , but really convenience and if it so happens we’re close and in the groove but if not just trudge on in life, maybe parallel lines but not truly and deeply as one!
But the Bible says marriage is designed reflect the perfect harmony of God living with his People. That relationship of self-giving and delight overflowing with we share this life together and overflow with blessing to others. Perfect harmony of the church - Christ takes a bunch of self-centered , broken, hurting, people - makes peace with God with one another - How does he do it - by becoming one with us, by self-sacrificial service and love - creates this harmony perfect harmony. Work in progress but that’s what church is at its best. And God says, marriage not just a human thing , where two of you try to make a happy life for yourselves. - It’s a model of that perfect harmony of God living with us in Christ in the community of the church. And if you want that kind of oneness of love, of identity, of delight you have got to learn and live out not just any kind of groovy natural love, but you have got learn and put into practice the love, agape love the love of God!
Key Truth: God has designed life for a perfect harmony that runs on self-giving agape love. God has designed your marriage for a perfect harmony that runs on self-giving agape love.
A. Agape Love is a heighten Calling that God now calls you too.
A. Agape Love is a heighten Calling that God now calls you too.
You text begins and ends with this idea that God has chosen you. And personally choosing someone isn’t that at the heart of love? Jake you chose Kathryn and that makes her so special to you, Kathryn you chose Jake. But your text says though those are the two most important choosing - and never forget that choosing them to be the most important person in your life - I am commited to you. But there is a deeper choosing that your marriage needs to be based upon, and that is the choosing of the God of the universe. Before time He set His hear ton each of you - chose you in Christ for salvation - to bring you into his love and fellowship - his household and kingdom. Didn't just do that so you can say smugly I am God’s person, he chose me, but God chose us freely even though nothing in us, better, chose us not just to be His people, but He chose us for a certain kind of life - Look at the start of your text: Col 3:12
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
Do you get that, you are each so precious and hosen so you live this new kind of life. Look at the end of your text: Col 3:15
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
God has called you to move from em to we, - to be part of this body, the body of Christ, communion that live with real shalom, real peace , unity, wholeness. And maybe you say now what in the world does that have to do with marriage. Well listen to Malachi 2:15a
Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
Marriage, is not just a covenant choice of two individuals to get good things from each other, it is high calling, that God with a portion of His Holy Spirit, makes you one - to live that new kind of life more fully with each other in. And as we heard in the Instruction for marriage in Eph 5 God is calling you to reflect the love and the unity and service of Christ with His church, that the high calling of God that he now puts on your lives togetehr! So that’s number one from your wedding text, your Christian marriage is a calling from God, in which God has chosen you. But what has He and what does Christian marriage call you to? What is this new life?This is the middle and heart of your wedding text. And it is summed up not in one word love, but two the love!
B. Christians are Called to Put On THE DIVINE LOVE for the sake of each other!
B. Christians are Called to Put On THE DIVINE LOVE for the sake of each other!
This is what takes us so far beyond just groovy kind of natural love. It’s what gets us beyond just liking each other. Jake and Kathryn there are lot’s of times you won’t like each other. Hey, there are lot’s of times we don’t like ourselves, but we still in proper way love our selves when we don’t like something about ho. And so God’s Word commands all Christians to put on THE LOVE< the DIVINE LOVE AGAPE LOVE OF Christ. Paul had just given them 5 practical aspects or actions -i. compassionate hearts - feel with - real communication where you get where each other are at - jesus looked at the crowd - had compassion ; ii. kindness - surprising undeserved action ; iii. humility -and meekness, not being a door mat, but vulnerable not pushing self forward, know each other strengths and weakness, areas of sin and temptation and your own - iv. make you patient , v. bearing with one another - as God’s forgiven you so eager forgive another - one rock s the boat the other ready to steady it!
Now to some degree every relationship, every nation knows these outward actions and attitudes needed for life to work well, but here is the big difference maker in your text: Col 3:14
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
THE LOVE - agape love experienced from God, but then poured in your heart by the Holy Spirit, that love takes all those actions and attitudes and it binds them all together, its like the super glue - Jakeb and Kathryn - your sinning selfishness, the tug of this world for living beyond our means, , the strain of business, Satan use it all as a tool to separate you too, but God says - here is my self-giving agape love - put it on - Like Your wedding dress and tuxedo the uniform for wedding day, of like work boots, hard hat and tough duck apparel for job site, or scrubs for floor of nursing home - its this agape love - I bind myself to love of God each day - became like me, forgave me, he healed me, he guides and protects he directs, Father adopts and assures me - Love is all about Presence by Holy Spirit. And You say, to yourself again and again in marriage, I bind myself in love - I will be present in all these way to You.
