From the Pastor

Marriage Basics - Aug. 26th, 2006

A Message for a Christian Wedding - Preached at my daughter’s Wedding

A while ago the bride and groom picked Bible readings to be read at their wedding today. As I was preparing this message I noticed that Sandi and Kyr had picked Genesis 2. I said to them “are you sure you want the whole thing.” Sandi said yea, “I want the part about the naming of the animals and I want the part about the rib. Kyr calls me his little rib.” I decided that after struggling with what am I going to say to my daughter on the day of her wedding. I wrote one sermon. And then I thought what am I going to say to my new son-in-law. I wrote another sermon. That one was easy to write and was three times as long. I finally decided to get back to the basics and this simple story in Genesis chapter 2 of the creation of the woman and the first marriage is going to help us.

You see Marriage has its roots in the dirt of creation. It isn’t some kind of lofty ideal, a religious concept, some romantic illusion. Marriage is grounded in the dust of our origin, our being male and female made in the image of God. Marriage is about sex and food and drink and house and home and bed and table and children and family. It embraces the fullness of who we are as human beings - the good, the bad, the ugly. Marriage is about sin and grace and forgiveness and faithfulness.

Marriage was invented when God recognized that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, something we men prove to ourselves and to the world over and over again. There were lots of great animals to name and hang around with, everything from aardvark to zebra, but not a suitable helper among them, no companion and counterpart, no one with whom to have communion. And so God put the man to sleep, and from the death of sleep he took a chunk of the man’s side and made a woman. Adam lost something, and he gained something in return. What he lost of himself he now receives as a gift and embraces in the form of another: a woman. She is like him but not like him, equal but not interchangeable. When the man saw the woman God made for him he said, “Finally! She’s like me, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. I’ll call her (woman) for she was taken out of (man).” The famous Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, wrote this about this passage: “Woman was taken out of man—not out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his foot to be trampled on, but out of his side to be near him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved.”

Marriage is a sacrifice. The Bible says, husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her. If there is one Bible verse husbands need to remember it’s that one. How did Christ love the Church? First He bleed for the Church. Then He died for the Church. Adam and Eve are the Bible precedent. They were the first married couple. When God took the rib from Adam to make Eve He split open his side and he likely bled. When Jesus went to the cross Roman soldiers took a spear and where did they make the incision? In his side. In the marriage to the Church Christ bled. In the Bible Christ is called the Bridegroom and the Church is called His Bride. The point here is that marriage costs you something. You have to crucify your will to be successfully married. You surrender your self interest to the best interests of your spouse and your family. Marriage is not easy. It is not for the faint hearted. It is not for the weak. Marriage is based on Covenant love. Covenant love is saying I will love you no matter what. It means commitment. Covenant love can take the heat. It can take the pressure. Convenient love calls it quits and starts talking about irreconcilable differences.

Today you will be promising ‘til death do us part.” That’s life long. You’re promising a lifelong run here, and we’re pulling for you, and praying for you, and promising that we’re going to stand with you in this business of being married. You’re God’s gifts to each other. You’re good for each other. And you’re being together as husband and wife is good for all of us. You being married strengthens our community. It adds to the backbone of our society, which seems to be increasingly spineless when it comes to family things. We’re rooting for a lifelong passionate run for the two of you, overflowing with passion for each other.

We harbor no romantic illusions. We’ll have nothing fake going on here. Your being married in a church by some guy in a medieval bathrobe doesn’t give your marriage a 100,000 mile lifetime bumper to bumper warrantee, even if it is your dad in the bathrobe. You really have no idea what you’re getting into here today. And there’s no way of finding out in advance. Living together without marriage is just pretending. You need commitment to know what it really means to be truly married. You can’t know what it’s like to be married to someone until you marry someone and enter into covenant love. And from then on it’s life without a script, for better or worse, richer or poor, in sickness and in health. You can’t trade each other in for a newer, shinier, spiffier model when one or the other breaks down on the road. And if you try, we’re going to run some interference. That’s why we’re here. Because we love you, and we are here to support you in what you have deemed best for your future, your marriage to each other.

One day you’re going to wake up one morning six or seven years from now, and open a sleepy eye and look at that other person on the pillow next to you, and say to yourself in a moment of introspective panic, “Eee gads! What have I gotten myself into?” And you won’t want to be there, and your mind will wander to greener romantic pastures. And then you’ll see the rings you exchanged, rings that won’t come off because you’re fingers are too fat. And you’ll remember the promises you made, promises that don’t wear out. And you’ll resolve to stick with it. Not because you feel like it but because that’s what married people do. They stick with it and with each other, the way Christ sticks with His Bride the Church.

And I want to tell you something here and now. There is someone else making a promise here today. God is here and He promises to bless all those who seek to love and trust Him and seek to give Him their faithful worship and praise. God does not break His promises.

Now we have with us today some very stubborn married folk. We have couples that have been married 32 years and 40 years, and 55 years and 60 years. You talk to those stubborn couples who will not let their marriage die, they’ll tell you. You don’t necessarily live happily EVER after, but you live. No counseling, no gimmicks, no techniques. Just hanging in there together - for richer, for poorer, in sickness, in health. Loving, cherishing, forgiving, until one or the other or both of you drop dead in the arms of Jesus.

