Christian Marriage

Biblical Text: John 15:9-17
Full Text of Sermon

Finding poignancy in pop songs is pretty tough. Lady GaGa flirts with it before retreating to camp and a great bass line. There are the ever so earnest indies. The ingenues like Adele whose combine the virtues of youth and a healthy supply of talent, but that usually doesn’t age well. Something close to of the moment (I’m a pastor with three young kids, so cut me a little slack) – “somebody that I use to know“. One of the pop lines that has stuck with me is from Matchbox 20’s Real World. The Chorus, after having the singer imagine that he’s rainmaker, sings about the real world – “Please don’t change, please don’t break. The only thing that seems to work at all is you.” I remember thinking when I first heard it that the song feels the fallen world. A bunch of people looking for something that works knowing that everything eventually breaks.

That is where the orthodox understanding of marriage comes in. Everything in this fallen world breaks: towers and titans, marriages and friendships, toys and trinkets. And when we move past bargaining- “Please don’t break” we move toward acceptance, at least if pop psychology is correct. Acceptance in the realm of marriage looks like what we have – a landscape full of people that we used to know, maybe even those living with us.

But acceptance is not the endpoint of the Christian story. We might accept that things break, but not for the purpose of excusing them or making the brokenness normal. If we say the brokenness is normal, we lose the gospel. Instead we teach repentance – I’m broke. And we teach restoration – Christ makes all things new.

In regard to marriage we could teach acceptance, but that is what Moses did, that is what the law does. And the law permits divorce. In this day and age it is permitting a whole bunch else as well. But Jesus didn’t teach that. If he did, we wouldn’t have the cross, because that is what Jesus did for his bride the church. And you don’t do the cross if there is another way out. We are broken. We live in a broken world. But Christ was not. Jesus fulfills the covenant that marriage is a glimpse of. The bridegroom shares 100% of himself with his bride. The crucified one is the only thing around here that works.

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Benedict-Wilson Wedding Sermon

I don’t usually add these occasional sermons. They usually are so specific to the event that I don’t think there is much that someone could get out of them without that background. This is one I think a little differently about. I really liked this sermon (if I do say so myself). It is short, a quick read and I think presents the gospel in a light and attractive way. It might be worth your 5 minutes whether married 5 mins or 10 years.

Text: 1 Cor 12 – 13
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…”
Our generation has been chastened from some of those stark statements, but we still gather in joy at weddings. Brides – like Delia here, and grooms –like Curtis – will come before God and their assembled family and friends and promise shortly to love, honor and keep in sickness and in health. They will pledge to each other their faithfulness. In other words, to promise that love never ends.
But St. Paul – the writer of those words – is not naïve about love. Listen to how he defines love. It bears all things. So when the mountain top experience of the wedding day is a distant memory replaced by the mountain of laundry. Love bears it.
Love believes all things. I don’t think that St. Paul is asking us to be intentionally stupid here, but is saying that love puts the best construction possible on your spouse’s actions. So when he’s watching football on your anniversary – it is not because he’s an ingrate, but because he really means it’s a big game. Or when she claims that new furniture is needed or that you need to forget about the game to decorate a room – love believes this is a necessity.
And probably most importantly – love hopes all things. Your hopes are now for each other and jointly as a couple. Love chooses to place its hope in your partner – even when it might not be the smart thing. Love choses to hope in the union – when something else might look more hopeful.
And all of these bearing, believing, hoping, enduring…these actions of love are not easy, but they are your choice. The world wishes to say that love should be easy. From mountaintop to mountaintop. God’s revelation is that love is both easy and hard…and much more defined by the hard…and it is in our hands. We choose to continue to love, even when something might not be loveable.
The truth is that none of us will ever live up to that. But we have been given an example and a promise. Christ loved his bride the church. Such that he bore the cross for her. Believes that she is the best thing even though church history might say otherwise, continues in word and sacrament to hope for her… and Christ’s love for His bride the church does not end. How Christ deals with the church is the ideal for marriage – with hope and faith , with forgiveness, and greatest of all, with love.
So we gather in joy for a wedding, because we commit ourselves to that ideal. And we commit to that knowing that Christ has already lived it for us. That when we are weak, He still loves us…and allows us to renew our lives though His never-ending love. Amen.

The Milk of Faith

Draft 1.0

There are some very simple statements that are rarely expressed that are the seed bed of faith. You get close to them if you look at the world and just say what you see. Do you see millions of atoms randomly moving around? Do you see a tragic beauty? Maybe just beauty? Probably your answer to that sets your course. You presuppositions typically set your logic.

I was converted in a way to our VBS this year. It did a masterful job of talking about some of the unexpressed basic assumptions. Who is God and how does He act in regards to us? What are your gut level thoughts and presuppositions about God? VBS took Psalm 139 as the text. I pays every Christian to bring those basic thoughts to life every now and then. The world and our adversary will try and convince you that you are a fool for thinking something like: God loves you no matter what. But that is what God has revealed about himself in the Bible, in Creation and most clearly in Christ, in the cross. Those simple statements are the simple milk of faith.

[Note – in the podcast the sermon starts about the 5:00 mark]

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