Beloved family, friends, wedding party, Mark and Ashley. It comes to preaching about marriage. I didn't choose a classical text. Something that, you know, many and many weddings will choose a certain particular text that speaks about the marriage and what the duty of a man is, what the duty of a woman is, what their responsibility before God is. I figured that my brother Darrell Kingswood would have dealt with all of that in the premarital counseling. What I wanted to look to is the text here in Colossians 3 that deals with the Christian life. And it really hits the home, right? It hits really home in the heart of the believer and in the working of the marriage relationship. It doesn't work any other way. Life does not work any other way contrary to the Word of God. When you see people that are miserable, when you see people that are downcast, when you see people with no hope and no peace in their heart, it's because life doesn't work any other way than what God has designed. And that's why you see the things in people's lives today, they're shipwrecked in their lives. Because God has instituted, He has engrafted into this world, if you will, certain principles on how to live our lives, and it doesn't work any other way. Marriage is a divine institution. It's what God has. He is the one who's established the marriage relationship. He is the one who created Adam and then brought Eve to Adam. He is the one who took the woman from Adam's rib and created her and then brought them together. It's God's design. It's God's institution. And it is to be run. It is to be performed. It is to be lived as God commands in His Word. It doesn't work any other way. And for all the learning that man has, he sure is stupid. Humanity is stupid. We're a ship of fools if we think we can live in God's created world contrary to the principles which God has declared in His Word. Notice what the Apostle Paul writes here. If you're still looking at the back of your bulletin, the text portion. Verses 12-19. And I won't say those 40,000 other things here this evening. I'm tempted because I know many of you that are here, and I know how you love when preachers go long. Right? You're laughing because you know that's true. You probably came here and said, well, you know, six in one hand, half a dozen in another. It really doesn't matter if Kings or Henry's preaching. They're all going to go long. Apostle Paul writes this, that as the elect of God, those who were chosen by God, called out of the darkness and the death of this humanity and brought into His marvelous light, those who were elect from before the foundation of the world. Yes, the Bible teaches election. God has elected a people to be saved by His Son, Jesus Christ. That is what the Scriptures teach. The Scriptures know nothing of a universal salvation. And you know, I'm not surprised by Jacob and Esau, where Esau I have hated. I'm surprised by Jacob I have loved. Because we all deserve to be hated by God. And apart from Jesus Christ, that's where we would be, is hated by God. You are only loved, you are only received, you are only brought into the family of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the elect of God. We're holy and beloved. You too have professed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as members of the body of Christ, this is God's Word to you. You are God's elect. You are holy. You are beloved of God. You are God's special people. You are part of that God's special people. Holy and beloved of the Lord, and therefore, You are redeemed, raised up to newness of life. Your soul has been regenerated by the Spirit of God. And now you live out of the Gospel. You live as a result of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And this is what your marriage is to reflect. Christ and the Church. This is preeminent in your marriage. In all of our marriages. In all of the marriages we are reflecting something. You are giving a good reflection of Christ and His church, or you are giving a poor reflection of Christ and His church. That's what marriage is meant to do. Ephesians 5, that's what the Apostle Paul says. It's the mystery. But he speaks of Christ and the Church. We like to make it about us. We like everything to be about us. We're man-centered. That's why you have a hard time when you come into Reformed Church and you realize very quickly it's not about you. It's about Christ. If it's not about Christ, I have no time for it. Because my life is about Christ. For me to live, it's Christ that to die is gain. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Your life is to be about Jesus Christ. And so you have to know His Word in order to live your life for His glory. Put on. It speaks of putting something off. And the Apostle Paul already said, to put off these things, wrath and anger and malice and blasphemy and filthy language. Put that all off. That's the old nature. That's the way of the world. You haven't learned Christ that way. You are to put on, because you have put on these things, at justification, when you were clothed in Jesus Christ. Now, in the practice of sanctification, keep on putting these on. It's present tense. It's a continual thing in the life of the Christian. And we don't get it perfect in this life. But my life is about Christ, and my standing before God is Christ. It's not my performance, it's His performance. Put on tender mercies. You remember