Sermon Tone Analysis

Prelude

Seating of Parents

Bridesmaids

Processional <Canon D acoustic guitar>

“Please stand for the Bride”

<Bride is handed off to Groom>

Welcome:

On behalf of Brittany and would to thank all of you for joining us here today as we celebrate the union of these two souls.

Please be seated and join me in prayer.

Lord thank you for this opportunity to join Jeremiah and Brittany in this ceremony, and witness their pledging life long commitment to one another.

We ask that you would be at work here now and continually in their marriage.

We pray that their love for each other would be a picture of your love, and ask your blessing on them and that they may be a blessing to everyone they interact with.

In your name Lord Jesus, Amen.

At this time Brittany and Jeremiah would like to share some blessings with their families.

Song: Parker, Jessie, and Kylie

“I won’t give up” by Jason Mraz

Message:

Weddings are a great example of an occasion of grace.

Occasions of grace are celebrations of milestones in our lives where God is at work, other examples would be the moment of individual salvation, baptism, or communion.

For those of you witnessing this ceremony who are married while listening to God’s instructions for marriage you can think back on your own wedding and remember the vows you made to each other, and consider again God’s call to faithful love for the rest of your lives.

For those of us who are not married this is an opportunity for us to consider what kind of relationship we should be looking forward to, and preparing for.

During our time together today I am going to give a brief explanation of the story of the Bible often referred to as the gospel, define biblical love and faithfulness, then give instructions for marriage, followed by the exchanging of vows between the bride and groom.

In our Lord and Savior Jesus said: “In the original creation, God made male and female to be together.

Because of this, a man leaves father and mother, and in marriage he becomes one flesh with a woman—no longer two individuals, but forming a new unity.”

In speaking on marriage Jesus went back to creation to reveal the purpose of marriage, which was to make complete the creation of humanity.

You see the problem of loneliness preceded sin.

Humanity could only be complete as image bearers of God when like God who exists in plural oneness, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, humanity was able to exist in complimentary oneness as well.

They were created and paired together to reflect God’s likeness and care for His creation, and that was intended to be a mingling of souls, not two people working together but two people becoming one.

Now anyone can look around today and say well that sounds great but clearly this is not the way the world works.

Relationships are tough, humanity is naturally selfish, all of creation seems to be at enmity with itself.

If God intended creation to be beautiful and purposeful why are things the way they are today?

The problems we observe today at the root are a relationship problem.

This problem was introduced by Satan in Genesis three where he attacked relationships.

He caused humanity to doubt God’s goodness and tempt them to abandon their first love for the sake of empty promises of something better.

The consequences of giving in to this temptation was the breaking of intimacy with God and each other.

However while humanity broke the relationship God chose the greatest weapon of all, Love.

He chose to remain faithful in His love for His creation and in the midst of explaining the consequences of their actions He made a promise that He would fix the problem we created in order to reunite us with Him.

God came through on His promises, He came himself in the form of a man, Jesus, lived a perfect life that we couldn’t, then died the death we deserved in order to pay our debt and win us back.

Then He rose again conquering both sin and it’s greatest power, death, then returned to heaven and sent His Spirit to empower our faithfulness.

Our final hope now is that salvation has been made possible for us, and eternal life starts now.

We can now live in this broken world for the purpose of being used to share this amazing news so others to can be restored to intimacy with God and each other.

Now like I said the greatest power of sin is death, both physical and relational.

Sin tried to separate humanity from God, and husband from wife, but God’s greatest weapon against sin is Love.

You see throughout the entire biblical narrative God’s primary focus was not so much on destroying His enemy but on saving those He loved.

In it says this “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

And just as God utilized love as His primary weapon He also instructed His church to love.

Jeremiah and Brittany wanted me to share with you today.

This is a powerful text on love.

It goes like this: “Love is patient, love is kind.

Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep record of wrongs.

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.”

Now this text that defines love, and reveals it’s power was not written primarily for marriage rather it was written to the church as an instruction for how all believers should live.

This love, is meant to define us, to be an identifier of who we belong to.

In Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

He was describing the characteristics of being a Spirit filled creation, and it takes this kind of character to do that definition of love.

The beauty is that this kind of love is powerful, it’s transformative, at the very least it can keep two broken people together for a life time, at the very most it can spark and embolden revival across the world.

This isn’t the kind of love you find in romance novels, or on TV.

In the world love comes with expectations and when those aren’t met or things aren’t easy people give up.

But as we see here falling in or out of love is not something that happens to us, but a choice we make, because our love is not predicated by how we feel, but by the covenant promise we make.

Love is not merely a feeling but a choice put to action.

Our actions are not to be determined by our emotions or desires, but our choices, empowered by the Holy Spirit, are to guide our affections, which results in our greater joy.

True love is a choice, and that is so much more romantic than an accidental affection that may change determined by circumstances.

Our challenge then is to choose to persist and fight for loving committed relationships.

As Christians we are called to die to self and live to serve, following the example of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

This decision to be joined together in marriage is a commitment made before God, and friends and family for life, and it is going to be hard.

Hard, because we are joining two imperfect people together.

Yes it’s going to be hard, but hard is not impossible.

In fact this union is possible in the way God designed it because He also gave us the gift of His Holy Spirit to empower us to love and cherish one another in a way that brings Him glory, and reveals His faithful love for humanity.

So God’s love is powerful, it is constant, and it is a choice.

Faithfulness is a great descriptor of His love.

Throughout the gospel narrative we see this theme of faithfulness played out, so lets take a moment to unpack biblical faithfulness which will then lead us into our instructions for marriage in .

Faithfulness –

The Hebrew word translated as faithfulness in differing contexts of scripture is also translated as steadfast, trustworthy, true, sure, certain, loving kindness, actively as to cleave, or to hold fast.

It is defined as “maintaining allegiance; showing a strong sense of duty or conscientiousness.

It is used in reference to carrying or caring for a child, as a supporting activity and intimate relationship, with the qualities of firmness and stability.”

In a physical sense this word is used of pillars that provide support for doors.

So it is a relational, firm word evoking trust and dependence.

God’s faithfulness –

Biblically God’s faithfulness can be defined as His “determined loyalty to a gracious covenant.”

There is a strong link throughout scripture between faithfulness and steadfast love.

Faithfulness is one of the chef characteristics of God as He describes himself, as in “Then the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin.

But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.”

So God is faithful and that faithfulness is expressed relationally involving human interaction.

Human faithfulness –

God’s intimate relational faithfulness is not one sided, it demands/invokes human response.

In it says “Know that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His gracious covenant loyalty for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commands.”

And if you read through the story of the Bible from open to close you will see this relationship played out time and again, and how God’s constant faithfulness is where we find our hope and strength to respond and persevere in this relationship.

God’s faithfulness enables and inspires our faithfulness, both to Him as our Lord and savior and in our human relationships especially marriage.

In God instructs us through the words of Paul to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

In other words be faithful to one another as our Lord God has been faithful, assume His character actively in your personal relationships.

Which brings us to .

The primary message for marriage is in verses 22-33, but to give context and a better explanation I will first summarize verses 15-21.

There Paul is describing to the Ephesians how to live consistently in their Christian life.

He told them to live intentionally and with wisdom, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

To be “filled with the Spirit” means to be guided and empowered by the Spirit in our mind, emotions, and will.

And by the power of the Spirit his instructions were to praise God with their words to one another, give thanks to God in every situation they find themselves, and for everyone in their community to submit to one another.

So just to make that clear He said be intentional and wise, but that’s not enough.