My Baby Girl Gets Married

On this day, when we gather to worship God and witness the forming a new family that He has made. I have the double honor of welcoming you here as both the father of the bride and officiant. Thank you for coming. You may be thinking, why get married, especially in the middle of a pandemic when the world seems like it might end? I know this is a particular concern for some of you. Well, even in much worse days like in the days of Noah when there was great wickedness on the earth, Jesus recalls “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark.” (Matthew 24:38) Marriage and love continue and may be even more important in a crisis. You see, marriage was the first commitment human beings made shortly after they were created and God Himself was both Creator and Witness of marriage. We read in Genesis 2:18, 22-24, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’ …Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Going from loneliness to togetherness invoked the very first song in human history, sung by Adam and it was a love song about a woman. Both Jessie and Andrew like music. This is amazing because both have some challenges. Words don’t come for Jessie and she sings off-key, but she loves hip-hop music. Andrew’s challenge is that he is partially deaf, but comes from such a talented musical family. Andrew can play a mean guitar! God has overcome both challenges in their lives. God takes our brokenness and makes us whole through His son Jesus. He is still joining a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage as we will witness today with Andrew and Jessie. A marriage has always been a joyous occasion. In Cana of Galilee almost 2000 years ago, a wedding took place that was blessed by the presence of the Lord Jesus when He performed His miracle at this wedding by turning water into wine. Because God intended marriage to bring blessing and joy to our lives, let us invite God to be pleased with this occasion today. 

Andrew, it has been fun getting to know you better this past year. Fielding all my questions and you firing some back at me on a whole range of topics from Jesus to Jessie. Our early Monday morning calls to pray for each other. You eating all the desserts in our house, which has helped me lose weight. As the Father God has welcomed us into His forever family, I welcome you in the Stairs family. The Scriptures say that, “he who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” (Proverbs 18:22) Jessie is a tremendous gift from the Lord and you need to value that gift. In fact, valuing the gift of Jessie will be costly. Her name even means “woman of wealth.” So, that may be a sign for you that she will be costing you some money! I can testify to this as her father. But more importantly, valuing Jessie will require surrendering your life for her. This why the Apostle Paul, a guy who originally hated the Church, says to the husband, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.(Ephesians 5:25-28) Andrew pursue God first. He is the source of love and He will give you the love you need for Jessie. But also pursue Jessie. You both haven’t been dating very long. Continue to date her and get to know her. God wants you to discover and enjoy all you can earthly know about Jessie. Romance her. Provide for her. Protect her. And in due time, give me some grandchildren. As the Scriptures say, “Be fruitful and multiply.”

And Jessie, Andrew is also a gift from God. When you were little, you would look out the window and watch me cut the grass. You would say, “Daddy, you want to mow?” Now you are marrying a landscaper who mows lawns all the time. The Scriptures say to the wife: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Ephesians 5:22-24) And to you both, the Scriptures say: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21) Jessie, follow Andrew as he follows Christ. You do this by first following Jesus. Pray for Andrew. Provide for him. Comfort him. Encourage him. Love him.

And then I want to speak to us as the family of Andrew and Jessie. God puts us in families to help each other out. Families are to be a place where we can be nurtured pointing us to a greater family – the family of God, which are here today. What I would encourage us is to do is give Andrew and Jessie the space to form their own family while still being massive supports to them. They may need a longer runway to lift off. We need to balance out Galatians 6:2 and Galatians 6:5 where they need to carry their own backpack size burdens in life and we need to help them carry their grand piano sizes burdens. The irony in giving them space apart from us is that they will actually become a better part of our families. We are not letting them go as much as handing them over to the Lord as we have had to do so many occasions in their lives. In marriage, God separates us from our family of origin to form a new family so we can add and expand our extended family. It’s really amazing!            