Jesus with the crowds when He saw them, and they were hungry, and they were like people without a shepherd. It said that Jesus had compassion for them. He was tender towards them. Joseph with his brothers. Do you remember when Joseph made himself known to his brothers? How compassionate he was to them? When they knew judgment ought to come on them, and he loved them. He hugged them. He cared for them. Tender mercies. This is you too in your life. This is you to her and you to him. He goes on and he says, and kindness. Our God is kind. Our God is kind to the just and to the unjust. And His kindness is seen that He provides things providentially in this world, even for the unbeliever who doesn't give Him thanks. It's a calling of the believer to give God thanks. To be kind to one another. To be kind-hearted people. To reach out to those who are in need. Here's a big one. Humility. You see, we're not walking as humble people when everything needs to be about us. You know those people, the me-isms. I, I, me, me, I, I, I, it's all about me. That's not humility. When you know God, you know yourself. Calvin speaks about that in his first book of the Institutes. When you come to know God, you come to know who you are. And when you know who you are, you know who God is. And when you know who God is, you know the best place for you is on your face before a holy God. And you know that everything that you've received from Him has been His kindness and His mercy towards you. To walk in humility. Jesus humbled Himself. He took upon Himself the form of a man. And He came and He lived this life. One who was born under the law. Subject to the law. And He was so for His people. He bore the wrath of God for His people. He suffered shame. God come in the flesh. They ridiculed Him. They spit upon Him. They hated Him. They despised Him. They said He was demon possessed. He was the perfect neighbor. He's the only one that wouldn't lust after your wife. He's the only one who wouldn't steal your goods when you're away on vacation. He's the only one who wouldn't lie to you. And we said, we will not have this man to rule over us. The humility of Jesus Christ coming into this world. It's spoken of King Saul. You remember the account when Saul was then pronounced as king over Israel? But he wanted the kingdom to be about himself. Samuel said, the Lord has taken the kingdom from you. Samuel said to Saul, he says, remember when you were little in your own eyes? That's humility. It's having an appropriate view of yourself. Paul said in Romans 12 not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but think with sober judgment. There's a lot of drunk type judgment in this world. You don't walk in humility. The publican and the tax collector went into the temple. They went in to pray. And the publican marched right up at the front and lifted his eyes towards heaven. And he says, I thank God that I am not like this man over here. I tithe, you know, I give of everything a tenth of what I have. I fast, I do this, I do that. And the tax collector stood afar off, present tense, meaning a continual action, beating upon his chest, saying, God, be merciful to me. Not a sinner. The original text uses the definite article. The sinner. I'm the sinner. Be merciful to me. It's a Greek term, hilasterion, which has to do with the propitiation. Be propitious towards me. Provide for me an atonement. That's humility. You'd walk in humility towards one another. You'd emulate Jesus Christ. Meekness. Gentleness. Jesus was meek. Jesus was meek and He was mild. And He says, come and learn of Me. Take My yoke upon you. For My burden is easy, My yoke is light, and in Me you'll find rest for your souls. Paul says in Galatians 6 about correcting a brother who has fallen in sin, Do it with humility. Considering yourself. I had a lot of occasions to do a number of visitations in the time of my ministry. And one that stands in mind is dealing with a particular individual that struggled with a certain Bible character. We'll leave it at that. And the thought of how God could love these particular individuals. How could God love Noah? Noah got drunk as a skunk. How could God love Abraham? Abraham lied. She's my sister. Well, his half-sister. But he lied. He feared for his life. And when you look in the Scriptures, when you find when someone fears, they lie. Fear of man causes men to lie. If we would fear God, we would not fear men. You understand that if not for the grace of God, there go I. None of us is self-made. None of us sustains ourselves. Who holds your breath right now in His hands? The Lord does. It's in Him we live and move and have our being. That's humility. And we need to walk that way. We need to walk in meekness. We need to be gentle. We need to be long-suffering, bearing with one another. Not being those that are revengeful. Bearing a grudge. You know, the world is saying, don't get mad, get even. It's revenge. You need to throw that off. To bear with one another. And this is the big one, forgiving one another. And I talked to Ashley about this, forgiving one another. She said, we have to forgive Mark. Oh, he got a good relationship. I said, just keep living. You two are sinful. You are saints in Christ Jesus. You are no longer considered to be sinners because you are in Christ. You are holy and beloved. You are the Haggios of God. You are those who have been called out by God to