Love in Action

Wedding of Jeff Schommer & Barb Olsen on June 17, 2011

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Triune God, who comes to us today in love. Amen.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Dear friends and family, and especially you, Jeff  and Barb on this, your wedding day.

You have chosen some beautiful words about love for your wedding text.

Some of the most astute observers of what love is like - are children: One child for example said that "Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."

In our society love is often about - how each other smells, how each other looks, how each other kisses, how we “feel” about each other.

And that’s OK. Feelings are important in love. One child said: Lovers will just be staring at each other and their food will get cold. Other people care more about the food.” Another child said: “It's love if they order one of those desserts that are on  fire. They like to order those because it's just like how their hearts on fire.”

Why would that be true? Because of the way those who love each other “feel” about each other.

Feeling love is OK – in fact God has apparently “hard wired” us to “feel” love.

And that “feeling” of love is rarely more prominent than it in a wedding ceremony where a young couple exchanges their vows of love. That emotion of love is part of what has drawn them to that commitment in their lives.

What is interesting is that in 1 Corinthians 13, there is almost no discussion of love as emotion.

Listen to it again: “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. Love never fails.” (I Corinthians 13:4-8a)

These aren’t feelings, these are actions, behaviors. This is what love “looks like.”

Like I said, children understand love. Perhaps that’s because they don’t think in abstract ways. They understand what they can see, and touch and hear.

One child said: "Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

Another child observed: "Love is when mommy sees daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."

And still another child told of “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love."

Love, at its best is far more than emotion. It’s action. It’s something you do. God tells us: “Love is .. love does … love does not”! All actions! Love is more than a feeling it is a verb, it’s an action, it’s an act of our wills.

What was the definition of love that we talked about in our Bible classes together? One word – “commitment”.

These words of God in 1 Corinthians aren’t deep theological concepts:

Love is patient (when Barb doesn’t do the laundry or when Jeff doesn’t do the dishes).

Love is kind (when Barb is tired or Jeff is irritable).

Love does not envy (it isn’t suspicious or jealous).

Love does not boast and is not proud (it is not easily threatened or cruel, critical and manipulative).

Love is not rude (neither one of you has a right to be disrespectful and thoughtless to the other).

Love is not easily angered (you shouldn’t be moody or have to walk around each other afraid of saying something that will “set the other person off”).

Love keeps no record of wrongs (once you have forgiven the other, you can’t bring it up in an argument again).

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth (and maybe that means instead of going to bed mad at each other, you pray with one another, because it’s hard to stay mad at someone when you are praying with that person).

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (Jeff and Barb, today you are making promises to each other to stay together until death parts you. That means that you cannot back out just because things become difficult.)

Love never fails. No matter how many difficult times you have in  your marriage, if you have God in that marriage, you cannot fail. Without God in the center your marriage will become self-centered and self-focused. But with God’s love in the middle, you cannot go wrong. 

God’s love for you will make your love for one another last a lifetime.

And what is God’s love? Again, God defines love as commitment, as an action, as a sacrifice.

Listen to the Bible’s definition of love: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11) 

Jesus Christ, your Savior, God’s Son, went to the cross. He bled and died so that we might have a permanent relationship with God. He was committed. He acted. He sacrificed himself. He died so that we might live eternally.

Jeff and Barb, as husband and wife, you are to have the same sacrificial love for each other as Jesus has for you. God is really into commitment.

You need to know that God is only requiring of you a small measure of what he requires of himself. In ways we cannot ever fully understand, God went through hell for us for the sake of love. Jesus is our model of what God thinks about commitment. He held back nothing for our sake. Our entrance into heaven came at the great cost of his life. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” (1 John 3:16) 

Think of the soldier who died battling the Nazis so his wife and kids could live in freedom. Now multiply that passion and devotion by a factor of several billion. That will give you an idea of what motivated God to secure heaven for us. That is the kind of God we are dealing with.

Jeff and Barb, in a few minutes you will be making promises to remain committed to each other until God parts you through death. Before you make those promises, I want you to understand exactly what you are saying.

Jeff when you promise to be faithful to Barb, cherish her, support her, and help her in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live, you are really promising her: “I am committed to Barb when she’s happy with me, and when she’s so mad at me she makes me miserable. I am committed to Barb when I have lots of money and when I have a hard time knowing how to pay the next bill. I am committed to her when she’s sick and can’t clean up after me and when she’s feeling so great she makes me feel like I’m the most important man in the world. I am willing to sacrifice myself for her, just as Jesus sacrificed himself for me.”

Barb, when you make those same promises, you are really promising Jeff: “I am committed to Jeff when he listens to me and when he ignores me. I am committed to Jeff when he has a solid job and when’s he struggling in his career. I am committed to Jeff when he’s tired and irritable and won’t wait on me hand and foot. I am committed to him when he sweeps me off of my feet. I am willing to sacrifice myself for him, just as Jesus sacrificed himself for me.”

“Commitment” -- that is the definition of Christ’s love for you. “Commitment” -- that is the definition of your love for one another. Amen.