Wedding of Brian Iehl to Shayla Degner

TEXT: 1 John 4:7-12, 19
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 19 We love because he first loved us.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Dear Brian and Shayla… parents and grandparents… other family members, friends, and fellow saints of Zion congregation…

The text chosen for this wedding service is from 1 John 4: 19, “We love because He first loved us.”

Weddings and Love seem to go hand in hand. Two people fall in love, get married, have children and live out their lives together. Somewhere in the midst of all that is love.

Love is one of those “good” four-letter- words, that can be chocked full of meaning or have very little meaning at all. Love in marriage has traditionally included the life-long commitment or union between a man and a woman.

Contemporary problems have seemingly destroyed this basic understanding of love. Love all too often has no permanence. It doesn’t seem to stick. The wedding knot is not tied tight enough. Too many marriages end in divorce today, even when at one time the couple was supposed to be madly in love and made a commitment before their God, their family and one another that they would love, honor and cherish one another in sickness and in health until death they do part.
Maybe the problem is that when two people think they have fallen in love, they really haven’t. Or maybe they really have fallen in love; but that love is a love that will not last… it’s a weak, imperfect love.

For those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, we have been given a different love then the kind that the world gives. It’s not a love that has anything to do with being beautiful, or warm fuzzy feelings, or even being kind, gentle, or thoughtful. Neither does it have nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, red roses, or strolls along a beach at sunset.

God’s Love is a love that loves you to death. The Scriptures tell us that God loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That means that God’s love is seen most clearly and perfectly on the cross. It’s in suffering and death that God not only says, “I love you,” but He actually does it.

The Good Friday story is God’s love story to all mankind. The Good Friday story is God’s love letter to all of humanity… God’s love is a sacrificial love. It’s a love that keeps on loving even when we in our sin are unlovable. It’s a love that never fails. It lasts for all eternity.

Brian and Shayla, you have been baptized into Christ. That means you have also been united with Him in His loving sacrificial death on the cross. Because you have known God’s love in His death and in your baptism, you know of a Love which is much greater than the kind of the Love that the world gives. God has and does love you in that He died for you. He washed away your sins. He gives to you the Divine Service where He loves you in Word and Sacrament. I know your family loves you. AND… I know that you love each other. But God loves you with a perfect Love that will never fail.

Brian and Shayla, may it ever be true of the two of you that your love is forever rooted in the Love of Jesus Christ. That you forgive one another in Jesus’ Name when you fail to keep your wedding vows. That you love one another so much that you speak Jesus to one another. That you raise your children knowing the love of Jesus. That you daily remember your baptisms and are faithful in hearing God’s Love and receiving His Body and Blood given for you in His House every Lord’s Day.

In this way, you will love each other in a way that this sinful world could never love. In this way you will love each other until death do you part because Jesus first loved you.

Amen.