Wedding of Stefan and Rachel
Text: Ephesians 5:21-33 Time: 24/08/07 Place: Mount Rd Baptist, Hinckley
People are free to disagree on this but I would think that in an ideal world marriages would not take place in church buildings. Ideally, they should be in a person's home. For various reasons, however, church buildings are commonly used for weddings, especially where Christians are concerned. Quite rightly in such weddings the marriage vows are exchanged in the context of a Christian worship service, as we are doing now.
Now the heart of true Christian worship, worship in Spirit and in truth, is the sermon – the preaching of God's Word. If we were in a Roman Catholic wedding today the height of the worship would be what they call the mass but this is a wedding of Protestants and so, for good Scriptural reasons the centre-piece of our worship is the sermon, the preaching.
I count it a great privilege to have been asked today then not only to marry Stefan and Rachel but especially to preach to them and to you here today.
I have known Stefan all his life and Rachel a little less time than that but like all of you here today I give thanks to God for both them.
1. Firstly, I am thankful to God for their parents and their sincere faith, the same faith that is now seen in these two who (like Timothy) have had the privilege from infancy ... of knowing the holy Scriptures.
2. I am thankful to the Lord, of course, like their parents and many others here today, for bringing them to himself individually in London and in Hinckley so that they believed those Scriptures and were made wise to salvation.
3. And then like all of you I am thankful also for the way that he brought them together up in Durham so that they have come to this point where they want to spend the rest of their lives together in covenant faithfulness as man and wife.
We pray that they may continue to walk with the Lord and that together they may also be a blessing to many others in the years to come.
Now for a wedding sermon there are many possible places to turn. Perhaps the most obvious place is the passage read to us and that I want to draw your attention to - Ephesians 5:21-33. Here Paul speaks very simply and very clearly about Christian marriage – how it is ordered and what it is intended to symbolise.
So focusing on this passage I want to say four things to you all.
1. Rachel and all wives - it is your calling to submit to your husband
Paul is very plain on this (22) Wives, submit to your husbands he says as to the Lord. Rachel, as you know, Stefan is to be like the Lord to you in this marriage. Paul gives an argument for this. He says (23) For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Just as Christ is head over his church (the people of God) of which he is Saviour so in a Christian marriage the husband is the head of the wife and so just (24) as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands and he is clear about this in everything – things great and small.
Now the world doesn’t really understand this.
People are free to disagree on this but I would think that in an ideal world marriages would not take place in church buildings. Ideally, they should be in a person's home. For various reasons, however, church buildings are commonly used for weddings, especially where Christians are concerned. Quite rightly in such weddings the marriage vows are exchanged in the context of a Christian worship service, as we are doing now.
Now the heart of true Christian worship, worship in Spirit and in truth, is the sermon – the preaching of God's Word. If we were in a Roman Catholic wedding today the height of the worship would be what they call the mass but this is a wedding of Protestants and so, for good Scriptural reasons the centre-piece of our worship is the sermon, the preaching.
I count it a great privilege to have been asked today then not only to marry Stefan and Rachel but especially to preach to them and to you here today.
I have known Stefan all his life and Rachel a little less time than that but like all of you here today I give thanks to God for both them.
1. Firstly, I am thankful to God for their parents and their sincere faith, the same faith that is now seen in these two who (like Timothy) have had the privilege from infancy ... of knowing the holy Scriptures.
2. I am thankful to the Lord, of course, like their parents and many others here today, for bringing them to himself individually in London and in Hinckley so that they believed those Scriptures and were made wise to salvation.
3. And then like all of you I am thankful also for the way that he brought them together up in Durham so that they have come to this point where they want to spend the rest of their lives together in covenant faithfulness as man and wife.
We pray that they may continue to walk with the Lord and that together they may also be a blessing to many others in the years to come.
Now for a wedding sermon there are many possible places to turn. Perhaps the most obvious place is the passage read to us and that I want to draw your attention to - Ephesians 5:21-33. Here Paul speaks very simply and very clearly about Christian marriage – how it is ordered and what it is intended to symbolise.
So focusing on this passage I want to say four things to you all.
1. Rachel and all wives - it is your calling to submit to your husband
Paul is very plain on this (22) Wives, submit to your husbands he says as to the Lord. Rachel, as you know, Stefan is to be like the Lord to you in this marriage. Paul gives an argument for this. He says (23) For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Just as Christ is head over his church (the people of God) of which he is Saviour so in a Christian marriage the husband is the head of the wife and so just (24) as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands and he is clear about this in everything – things great and small.
Now the world doesn’t really understand this.
Firstly, it is very keen on equality and it tends to think that equality means sameness. But that is to misunderstand terms. If I have a kilo of sugar here and a kilo of salt here and I put them on either side of a balance and I say ‘There, they are equal’ it does not mean salt is sweet and sugar is salty. And so, yes, it is important to understand, Rachel and Stefan, that you are equal (heirs together) but you are not the same. One of you has to submit to the other and the norm, says God, is for the wife to submit to the husband. Yes, we must (21) submit to one another in the church out of reverence for Christ but in the marriage the norm is for the woman to submit to the man – not because she is one whit inferior or less important but because God has set an order to things – the man as head, the woman as submissive.