Paul sharpens what this means right at the center Col 3:15a
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
We don’t live in a time of peace, pandemic division, election polarized, talking past, as nation - economically struggle not wholeness and abundance and giving - so to many marriages. But Christ won a peace with God for us, and He makes a peace for all believers to live in and Paul says - when you get to fisty-cuffs in your relationship, when difference and struggle and conflict, What are you supposed to do. Peace isn’t the absence of conflict, it is simply learning to live in those conflicts with the reconciling work of Jesus. The word rule in your hearts - Is the word UMPIRE - The LORD OF PEACE you decide with us, you show us the way. Peace of Christ controls and compels us - Like an Apple or Android Nerd - three's an app for that. Or a farmer dedicated to John Deere - brings it into everything. .
And if you will let this agape-love, and this peace of Christ reign in your early marriage establish pattern Paul says the result is that you won’t be passing ships in the night, - you like the church will be one unity - that grows and serves. Problem with many marriage is that they serve no greater purpose than making themselves happy - like love-spongers. But you really Put on the Agape Love of Chris, and let the Peace of Christ umpire in daily life of your marriage - you marriage you home, this relationship with the Holy Spirit making you one - serve each other and make Kathryn best Kathryn can best Jake,, abut will serve your families neighbor your church - a rel blessing in the community God has planted you in!
But your weeding text, doesn’t just teach you of God’s choosing of you two, and of his giving you this mandate in agape love. That would be pretty intimidating and leave a young couple asking well how do we live up to the calling, how will we love each other like that? Well God in your wedding text this very afternoon of your wedding day concludes with three tools. At work given equipment tools to get the job done. A dozer, back hoe, a closet of games, activities to bring health to those seniors. Well, what tools, resources does God give you to live in this kind of agape love.
C. Three Simple Tools for Christian Marriage.
C. Three Simple Tools for Christian Marriage.
Your text shifts gears at the end with some very simple instructions that seem abrupt and not connected to the high calling. 1. Here’s the first v. 15b And be thankful. There is so much to grumpy about and complain, do it enough atmosphere of grumbling - not only true in community of nation, or church family, but especially in marriage. We live in an age of entitlement - don’t let your marriage ever get like that - entitled and you owe - freely given yourself to each other - gratitude is the fuel for love. A discontent heart can’t love as it should. Out of fulness each day gratitude for what God has provided and cheerful heart can live to give!
But then comes the second tool or resource: Just like your words are the fabric by which weave lives together, so too with God as a couple here this tool God is giving you: Col 3:16a
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.
Words for good or ill are to enter into your soul and live there. Insults and encouragements do that. Praise and constructive criticism, but above all forgiveness and gospel. And if God is to be truly in your marriage and your home, it will be by His Word iwth The Spirit at work as you actually let God speak words into your lives, as you not only read this Word, but teach and admonish and encourage and direct you! - I will let Mike mention this as he presents you with a wedding Bible that we expect will be read at your table together! v.16 3:16. If you are going to live out this calling to new kind of life in Christian kind of marriage - Jesus Christ needs to find a home in your hearts. God’s word can’t be like a vacation spot, park camper a couple times a year. No as Eugene Peterson puts it : “Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of your house. Give it plenty of room in your lives”
But lastly your wedding text ends on a noisy note. Col 3:16b
Colossians 3:16 (ESV)
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.
Kind of like the peddles of a bicycle when you really receive God’s Word in your marriage, that like a pedal driving down with God’s good stuff into your life, at the very same time as a result the other peddle of your spiritual life together is driven up - you sing and pray back to God. The things he’s promised in his word - you pray them together for yourselves, for those in need around you, with thankfulness - every day this kind of prayer and praise I have shared it with you in premarital, but it is good to share it with all of us here. Statistic that there is no difference between Christian and non-Christians - but those who have this dynamic who actually use this too, who actually out loud, talk to God. Three way prayer - you two and God - only 0.01& of such couples end up in marital difficulty. So these three tools thankfulness, God’s All powerful Word read and given active run of your lives. And prayer. These are the tools you are going to need to have the kind of love that will make you marriage a delight to each other, glorifying to God and blessing to those around you These are the tools God gives you this day to fulfill his high calling to not just live a natural kind of groovy love that lasts no longer then your convenience and goes no deeper then your own lives shared. No these are tools that will get you reflecting the very love of God iby your commitment and service to one another.