Random reflections from a wedding day

I was privileged to be at a wedding today. There was a very good sermon, from someone known by some of my readers, with three main points (if I remember rightly):

1. Marriage will be shaped by the God you worship. Because God is Trinity, God is a God of personal loving relationships, and because we are made in his image, it is other-centredness rather than self-centredness to our lives.
2. Marriage should be shaped by Christ's love for the church. Firstly, we are forgiven all the ways in which we will sin against our spouse. Secondly, Christ is our model as he self-sacrificially laid down his life for his bride.
3. Marriage should be a signpost to Christ. Marriage images Christ's love for the church, a wedding the Bride and Groom would like their friends and family to be present at even more than they like their friends and family being present now.

Frankly, I would struggle to imagine a better outline for a sermon on marriage.

I had an conversation with some of the bride's family members afterwards. They explained that they believed that God was impersonal love, but they didn't see the necessity of all the baggage of Christianity. Drawing on the first point of the sermon I tried explaining that to for God to be love he needed to have multi-personal. They disagreed. I was less coherent from there on.

Later on in the day I read the first few chapters of 1 Corinthians where Paul explains that he preached "the message of the cross", and knew nothing amongst them "except Jesus Christ and him crucified". It reminded me of something Tim Keller often asks: "Did your god die for you?"

Did your career die for you? Did your desire for acceptance die for you? Actually, we all know those gods are pretty poor gods in comparison to Christ crucified. "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many", but every other god comes to serve and take our life away from us.

One thing I wished I had also said to this couple, and perhaps even said first, was "did your God of love, love you so much he died for you?"

It genuinely is true that that is where we see most clearly what love really is (1 John 3:16), and who are God really is (1 Cor).