Marriage is not a romantic ride. Romance can certainly help. Romance is for courtship and dating. Don’t forget about romance, but go for something much more. Go for love. Don’t just skip along the surface of love, like a flat stone on a shallow lake. Swim in the deep end. Give us a real marriage to look at. Don’t just play the role of husband and wife.

Sometimes, when we think of showing our love to each other we think of simply material things. “I'll get her this or I'll get him that.” We must be careful not to confuse love with duty. I hear men say. “Look here, I provide food, I provide clothing. I provide shelter for my family. That's proof that I love them.” Wrong! That's duty. That's not love. The Bible says, he that provides not for his own is worse than and infidel. Being a male is a matter of chance. Being a man is a matter of choice. Kyr, you be a man! Support and take care of your wife, & do more than that, you love her!

The same goes for you Sandi Marie. The Bible says: If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. If Kyr asks you to go one mile for him, go two. Duty goes the first mile. Love goes the second. Love always tries to do willingly more than is asked. Love is doing something for which you know that you will never, ever, ever, receive an equal reward.

Now please bear with me. There are a few things I did not have a chance to say to Kyr and Sandi, during pre-marriage classes. And you need to hear them too. We have been saving furniture for the two of you since you announced your engagement. My garage is full. I can’t even move in it. And then Sandi comes home for the summer and says, oh we probably want to get our own stuff, thanks dad.

Uggg! I got rid of it in a hurry--to the thrift store. I’m kind of glad you won’t be hauling all that old furniture to Edmonton because as I have been pondering over this message for the last couple weeks I have concluded that you only need two pieces of furniture to have a successful marriage--a bed and a table. Everything else is optional. You don’t need a TV or a stereo or a LazyBoy recliner. But you need a bed and a table. A place to eat together and a place to sleep together and whatever else you may do. Those are the places of communion in a marriage, where husband and wife commune with each other, where the sacredness of marriage takes place.

When couples come to me for a tune up because their marriage doesn’t seem to be getting the mileage it used to, I’ve learned to ask two simple diagnostic questions: Do you eat together? Do you go to bed at the same time, presumably to the same bed? And the answer is usually no, or hardly ever. No communion. It’s like a Christian who never prays, never sings a song to Christ, never shows up at Jesus’ table except for Christmas and Easter. That’s no relationship. Tend to your bed and your table. Eat together. Pray together. Sleep together. Talk. Commune.

You’ll notice the words communication and communion have the same root. The best marriage talk is pillow talk and table talk. So guard your bed and your table. Don’t let anything or anyone interfere.

The Second thing, recognize that Christ is in the middle of everything in your marriage. Notice I didn’t say put Christ in the middle. You don’t put Christ anywhere that He hasn’t already put Himself. Nor do we make Christ anything that He isn’t already. I didn’t say put Christ first, as though He were one among many priorities. He’s the middle, the center, the focus, the source, He is the reason the two of you met. I sent my daughter away to get a Christ centered education and she got that and much more a Christ centered husband.

He’s the one who made you, who called you into existence, who holds you in the palm of His hands, who reconciled you to God together with the whole world on a good Friday between noon and three. It’s His robe of righteousness that you wear like a Teflon suit of forgiveness. It’s His innocence that God sees when He looks at you. It’s His blessedness that is yours. You live under His sign, and oh look. . . . that is where you are beginning your life together, under the sign of the cross, here at the altar of God. You are citizens of His kingdom. And so worship Him at your table and at His table. Hear His Word together and pray together at your table. Deal with each other and receive each other through Him. He’s the center of your marriage, not you. Remember your childhood prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer we pray every Sunday in church, Thy will be done.

Third, forgive one another, regularly and recklessly. Someone once said, Jesus pours the good wine of His forgiveness with a generous wrist. Your cup runneth over. Let the forgiveness you receive from Christ overflow flow to each other. You are not perfect. That means you’re going to step on each other’s toes, but don’t let it stop the dance. God’s not stopping the music. You’re dyed-in-the-wool sinners, but your robes are bleached by the blood of the Lamb. You’re real sinners who really sin, and you’re really forgiven in Jesus. Now live and love in the freedom of that forgiveness.

Forgive one another. Take out the garbage in your marriage, frequently. Don’t let it accumulate, don’t sweep it under the rug or hide it in the attic or the garage like your parents do. Don’t do like a cat and try to cover it up and pretend it isn’t there. Confess your sins to each other and in the name of Jesus forgive each other as God in Christ has forgiven you, lest it interfere with bed and your table. Forgive each other through Jesus. Let go. Drop dead to each other’s sins and failings and weaknesses. Jesus has dropped dead to yours in His suffering and death for all of us.

We pray for you, Kyr and Sandi, we bless you, and soon we’ll raise a toast of wine to you. May your lives together be rooted in the goodness of God’s creation and the freedom of His redemption. May your bed be passionate and fruitful. May your table be a feast of great things, great conversation, wonderful compliments and fine words of forgiveness.

This is my prayer for you!

Back to sermons