Monday, December 14, 2009

A wedding Sermon

Well congratulations Steve and Michelle, you have done it, officially married and everything!

I'm glad I could play a part here today.

Michelle, you look lovely today.

And Steve, well - good to see you got rid of those ridiculous corn rows you had at your brothers wedding!!

Now, I'm pretty sure I don't need to argue to you two that marriage is a good thing! Given where we are standing and what we have just undertaken.

And as we look at the picture of marriage seen in the First book of the Bible Genesis which was read earlier, it looks wonderful and warms the soul doesn’t it? A scene of marriage that is full of hope. That is the kind of relationship we are all after aren't we?

31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

A deep relationship where we are fully known as we know them. Where everything is working as it should. It's an idyllic picture.

Beautiful beyond compare, deeply romantic - the stuff of Jane Austin novels, (so think Clueless or Bridget Jones for those of you who have studied the HSC in last ten years when the state gov has given up on English being our native tongue and has settled for predictive text!)
The scene is something of the hopeless romantics dream isn't it?


But, the rest of us who aren't of the hopeless romantic bent right now are probably asking the question, "Are you kidding me? What Parallel universe does that exist in?"

This picture of marriage doesn't so much warm the soul as it does callously mock us, and our inability to know or give that kind of selfless and unbounded love.

For the skeptics amongst us I suspect the real question is, not is marriage a good thing, but how on earth could anyone possibly make this work?

You only need to have a cursory look at the institution they call marriage in our society today to know, it is in a little trouble isn't it? Because they say that financial strain is amongst one of the top reasons that marriages struggle and even end in divorce. So if Tiger Woods the $1BN man can't keep a marriage together - what hope have punters like you and me got?

Well I think this is where the teaching of the Bible on Marriage actually comes into it's own, it is neither allows us to try and escape the reality of the world we live in by indulging in being hopelessly romantic about marriage, nor does it let us take the easy way out of withdrawing from marriage by being a skeptic throwing cheap shots from the cheap seats - about the most profound commitment one can make to another in this life.

The Bible leaves no room for either pie in the sky idealism nor cowardly cynicism, but calls forward from us a loving realism about marriage - not marriage as a concept, but about our marriage the personal reality, and today your own marriage Steve and Michelle - it is all about your marriage today.

People sometimes say that marriage as a concept is flawed, but in reality it is a simple concept - Steve all that you are, and all that you have now belongs to Michelle, And Michelle all that you are, and all that you have now belongs to Steve, as long as you both shall live... so that means you can't now give it to anyone else, because you already gave it to other person - pretty clear, pretty simple concept right?

The only problem with marriage, is not the concept, but the people. The only two problems with my marriage are me and my wife - otherwise it is quite easy..

And problem is because of one reason - when push comes to shove in life and even love, people are in themselves self interested, which is to say in our natural inclinations we are selfish. We firstly look to saving our own skin, and looking after our own needs, before anything else - and that kind of attitude is cancerous to a marriage relationship. Don't believe me - just watch what happens to Tiger Woods over the next couple of weeks - self interest is deadly to a marriage relationship.

And the Bible picks this one rightly, you see the idyllic picture of marriage we had back in Genesis chapter 1 & 2 of man and women being one flesh, and working together without fear, animosity or shame - is followed by Chapter 3 of Genesis where it all goes pear shaped.

God created mankind and gave them life, and mankind were very appreciative of the life that God gave them to live, but the first people decided that they just weren't so keen on God being personally involved in their life. And so God gave mankind what they wanted (for a lifetime) and people have been bearing the consequences of our broken relationship with God ever since, because through that one decision sin entered into this perfect scene of creation, and it tainted everything - even marriage.

The perfection of this world that was, is no longer, and mankind was cast adrift by God to walk the earth acting out their own self interest.

But the first people weren't unique in this, because every person since, including you and me, has had the same attitude, that God is a nice concept but a bad house guest. So we ask him to kindly leave us alone to live our lives our own way, and when you combine it with the selfishness that is hard wired in us, well you only have to look around at the world, including marriage, to see the outcome.

So if self interest, the selfish of Sin, is the problem in the world, and more particularly as we think about it today, the problem of marriage, what is the solution?

How do we make this marriage work?
Well the solution to the problem of the selfishness of Sin in marriage, is the selflessness of love.

In Eph 5:1 it says;

Eph. 5:1    Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Firstly, the selflessness of God's Love

Despite mankind deciding to act in turning its back on their creator, God who is rich in mercy, acted to fix the problem. You getting the pattern here, the offended party is the one who is acting to restore this broken relationship.