be saints in Christ Jesus. That's your identity in Jesus Christ. But you're still sinful. You're still working out your salvation with fear and trembling. You must be forgiving people. Ashley, Mark, he's gonna drop the ball. He's gonna mess up. He's gonna sin. Mark, Ashley's gonna sin. She's gonna sin in her thoughts, in her words, in her deeds. And we are to be those that bear along with one another, and therefore we are forgiving one another. And the text goes on, even as God in Christ has forgiven us. Now how has Christ forgiven you? He has borne all of your burden, all of your sins, once for all time on the cross. He bore them all. And it's never again remembered against you by God. It's been cast as far as the east is from the west. That doesn't mean you don't confront those that are in sin. You do confront. That's God's method of reconciliation. But once you do, it's done. How many times should I forgive my brother when he sins against me, Peter asked Jesus? Up to seven times? You know, the rabbis taught that there was three times of forgiveness. The first time you forgive them, the second time you forgive them. The third time, you forgive them. The fourth time, you don't forgive them. So Peter, he was going more than double. He thought he was doing good. And Jesus said, I tell you, not up to seven times, but seventy times seven. That's the life of the believer. Continual repetition of forgiving one another. And Jesus said to do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Do you want to be forgiven? Well, be a forgiving person. If you're not a forgiving person, you demonstrate yourself not to be forgiven. Be forgiving. He says, anyone who has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so also you must do. Notice verse 14, above all things, above all of this, above all these other virtues that he spoke about, he says, but above all these, put on love. Love is a volition. Love is an action. Love is a commitment. Love is not a feeling. Love is not an emotion. There are feelings and emotions involved with love. But love, first and foremost in scripture, is a volition. God so loved the world. Christ loved us and gave himself for us. We are not to love one another in word or in tongue, but deed and in truth. Oh no man anything but to love one another. You guys are to love one another. It's to grow. Your love for one another is to grow and it's to be rooted in this bond of perfection or maturity. You see, love is like the lubricant that enables all the other virtues that he spoke about to operate effectively. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, if you have not love, you know what you are? You're a clanging cymbal. You're a trumpet without any sound. You can do whatever you want to do, but if you have not love, it profits you a big fat zero. And love is defined by God, not by humanity. He says, let peace of God rule in your hearts to which you were called. Strive for peace. The peace of God has been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit. God's love is in you. God's peace is in you. And it's there by the working of the Holy Spirit. Now exercise that in your life. As much as lies within you, be at peace with all men. Strive for peace. I think this is the whole hinge right here, verse 16. This holds it all together. If you deny this, you're done, you're sunk. The word of Christ must dwell on you richly. You must be in the Word, and the Word must be in you. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. It's that your mind would be dominated by Christ's Word. So at any point in my life, whatever happens to me, whatever I come up against, I'm able to deal with it according to the teaching of Scripture. That's what we need. We already have the mind of Christ. when we are regenerated, when we are saved, but we must grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You must think Christ's thoughts after you, or after Him. You must think His thoughts. You must bring all of your thoughts captive to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those that are Reformed, many of you in here, many of you part of the RCUS, you love the catechism. You love question and answer one. You love that I am not my own, but I belong to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. We love that, but do we practice that in our lives? I think far too often we want our will to be done. Even though we pray, thy will be done, we want our will to be done. We want God to rubber stamp our plans. But yet we've said, we're not our own. You see, when the Word of Christ is dwelling in you richly, you are one who is faithfully, consistently submitting to God's Word and God's providence. God's providence is God's Word not revealed to us. God speaks to us through His providence. And you interpret it through His Word. The Word prepares you to deal with God's providence. What's going to happen to you tomorrow? Will we all make it home tonight? Will anybody this week get a phone call from the doctor saying it was cancerous? Will we have a loved one that dies? We don't know. This is God's providential dealing with us. And if the Word of Christ is not dwelling in you richly, you are not going to be prepared to deal with His providence. You too have to have Christ's Word dwelling in you richly. I've taught you that. I've taught you that more than once. I've sweated teaching you that. I'm sweating right now teaching