No wonder marriage was instituted by God Himself and He performed the first marriage. When a man and a woman have chosen each other and have come to that moment when they sincerely and publicly join in this covenant for life, they lay down on the altar a holy sacrifice to God, to each other and to humanity. The union into which you are now about to enter is the closest and most tender into which human beings can come on earth. It is a union founded upon mutual experience and affection and, to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is a union in the Lord. Marriage is God’s institution, intended for the happiness and welfare of mankind: The Scriptures further say: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) A union embodying such characteristics is not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly, but reverently, soberly and in the fear of God. Into such a union you come now to be joined by declaring your intention for one another and in a few minutes you will make your vows before God. I want to clarify that these intentions and vows should not be considered a contract with one another whereby each party keeps their part of the bargain. In other words, if you do this for me, I’ll do this for you. Instead, you are making a covenant where you are promising that you will do you part regardless of the other. You are saying, “I will commit to this even if you do not live up to your promises.” That is a covenant when both people make such an unconditional commitment and ask God to help them keep it. It is an incredibly beautiful and mysterious act of the will that showcases Christ’s love for the church. Let’s witness it now!

Andrew and Jessie, I love you both, but God loves you even more. In fact, that is true of all of us today. God loves each of you so much. I simply want to remind each of you of that truth today, but especially Jessie and Andrew. As Lori says, “God’s grace is the workhorse of the relationship.” God’s love and grace are also the workhorses in our lives. Let me first remind you that God made you and you belong to God. I’m preaching that to myself too because it is hard to let you go. I remember vividly the night Jessie was born like it was yesterday. It was a Sunday morning when Lori’s water broke, two months before her due date. We were first time parents and were actually excited about maybe seeing our new baby that day. We weren’t experienced enough to know of the peril both Lori and Jessie were in. (It is sort of like today because you don’t know what you are signing up for when you get married. Nobody ever does.) Lori and I didn’t know the challenges or even the dangers of marriage and parenting. Others knew the dangers of giving birth two months prematurely, and so a force of prayer warriors of over a 1000 people from around the world starting praying as they heard the news. The church has always stood by us and this is true today as well. Thank you! The church helps you, even when you don’t know you need help. This is why we need others in our lives. They not only produce greater return for their work, but also pick you up when you are down. When you have fallen. You see, not only has God made you and you belong to Him, but we have broken the lives God gave us. We all have broken relationships through our own selfishness. We all have broken dreams. We all have broken God’s heart by disobeying Him. You and I are broken and the world shows that brokenness all the time. So we need somebody to fix our brokenness. The passage I just read said that we need another person to help us become productive. We need another person to pick us up when we have fallen. We can’t get up on our own. We need another person to comfort us. Of course, you both will help each other become more productive, will pick each other up when down and comfort each other. I don’t have any doubt about that. However, there is One who will do this for you when you lack the resources to do it in yourselves. That is Jesus! Please remember that Jesus is God’s Son come to earth to fix our brokenness. He lived a sinless and perfect life and ended up dying for His bride, the church, which includes you. Jesus alone makes us pure! Pity those who don’t have others to help them when they have fallen. Today, I declare to you that no matter how any of us have fallen, Jesus can pick us up if we will trust in Him. This is not a one time decision, but a continual trusting of Christ. It is allegiance to Christ. Like you are pledging your bodies, minds and souls only to each other today, we must do the same first to Christ. I know you both have servant hearts and will help each other out as you help others. But remember, Christ is always there to help you. He is that third strand that will make you whole so you don’t break. We need to trust in Jesus. We need to commit to Him in the same way a husband and wife commit to each other for life on their wedding day.

As that long day of labour for Lori turned into the middle of night, I remember when the doctors and nurses took Lori for an emergency C-section. I was all alone in that hospital room, crying out God on my knees to save my wife and baby. I needed Jesus to save Jessie and Lori. As Jesus did that physically that night, He also did that spiritually. Jessie, you gave your life to Christ on my birthday when I was in Israel in 2006. Jesus saved; I didn’t. That is true of you too Andrew. Jesus saved you, not your parents as good as they are.

And Jesus will continue to save and make you new. He will use marriage in part to form you to be more like Him. It will be hard at times because like all renovation projects, He has to get rid of the old to recreate the new (like this new auditorium today). But He will do it because He is committed to you. You have a new identity as a new person in Him. So as you make your commitment to each other today, I challenge you to make your commitment to Jesus each day. Now let’s watch Andrew’s & Jessie’s commitment to God and each other.