Partners in Thanks

Jeremy and Danielle, success in marriage is not all up to you; God will give enough strength for you today and in the years to come! And you're going to need it.

You chose the passage from Colossians for us to hear as one of the readings this day

...Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus... Paul says.

--“Honey, I hear the truck coming, and it's raining. Did you remember to take the garbage out?”

--“I thought you were supposed to write the check for the insurance bill.”

--“Let's go now.!”

Those stones of everyday living seem to get in the way of Paul's words, and oft-times cause us to stumble.

Are Paul's phrases only pretty words, or do they really apply to the situations of everyday married life?

“Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus”:

--be compassionate

--be patient

--be kind

--be forgiving

--be thankful

--teach and admonish each other

--sing to God in thanksgiving

Does it sound too good to ever accomplish?

But notice that Paul doesn't give these as suggestions or possibilities, but as expectations, and he uses the language of command!

Oh, it is too much to bear!

Jeremy and Danielle are just starting out on this adventure of marriage; don't tell them all this heavy stuff!

Married life is hard; we all know that.

Anyone can tell us to continue to work on our relationships, and no doubt, we will.

The problem is, that on our own, all that work will fail.

That pesky, no, worse.... that deadly thing called sin grabs hold of us and our thoughts, words, and actions.

It will take the forgiveness of God,

the continuing gifts of God,

and our forgiveness to each other modeled on the forgiveness given by God,

in order to deal with those problems that would be delighted to destroy our marriages.

In order truly to grow in love,

we need to know first that we are beloved by God.

And as God's beloved, we are urged, invited, and encouraged to clothe ourselves with forbearance, forgiveness, thankfulness,

the ways in which God's love is shown forth in us.

And to sing...yes, to sing as we are doing today and many more days, songs of joy and songs of sorrow.

Let those songs fly...

Let God and each other hear the full range of thought and feeling,

and be reassured that at length they will all be transformed into the echoes of the hymns around the throne of heaven.

That is the kind of thing that can happen when Jesus is around, when Jesus is in charge of things:

blessing upon blessing, gift upon gift, transformed song, true life.

May Jeremy and Danielle, and everyone else here today, receive these gifts with joy and thanksgiving.

...and do all these things, together, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.