The other problem the world has with this, frankly, is that it sounds dangerous from the woman’s point of view. If the woman submits in everything then surely the man will take advantage. Isn’t that how women have ended up so often being downtrodden? Well, certainly it is a thorny subject. In The Times newspaper this week there was an interview with former model Patti Boyd, who has just written her autobiography. Now if you don’t know the name, Patti was married first to George Harrison of the Beatles and then the guitarist Eric Clapton. Now she says something very interesting in this interview. She says that her attitude in both marriages was -
If the man says that he wants this, that or the other then that’s what we’re going with …whatever the man says is right.
This, she says, she learnt from her mother and I’m sure it was quite a common idea about a generation ago. Is it what I’m advocating today? Well, not exactly. For example, Rachel you are not committing yourself today to the position ‘whatever Stefan says is right’! No, unlike Christ sometimes he will be wrong and if you see that then you will somehow have to steer things in another direction. Nevertheless you need always to have a submissive spirit.
The interviewer then understandably asked Patti Boyd “Had she become a doormat?” This is the feminist’s great fear. Patti Boyd answers
I think I did slide into the doormat syndrome, most definitely, and what happened one day is I thought, ‘My God, this doormat’s getting thinner and thinner and thinner and unless I do something about it soon, I’m not going to have the strength to get up and ...’ I knew that unless I moved when I moved, I wouldn’t be able to.
Now let’s be clear. Rachel is not committing herself to being a doormat today but you are agreeing to be submissive to Stefan ‘while we both shall live’. Paul puts it this way in 33 the wife must respect her husband. That is what we are chiefly talking about. You have many examples all around to show you how to do that.
The other problem the world has with this, frankly, is that it sounds dangerous from the woman’s point of view. If the woman submits in everything then surely the man will take advantage. Isn’t that how women have ended up so often being downtrodden? Well, certainly it is a thorny subject. In The Times newspaper this week there was an interview with former model Patti Boyd, who has just written her autobiography. Now if you don’t know the name, Patti was married first to George Harrison of the Beatles and then the guitarist Eric Clapton. Now she says something very interesting in this interview. She says that her attitude in both marriages was -
If the man says that he wants this, that or the other then that’s what we’re going with …whatever the man says is right.
This, she says, she learnt from her mother and I’m sure it was quite a common idea about a generation ago. Is it what I’m advocating today? Well, not exactly. For example, Rachel you are not committing yourself today to the position ‘whatever Stefan says is right’! No, unlike Christ sometimes he will be wrong and if you see that then you will somehow have to steer things in another direction. Nevertheless you need always to have a submissive spirit.
The interviewer then understandably asked Patti Boyd “Had she become a doormat?” This is the feminist’s great fear. Patti Boyd answers
I think I did slide into the doormat syndrome, most definitely, and what happened one day is I thought, ‘My God, this doormat’s getting thinner and thinner and thinner and unless I do something about it soon, I’m not going to have the strength to get up and ...’ I knew that unless I moved when I moved, I wouldn’t be able to.
Now let’s be clear. Rachel is not committing herself to being a doormat today but you are agreeing to be submissive to Stefan ‘while we both shall live’. Paul puts it this way in 33 the wife must respect her husband. That is what we are chiefly talking about. You have many examples all around to show you how to do that.
Some are in the Bible – eg Sarah and Priscilla and others.
Some you can read about in church history – eg Sarah Edwards and Elizabeth Eliot and others. Closer at hand you have observed your own mother and other godly women.
The same sort of commitment that Rachel is making, as dangerous as it may seem, ought to mark out every Christian wife. May it do so.
2. Stefan and all husbands - it is your calling to love your wife
Again it is very straightforward (25) Husbands, love your wives. Now you notice, Stefan, it doesn’t say ‘Your role is to make sure that Rachel submits’. When you were younger maybe(!) you fought with your brothers. Now I don’t know if you ever got them in a hold and they had to say ‘submit’ or ‘give in’. Well, if so, that is not to be your approach to this marriage! If you ever find yourself saying something like ‘I’m the head of this household’ or ‘I really don’t think you’re submitting as you should be’ then you know you have blown it. Submission is Rachel’s concern, yours is to love her. Husbands, love your wives says Paul.
And again he sets the bar very high. The model is drawn once more from the relationship between Christ and his church - 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.
This time he uses a common sense argument too - He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. He backs that up by quoting Genesis (31) "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." When you marry a woman you become ‘one flesh’ with her in all sorts of ways. To fail to love your wife therefore is to hate your own flesh, it is to neglect your own body – it is a form of madness.
I mentioned the Beatles earlier. They loved to sing about love. ‘All you need is love’ they sang. In this matter of loving their wives they often left a lot to be desired but they were right about the need for love. Now, of course, real love is a very practical thing. It does whatever is necessary for the comfort and well being of the other person. My message to you Stefan today then is very simple. 'All you need is love'. You have chosen your love, now love your choice.
