Craig and Becky, it's been quite an adventure getting to this day, hasn't it. There were moments when it looked like you'd never make, but by the grace of God you're here. Standing before this group of family and friends, before God Himself, and making a new thing. Making a family. Pledging your vows before each other, making promises of fidelity and generosity, setting out on a path together that, by God's grace, will last many, many years - until one of you passes into glory.
Adventures are what our life is about as believers. Day by day, hour by hour, we are called to live this great adventure that is the discovery of God's plan for our lives and the demonstration that He is faithful in enabling us to live out that plan. And sometimes that's a challenging test. There were times when you had to walk entirely by faith, not knowing if God was going to open the doors and provide what you needed, but knowing that you had to walk in obedience and trust Him to be faithful.
As I watched you over these months, I was reminded of the story of Esther. She was a Jewish girl who became queen of Persia when her people were in exile there. One day she learned from her uncle Mordecai of a plot to destroy the Jewish people. Mordecai urged her to go to the king to stop the plot, but Esther knew that the penalty for going uninvited to the king could be death. But she mustered up her courage, asked for prayer and went to the king, who received her, listened to her request, and took the needed action to save her people.
This is but one of many examples throughout the Bible of how our walk of faith requires courage. Abraham laying his son Isaac as a sacrifice on the altar, Moses going before the king of Egypt to seek the release of his people, Gideon leading an army of 300 against a horde of invaders, David refusing to kill King Saul even though Saul had repeatedly tried to take his life, and many more. All of these people acted out of a conviction that God's way was the right way and that even though the stakes were enormous, it was worth following Him regardless.
And as God proved faithful with these people, so He has with you. As you stepped out believing that He would be faithful, God has overcome all the barriers that stood between you and this day.
Your need for faith and courage doesn't end today, either. It takes both faith and courage to make these huge promises you'll be making. "For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health…" - what enormous promises these are. They are far too large for sinful human beings to make on their own. To make and to stake yourself on these promises requires that God Himself be a part of the promises, enabling you to keep them and to trust your spouse to keep them as well.
But the issue is even bigger than that, as is revealed for us in Ephesians 5:22-33, where we read:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “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. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Loving Becky as Christ loved the church - Craig, that means a day by day laying down of your life in order to help her become as beautiful as God intends. Submitting to Craig as the church to Christ - Becky, that means trusting his leadership and seeking to follow him as well as you can, however scary that may be.
What an overwhelming standard God is presenting here to sinful human beings! It is as far beyond us as God Himself is beyond us. And yet it is God Himself who will work in you to make you increasingly able to do exactly what He commands. As the Holy Spirit works in your lives to shape them after the likeness of Jesus you will learn how to love and serve, how to follow and obey, like Jesus did.
And you will find that it is worth it. We were made for this. Adam discovered this in the garden of Eden, as we read in Genesis 2:18-25.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
In a world that God had pronounced "very good," there was one thing that was not good. It was not good that man should be alone. So God sent Adam to name all the animals, and in the process Adam too discovered that it was not good; that all the animals had their mate but Adam was alone. Then God made Eve from Adam, and, in the world's first wedding ceremony, he presented her to Adam, just as Bill here presented Becky to Craig. And Adam responds "At last!" "This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." This is the one whom I knew all along that I needed but never had. Just as Eve was made for Adam, so Adam was made for Eve, and the world could not truly be very good until they had each other.
But there's more. While we were made for each other, to be companions and to have families and to be fruitful and multiply, God intended much more from us than just that. As we saw in the Ephesians 5 passage, God intends for us to be an image of the relationship of Christ and the church to a watching world. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church so that the world can look at husbands and say, "so that's what Jesus is like." Wives are to submit to their husbands as the church is to Christ so the world can look at wives and say, "so that's what it's like to follow Jesus."The first wedding ceremony was also the first gospel proclamation. As God brings Eve to Adam, He says to all future generations, "this is what I am like and what you are to be like." God created us in His image, male and female so that we would have the unimaginable privilege of showing forth a bit of His nature and glory as we humbly and faithfully live out married lives with each other.
This is why it we are not free to remake marriage according to our own whims. It is because Christ will not leave his church for someone else that we must not divorce our spouse. It is because the church must not go after other gods that we may not be unfaithful to our spouse. And it is because there are not two Christs or two churches bound together that men may not marry men, nor women marry women.
To deface marriage like this is like drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa and comes near to blasphemy, for it spoils the portrait of Himself that God intends for marriage to be. But a faithful marriage between a man and a woman is a true image of the character of God Himself and shows to the world what it means for Christ to give Himself to his church and for the church to follow Christ.
And there's more. God gave us marriage to teach us about heaven. In Revelation 21:1-4, we are caught up into a vision of the end of the world and the beginning of heaven. There we read:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
When God was choosing an image to convey the beauty and joy that will characterize heaven, he chose the image of a bride. Becky, as you came down the aisle today, you were enacting a little representation of God's people, cleansed and made holy, coming to Him to dwell with him forever. Craig, as you received Becky, so God will receive His people forever in the life to come. Heaven is not bored angels sitting on clouds strumming harps - if anything that's more like hell. Heaven is much more like this moment. The joy the two of you feel as you approach marriage together is a small hint of that immense delight that God will feel in His people, and we in Him, on the day when all things are made new and God wipes away every tear.
So, Craig and Becky, you have begun an enormous undertaking. You are to love and submit, to serve and delight in each other in such a way as to provide a watching and skeptical world a true picture of who God is, how He relates to us and how He wants us to relate to Him. It's a humanly impossible task. But if you approach it with humility and lean on Jesus every step of the way, He will enable you to do all that He commands, and will make your marriage something of supernatural beauty. We will pray for your every success and your abundant delight, and as God enables, we will help you to live out a life together that glorifies God and brings you lasting joy.
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