This Memorial Day weekend I was in my first wedding – I was my best friend’s Maid of Honor. Faith and I have been friends since our first day in college 4 years ago, as random roomies no less. We’ve been through it all together – sharing an 11x16ft room, major/career changes, giant family dynamic changes, boyfriends there, breakups here, battles with Christianity etc etc. And now, marriage. Faith asked me to deliver the (mini) sermon at her wedding. It’s only a day into my past and I know it will be one of my most treasured moments.
Below is my script. I clutched it while my hands (that I couldn’t feel) shook as I spoke to all of their loved ones. All Faith wanted was the gospel and that’s what I tried to deliver. I know lots of Racers and pre-Racers aren’t spending great amounts of time thinking about marriage (because we have a lot of other stuff on our minds) but God’s grace is every stage of life no matter how personally present it may be and it really can’t hurt to be reminded of that.
Just to get the cat out of the bag, I am an unmarried woman talking about marriage. So I do not have a track record of personal funny stories or trials within my own non-existent marriage to share with you all today. However, I have seen the love between Faith and Jordan grow in the last two years and I do love to talk about Jesus.
I don’t know how many of you know this about Faith – she has one, beautiful ring on her left hand from Jordan, which brought us to this day, but she also wears another ring on her right hand. The ring says on the outside, “agape” which is a word for the unconditional love of God and on the inside “God is love. 1 John 4:16”. I gave this ring to my best friend two years ago for her 20th birthday. I couldn’t have imagined that the message within this ring would be the basis for what I’m talking about today.
This is 1 John 4:7-16
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
You’ll notice I said love a lot. Indeed. 27 times. I promise to say it a few more times today, but you’ll also notice the words marriage or men or women wasn’t in that passage. So let’s connect the two.
Defining marriage: God created marriage as a symbol of the church and Christ – as a symbol of the truth found in the gospel. What is this truth in the gospel?
From 1 John 4: 10 – 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Marriage is a symbol in that each person longs to serve the other in the same way Christ served his Church: completely and gracefully.
But of course this is something we long to do so we are not perfect symbols of this, so marriage is also a quite like gaining a team member in the process of understanding, living within and growing in the glory of this truth everyday.
Now to dive deeper into the two main ideas of this passage: where does love come from and what does it do.
1. There is no love without His love and it overflows.
Can’t Jordan and Faith love each other without God? No. We are small, itty bitty Dixie cups that half full. We long to be full so we let others pour into us. We love others too and then pour into them. Our lives we try to stay full AND makes others full. But the questions is, does anyone every really become full? No. Now let’s say God is the ocean. If the ocean were constantly pouring into you, would you be full? Yes. What’s more is that with the ocean as our source, we can overflow to others. As said in 1John, this love is not complete until we love one another. As said by the pastor John Piper, “Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others.”
2. This love sets us free AND calls us to sacrifice.
I can speak for Jordan, Faith and myself that we three great do-ers. They looked like Josephs with robes of many colors a week ago that displayed all they had done and earned. Here’s what is wonderful: they didn’t need those chords and stoles. The gospel frees from cloaking yourself in the accomplishments of this earth in order to hide true identity. Our true identity is in something we cannot earn and which can never be represented in what we wear. We are free to acknowledge our sinfulness, better yet; in marriage, we are free to share that sinfulness with our spouse. 1 John 4:18 Because of God’s love, we do not fear. We do not have to fear we have too many holes in our cups for the ocean to suffice.
Some times there is a lot of hesitation in marriage because we are afraid to fully welcome the amount of sacrifice that we expect. For their marriage in particular, for example, it’s not where do I want to live, it’s where does Jordan’s career ask us to live. That could be scary, but again, the gospel explains and brings us peace because we do not have to choose, his/her way or my way because there is only His way. There isn’t too much sacrifice to bear when we keep in mind how much has been sacrificed for us. Tim Keller said,
“The Christian teaching does not offer a choice between fulfillment and sacrifice but rather mutual fulfillment through mutual sacrifice. Jesus gave himself up; he died to himself to save us and make us his. Now we give ourselves up, we die to ourselves, first when we repent and believe the gospel, and later as we submit to his will day by day. Subordinating ourselves to him, however, is radically safe, because he as already shown that he was willing to go to hell and back for us. This banishes fears that loving surrender means loss of oneself.”
3. In marriage we practice the balance between grace and truth and love is the bridge.
You can’t have truth without grace and you can’t have grace without truth. Truth without grace looks like harshness to the point that we don’t want to listen to the truth they’re trying to offer no matter how important. Grace without truth is idealistic and ignores our need for help, which really begs the question, does that person really love me.
We’re going to mess this up. Some days we’re going to be afraid to be honest or we’re not going to know what truth is really needed. Or we’re going to be a little quick with the truth with sharp words and little grace.
We bridge this struggle with love: a love we can only extend because He first gave it to us. When we mess up, instead of racing to “make it up to you” why don’t we race to forgive and expect nothing in return? When each person grows in the love of that other person, we will receive that forgiveness. It is this constant pursuit of the balance between grace and truth that helps a couple to grow in the gospel.
To end, as said by Tim Keller, “The truth is that we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” Truly there was a person who wanted to serve you with His entire life and did so by rising from the dead and left the power of sin in his empty grave. If marriage is a symbol of that, than there is another person who wants to serve you to the best of their ability for the rest of their life and that brings so much joy.
I would wish you luck, but you don’t need it, because if you treat your spouse like Jesus treats the Church – all of the rest will follow.
