Love That Holds: A Wedding Sermon on the Covenant of Christ-Centered Marriage
We have gathered today because two people have decided to do something remarkable. They have decided to love each other on purpose, in public, before God and before witnesses, for the rest of their lives. That is not a small thing. It is, in fact, one of the most serious and most beautiful things a human being can do. And so we open the Word of God, because if there is any day that calls for truth spoken clearly and warmly, it is this one.
We have heard two passages read this morning, and they belong together. In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul gives us the most searching description of love ever written. In John 15, Jesus himself tells us where that love comes from and why it is possible at all. Let us look at both carefully, because what they teach will shape not just this ceremony but the entire life you are about to build together.
What Love Actually Is
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 in the CSB: "Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."
Notice something important about the way Paul writes this. He does not say love is a feeling that rises and falls with your mood. He describes love almost entirely in verbs and actions. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love bears. Love endures. Love rejoices. This is love as a decision made again and again, love as a practice, love as a way of treating another person day after day, in the ordinary and in the difficult alike.
Paul also tells us what love is not. It is not arrogant. It does not keep a record of wrongs. It does not rejoice when the other person fails. Every one of those negatives is a warning about the ways human hearts, left to themselves, tend to drift. We grow impatient. We keep score. We protect ourselves at the expense of the other. Paul is not being pessimistic. He is being honest, and his honesty is a gift to every married couple, because it names the real battle before it begins.
The battle in marriage is not primarily between two spouses. The battle is between the love described in this text and the self-centeredness that lives in every human heart. That is why a marriage built only on romantic feeling will eventually run out of fuel. Feelings are real and good, and there is every reason to celebrate the joy you feel today. But feelings alone cannot carry a covenant through decades of ordinary Tuesdays, through seasons of exhaustion or grief or disagreement. Only a love that has been rooted in something deeper than emotion can do that.
Where This Love Comes From
That brings us to John 15. Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the night before his crucifixion, and he says in verses 9 through 12: "As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you."
Jesus does not simply command love. He first announces it. "As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you." The love he calls his disciples to practice is not generated from within themselves. It flows from a love already given to them. He loved them first. He loves us first. The command to love one another is grounded in the reality that we have already been loved.
This changes everything for a Christian marriage. You are not being asked to manufacture a love that does not exist. You are being invited to receive a love that has already been poured out, and then to let that love overflow into the way you treat each other. Jesus loved his disciples all the way to the cross. That is the measure and the model. A love that sacrifices, that serves, that does not quit even when it is costly.
The word "remain" appears three times in those four verses. Remain in my love. This is not a passive word. It means to stay, to abide, to keep returning to the source. A marriage that remains in the love of Christ has a well that does not run dry. When patience runs thin, you return to the one who is patient with you. When forgiveness feels impossible, you return to the one who has forgiven you completely. This is the secret of a marriage that endures.
A Charge To The Two Of You
So here is the charge I want to leave with you today. Let the love described in 1 Corinthians 13 be the standard you hold before yourselves, not as a burden but as a compass. When you are tempted to keep score, put the scorecard down. When you are tempted to be unkind in a moment of frustration, choose the patient word instead. Rejoice in the truth together, even when the truth is hard. Bear what needs to be borne. Believe the best about each other as long as you possibly can.
And when you fail at this, because you will, as every married person does, return to John 15. Return to the one who loved you before you deserved it, who loves you still, and who has promised that his love for you will never end. Let that love be the ground you stand on and the well you drink from, every single day of your life together.
May the God who is love himself bind you to each other and to himself. May your home be marked by patience and kindness and truth. May your joy be complete, because you have remained in him. And may the love you celebrate today be even stronger fifty years from now than it is in this beautiful moment.
Sources Consulted
Ciampa, Roy E., and Brian S. Rosner. The First Letter to the Corinthians. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 2010.
Carson, D. A. The Gospel According to John. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 1991.
Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1987.
Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2 vols. Baker Academic, 2003.
Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 2000.
Before preaching: verify every biblical reference, replace general language only with couple-approved details, and revise the message in your own Christian tradition and pastoral voice.