LeBrecht / Jordon Wedding
Wedding • Sermon • Submitted
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Welcome and prayer
As we come to this wonderful and joyous time today - I want to let you know I am going to take a passage of Scripture completely out of context. Don’t faint. I can do that in this case, because the principle the verse communicates, can stand on its own - even apart from the immediate context. And it is taken from the book of Amos - Amos 3:3
Amos 3:3 ESV“Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?
The verse itself heads a list of rhetorical questions put by God to the people of Israel. Each one of those questions has one goal - to say to them: “Isn’t what I am arguing obvious?”
That is why we can build off of it today.
The statement should be SO obvious - that 2 people can’t possibly walk together unless they have agree to do so - that it needs no defense. And it raises a key reality that applies to Christian marriage in a profound way.
As Gabe and Aleesha come here today - they are saying to their friends, their families, to the World and especially to their Savior - that they have agreed to walk together.
Walking together. Not just with each other, but as two joined together as one - to walk with Christ.
This amazing, extraordinary gift of God to mankind called marriage has 2 primary designs in it. 1. To model the nature of Christ’s love and union with the Church.
Ephesians 5:31–32 ESV“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
When I married my wife, I married her so I could be with her. As much as possible. Which, as I approach retirement might not be as attractive to her as it once was!
But that is the nature of God saving us through faith in the atoning work of Christ on the Cross. He saved us, to be with us - eternally.
In Deut. 6 Moses tells the people of Israel that God had brought them out of Egypt so that He could bring them in to the Promised Land. i.e. NOT so they could just tramp around the desert. He had a final goal in mind. And salvation has that final goal of our being united to Christ as a Bride to her Husband.
2. Marriage is meant to give us an opportunity to sample that union now in the way we get to express and experience the grace of Christ through and to each other in the intimacy of marriage. We get to forgive each other. Dote on each other. Please each other. Support each other. Comfort each other. And continually point each other to the goodness of Christ.
Marriage is a foretaste of the consummation of that union of Christ and His Church in eternity.
So today, Gabe and Aleesha come together to walk together as Christ desires to walk with His Church - but as our text notes: Two can’t walk together unless they have agreed meet.
And that agreement to walk together requires 3 things.
a. They must agree on a common destination. To walk with Christ, we must be agreed to be heading to the same destination He was: He was headed back the The Father. To the New Jerusalem. And you must be headed there too - to live with Him in His house.
And so you two have to agree to that same destination if you would walk together with Him as a couple - as one. He has destined you to fully bear the image of Christ. To spend eternity in His presence. And as long as you both maintain that same destination - you’ll be able to truly walk together - together with Him. You must - I believe you have - agreed on that common destination.
b. For two to walk together, they have to be agreed to take the same route. They have to walk the same path. And there is but one path for the Believer, the straight and narrow one as Jesus calls it - following Him on His path to the Father. It is also the path of holiness. Of lives consecrated to His service, His cause and His kingdom. It is the path to the Cross, to death to self. And marriage is the one place we learn to die to self more than any other - especially as you aim at helping each other continue toward that glorious destination.
c. For 2 to walk together, they need to walk at the same pace. Each of us grows and matures at slightly different rates.
When I met Sky, she said she was hoping to marry someone a bit younger. I asked her if the fact that I was grossly immature was sufficient to make up that gap. I still don’t know - but she married me anyway.
We mature at different rates physically, psychologically and even spiritually. So there will be times when you need to wait for each other to catch up. When one will seem to lag behind somewhat, and when the other will feel like they are being held back some. But love binds us to each other in such a way that when we need to either slow or quicken the pace in our growth in Christ’s image - we find out how to do it together. It requires patience.
And it manifests the wonder of Christ’s love for us. How patient He is with our often manifested lack of spiritual progress. And yet He never leaves us in the dust - but brings us along with Himself.
Having agreed to the same destination of Christ’s likeness and life in the New Heavens and New Earth together; Having agreed to walk the same path in following Christ together; And having agreed to walk with each other at the same pace - Believing that this is what I know of you two, and that there are no impediments to this lawful marriage - it is fitting to exchange vows to that effect before God - and this group of witnesses.
VOWS
Gabe, face Aleesha and repeat after me:
“I, Gabe, take you, Aleesha,
to be my wife for the rest of my life.
I promise God and I promise you
that I will not dishonor his name or your trust.
I will love you as Christ loves the church.
I will earnestly seek God’s will for our family.
I will allow God’s Spirit to fill me
and produce in me the character of Christ.
I will make you, above all others, my first priority.
I will be devoted to you
and will reserve my affections for you alone.
I will make it my highest goal
to bring glory to God through my life
and through the oneness of our lives together.
I make these vows in the name of our glorious Savior.
Amen.”
Aleesha, repeat after me:
“I, Aleesha, take you, Gabe,
to be my husband for the rest of my life.
I promise God and I promise you
that I will not dishonor his name or your trust.
I will honor and respect you
as God made you.
I will earnestly seek God’s will for our family.
I will allow God’s Spirit to fill me
and produce in me the character of Christ.
I will make you, above all others, my first priority.
I will be devoted to you
and will reserve my affections for you alone.
I will make it my highest goal
to bring glory to God through my life
and through the oneness of our lives together.
I make these vows in the name of our glorious Savior.
Amen.”
THE RING CEREMONY
Gabe, will you place the ring on Aleesha’s finger and repeat after me:
“With gladness and promise,
I give you this ring,
as a witness of my vows to you
and my pledge to keep them.
In the name of the God of all grace,
who has saved us and keeps us. Amen.”
Aleesha, will you place the ring on Gabe’s finger and repeat after me:
“With gladness and promise,
I give you this ring,
as a witness of my vows to you
and my pledge to keep them.
In the name of the God of all grace,
who has saved us and keeps us. Amen.”
PRAYER
By the authority I have as a minister of the Gospel, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel LeBrecht