All of us know we have not honoured God as God with our whole hearts as he deserves in our lives, and because of that we have offended him and broken our relationship with him, and we need it to be fixed.

And God himself, God the Son Jesus Christ came into the world (at Christmas incase you were wondering) to fix our broken relationship, the problem of sin in our world and in our lives.

Jesus died on a wooden Roman Cross 2000 years ago (at Easter - just making sure you are keeping up here), he Died on that Cross, as an innocent man, to die the death I deserved, and you deserved to pay our debt towards God.

God who we had offended, took the initiative, to restore the relationship that we had broken. God loved each of us enough, to send his son to die for us, so Jesus could offer us a gift of forgiveness, so that we could say thank you and have a new relationship with God. Our debt paid for, our past washed away, and a new ability to choose not to be self interested any longer.

Because of Jesus death, there is a real offer to be called God's dearly loved children and to call God our heavenly Father.

Firstly, God's love is selfless.

Secondly, The selflessness of our Love in Response

Now I know that Steve & Michelle that you are people who both have accepted Jesus offer of forgiveness and because of that you can call God your heavenly father, but this gift to you should not be without its effect, and in particular in your marriage.

God's selfless love towards us is not only the example for us to follow in our selfless love of our spouse, but it is also the power to do it.

A deep understanding of the Gospel of Christ and the forgiveness you have received is the fuel source for love in a marriage, it enables you to love, when you have been wronged by offering real forgiveness, it reminds you to serve the other, when deep down you have had enough, because Christ Loved you first.
The Gospel of Christ and the forgiveness we receive in it, is the power to resist and change the self interest, the selfishness that lies within.

In marriage we are responsible for selflessly loving the other in order that they (and this relationship) may flourish in a way that shows the wisdom of Christ and his gospel message of forgiveness.

Now In particular Steve it seems to me, The expression of the Selflessness of your love towards Michelle can be summarized in two words - Opt In

Truly Love your wife, care for her, be kind and look out for her well being above your own.

God opted in to restore the relationship that you have with him, and it is you responsibility to opt-in for your marriage, to take the initiative to selflessly care for Michelle -

Michelle, it seems to me The Selflessness of your love towards Steve can be summarized in two words - Leave Space

Honour your husband by leaving space for him to take the initiative, If instead you get impatient and choose to take control, well watch your husband shrink before your eyes! Take control and watch him opt out!

Love your husband by selflessly honouring and trusting him enough that he would be able to take the initiative and selflessly love you, let him have the space to selflessly love you.
Relationships at any given moment either spiral down or spiral up, selfless love of the other is what enables the relationship to spiral up, opting out, or not leaving space spiral’s down.

Christ’s selfless love is to fuel our selfless love of each other. And our selfless love in marriage is to testify to Christ’s selfless love towards us.

Let me finish with a quote that I think picks up wonderfully the unbelievably hard journey and great Joy it is to be married and a parent


In our society, of course, there is no need to become an adult. One may remain — one is daily exhorted to remain — a child forever. In such a life, the central aim is self-fulfilment.
Marriage is merely an alliance, entailing as minimal an abridgment of inner privacy as one partner may allow. Children are not a welcome responsibility, for to have children is, plainly, to cease· being a child oneself One tries instead to live as the angels were once believed to live — soaring, free, unencumbered.
People say of marriage that it is boring; when what they mean is that it terrifies them: too many and too deep are its searing revelations, its angers,its rages, its hates, and its loves. They say of marriage that it is deadening,when what they mean is that it drives us beyond adolescent fantasies and romantic dreams.

They say of children that they are piranhas, brats, snots,
when what they mean is that the importance of parents with respect to the future is now known with greater clarity and exactitude than ever before.
Being married and having children has impressed on my mind certain lessons, and most of what I am forced to learn about myself is not pleasant. The quantity of sheer impenetrable selfishness in the human breast (in my
breast) is a never—failing source of wonderment. I do not want to be disturbed, challenged, troubled. Huge regions of myself belong only to me. Seeing myself through the unblinking eyes of an intelligent, honest Spouse is humiliating. Trying to act fairly to children, each of whom is
temperamentally different to myself and from each other, is baffling.
My family bonds hold me back from many opportunities. And yet these bonds are, I know, my liberation. They force me to be a different sort of human being in a way I want and need.

- Michael Novak, quoted in John Powell,
Unconditional Love (Allen TX: Argus, 1978) pp. 92-93

My prayer for you is that you would love every moment of this great and God ordained way of becoming a different sought of human being, in a way you need, and in a way that is Christ empowered and Christ exalting, a life of selfless love towards each other.

Eph. 5:1    Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

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