3. All of us – let us submit to Christ who is the head of the church and its Saviour
Before we close I just want to say two things more briefly. Paul says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. The way wives should submit to their husbands in everything is as the church submits to Christ. By the church he means the people of God. The head of the church is not the Pope or the Queen or some other human figure but Jesus Christ and all God's people must submit to him. Indeed, we must all submit to him. He is the one Lord and the one Saviour. There is no other.
The same sort of commitment that Rachel is making, as dangerous as it may seem, ought to mark out every Christian wife. May it do so.
2. Stefan and all husbands - it is your calling to love your wife
Again it is very straightforward (25) Husbands, love your wives. Now you notice, Stefan, it doesn’t say ‘Your role is to make sure that Rachel submits’. When you were younger maybe(!) you fought with your brothers. Now I don’t know if you ever got them in a hold and they had to say ‘submit’ or ‘give in’. Well, if so, that is not to be your approach to this marriage! If you ever find yourself saying something like ‘I’m the head of this household’ or ‘I really don’t think you’re submitting as you should be’ then you know you have blown it. Submission is Rachel’s concern, yours is to love her. Husbands, love your wives says Paul.
And again he sets the bar very high. The model is drawn once more from the relationship between Christ and his church - 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.
This time he uses a common sense argument too - He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. He backs that up by quoting Genesis (31) "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." When you marry a woman you become ‘one flesh’ with her in all sorts of ways. To fail to love your wife therefore is to hate your own flesh, it is to neglect your own body – it is a form of madness.
I mentioned the Beatles earlier. They loved to sing about love. ‘All you need is love’ they sang. In this matter of loving their wives they often left a lot to be desired but they were right about the need for love. Now, of course, real love is a very practical thing. It does whatever is necessary for the comfort and well being of the other person. My message to you Stefan today then is very simple. 'All you need is love'. You have chosen your love, now love your choice.
3. All of us – let us submit to Christ who is the head of the church and its Saviour
Before we close I just want to say two things more briefly. Paul says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. The way wives should submit to their husbands in everything is as the church submits to Christ. By the church he means the people of God. The head of the church is not the Pope or the Queen or some other human figure but Jesus Christ and all God's people must submit to him. Indeed, we must all submit to him. He is the one Lord and the one Saviour. There is no other.
So not only am I saying to Rachel today – submit to Stefan. I am saying to us all 'submit to Christ', bow down to him as Lord and Master and God. I don't know if you've ever embarrassed yourself when seeing something new and saying something like 'hey, you could use it like this' and then being told that's exactly how it's supposed to be used. Well, in a similar way you may be tempted to say – well, hasn't Paul found a good illustration here. Of course, the truth is that the good who planned and created this world is the one who gave us marriage and one of his purposes in it is to point us to the principle of submission to Christian.
So whenever you see an example of a happily submissive wife, as I'm sure you will see it in Rachel, then think to yourself – that's how I ought to be towards Jesus Christ. I think it will be a great help to you Rachel and other wives to think that is what you are modelling – the church submitting to its Saviour.
4. All of us – let’s recognise Christ’s love for his people leading him to die to make them holy
Then finally the other side of this. When Paul speaks to husbands he says they are to love their 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. He speaks too about how Christ feeds his church. Always in our worship the focus should be on Christ and that's where I want to end then. Christ is not only the church's head but its Saviour – there would be no church without him. Think of his love for his people and the way he even went to the extent of dying on the cross for them – so great was his love. And he did it all to make his people holy, to make her clean and radiant and ready for heaven.
4. All of us – let’s recognise Christ’s love for his people leading him to die to make them holy
Then finally the other side of this. When Paul speaks to husbands he says they are to love their 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. He speaks too about how Christ feeds his church. Always in our worship the focus should be on Christ and that's where I want to end then. Christ is not only the church's head but its Saviour – there would be no church without him. Think of his love for his people and the way he even went to the extent of dying on the cross for them – so great was his love. And he did it all to make his people holy, to make her clean and radiant and ready for heaven.
Do you know Jesus Christ for yourself? These two do and it has transformed their lives. Any holiness or purity or blamelessness or freedom from blemish you see in them is all because of Jesus Christ and what he has done for them. You too can be pure and unspotted and fit for heaven if you simply look to him. I urge you to it. And if you already believe then don't forget what a wonderful Saviour he is. Your remember it too, Stefan, as you seek in some faint way to echo his saving qualities in this marriage.
As Paul says (32) This is a profound mystery and I don't want to give the impression that there is some simplistic way of talking about these profound things concerning Christ and the church but there is something in it. What ever the case, as it says in 33, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. May it be so in all our marriages.
As Paul says (32) This is a profound mystery and I don't want to give the impression that there is some simplistic way of talking about these profound things concerning Christ and the church but there is something in it. What ever the case, as it says in 33, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. May it be so in all our marriages.
