Marriage

I was preaching at a wedding on Friday, whilst I always find preaching on such occassions hard it is always a joy to do. Here are my notes on what was said:

Well it’s finally here! At last it’s happened you are Mr and Mrs. And as you start your life together I just want to remind you of a few principles to live your married life by.

Marriage is God’s design - Genesis 2 paints a fantastic picture of marriage as God intended it to be, Eve as Adam’s helper, working together, leading and helping one another to fulfil God’s role for them in ruling over the earth on his behalf. It is a beautiful image of man and woman enjoying one another, sharing and giving themselves to one another intimately, and serving God together. It is marriage made by God, marriage with a happily ever after. As Genesis 2 closes it is like the scene at the end of a Hollywood or Disney film where the couple ride off into the sunset together.

But that isn’t the world we live in, we know life isn’t like that. And the Bible is just as realistic, it doesn’t end with Genesis 2, and not only does the Bible show us the world as it is now but it also explains why it is like that.

In the very next chapter Adam and Eve decide to ignore the creator’s instructions.

To man I just want to give you some practical advice. When your wife has dragged you round Ikea and you get home and open the box you will find somewhere in there a strange little piece of paper with odd diagrams and words on. It is called an instruction book, it is not unmanly to use it in fact it can be good for your wife’s sanity and your marriage.

Anyway back to Adam and Eve, they decide to throw away God’s instruction book, his explanation of the way the world was built, how to care for it and enjoy it to the fullest. Instead they decide to do it their way, to decide right and wrong for themselves. It is a decision that devastates and disjoints their relationship with the world, each other and God and has done ever since.

It is hard to imagine today that your marriage will ever be anything but perfect. But God would tell us, and remind you, that we are sinners, prone to wanting things our own way, to determining right and wrong for ourselves. You are marrying someone who, like the rest of us, will want to have the world the way they want it, according to their own thinking, who thinks it’s ok to leave the loo seat up, who squeezes the toothpaste from the top, never rinses the shower down after they use it, who decides right and wrong for themselves in their own interest from the small scale to the big.

So what hope is there? Model your marriage on the love of God.

The hope for your marriage, and the rest of us, it is in the love we see in 1 John 4.

God sees the brokenness of the world and is not indifferent to it, he sees the brokenness of the world and is not inactive about it. “he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” God’s love sees him send his Son to sacrificially pay the price for our rebellion to restore our relationship to God.

In your marriage there will be times when you have to forgive each other and that forgiveness will come at a cost. Love one another like God loves you and be willing to meet that cost.

But there is another feature of the love of God, God’s love for us is not based on attraction. God loves us when we are in rebellion against him, when we are still refusing him, it is an act of will. It is a covenantal love.

You have in front of all of us made significant promises today. In Hollywood films they say “I do” to them, but actually Hollywood is wrong, today you said the right words which were “I will”. It is a promise, a covenant about your future conduct. It is not the immediate I do love them now, but the concrete promise that I will love them for the rest of my life no matter what.

A love like that requires a response, the right response to God’s love is to recognise our rebellion, to believe, repent and live following him. It means changing how we think, how we act in short how we live. There will be times in your marriage when you will need to forgive each other, ask forgiveness of each other and live in the light of forgiveness received. Just as God in Christ forgave you.

As you start married life resolve to live in the light of the grace you have received in Christ. Live your married life to serve God, not just in your work, but in your marriage as you serve one another, as you show grace to one another, as others see Christ’s love and care for his people modelled in the way you love and give sacrificially one to the other.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”