you that again. And I hope I sound like a broken record. Because the Apostle Peter said, to preach the same thing to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. These are the old paths. Christ's Word must dwell in you richly. Christ must be the foundation of your marriage. Ashley, you must live for Christ. Mark, you must live for Christ. If you are not living for Christ, you are not ready to live for one another. You must live for Christ. Your life is about Him. He redeemed you. You're His property. Fill your mind with His Word. That you might be wise in teaching one another. Then mark that you take the lead as the head of the home. And you take that lead to teach your wife, to wash her with the water of the word, to raise up your family, to lead your wife in worship. Men that are here this evening, if you're not leading your wife in worship, you're not a man. Your responsibility is to lead your wife in worship. To lead your family in worship. If you're sitting home, and your wife is going to worship, and you're watching the ball game, you're not acting as a man. In fact, if you're doing that, talk to me later. Because I have some things more that I want to tell you. You have a responsibility to lead your family. To lead them in worship. You are to be a prophet, priest, and king in your home. Don't come to church on Christmas and Easter and say you're a believer redeemed by Christ. You're not. You're unregenerate. Don't tell me you're a believer if you have no time for the Word of Christ. You're unregenerate. Those who are of God hear God's Word. They love God's Word. They follow after God's Word. They submit to God's Word. It's not always easy, but He gives more grace. Let that Word dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart unto the Lord. When the Word of Christ dwells in you richly, you know the truth and the truth sets you free. A little story this afternoon. The bridal party went to have their hair done. I went along with them. And we went to a little place over here, and I did, I went along. I asked my wife, I tried to get them to shave my head, they wouldn't shave my head. So there was a little bookstore over there, so I went to this little bookstore. I went in and I was perusing the books and I, there's a bunch of Roman Catholic and Methodist books and things that I don't have interest in. So I hear these people talking over in the corner, about six or seven people. So I got the old radar going to hear what they're saying over there. I'm getting my coffee. I sit down. I give them a little bit more listening. So they got a book. They're reading some book. But I hear scripture. I hear Jesus. So I mosey over there. I say, hi, my name's Scott. I'm from South Dakota. I don't know nothing about nothing. Can I sit down and listen to you guys? Yeah, go ahead. That's the saddest mistake they made. Go ahead, sit down. And one lady says to me, and you can talk if you want to. Lord, man, the Lord is gracious. But I didn't. You may find that hard to believe, but I held my peace. I sat and listened. It was like a pebble scratching at my heart to hear these goofballs talking about nothing. Talking about mysticism. Talking about the creation of the world as a parable. I just sat there and listened to them bash the substitutionary atonement of Christ. Talk about Amsalm's ransom theory. Talking about God as love and how can God be love and send people to hell and all this stuff. These antinomies of Scripture. These conundrums. I said, I got a conundrum for you. You guys are all breathing good air. One man says to me, what do you think about this? I said, I think you're all lost. I think you're lost and your soul is in peril. I think you're all on your way to hell. I think that way because you don't believe God's word. You don't believe that this book is the truth of God. It doesn't contain the truth, it is the truth. But you wouldn't know what the truth is. You have to know the truth. So when you hear these people that are blind, You are set free. You're not ensnared by the false things that they say. Well, let me close up with these last two verses. Verse 18 and 19. Wives, submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord. This is what the Lord has called you to. The man was not created for the woman. The woman was created for the man. You were created to be His helpmeet. You were created to help Him fulfill the calling that God has placed upon His life. That's a high calling. That's a huge obligation. You must know the Word of God in order to fulfill that calling, to meet that calling, and to serve Christ by being a helpmeet to your husband. He needs help. It's not good that man should be alone. He needs a helpmeet. And you are to submit to Him. It's a military term. You are to bring yourself up under submission to Him. It's like the military. There is a ranking in the military. And everybody knows it. When it comes to headship, all of a sudden, the woman wants to throw that off. And that's her propensity, because that's what the Lord said. You know what? Your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you. You want to rule over him, but he's ruling over you. Submit yourself to your husband. It doesn't mean she doesn't have a vote. That means you talk to her. You let her speak. She's been given gifts and abilities from God to help you. And you are then to talk with her. Communicate with her. How does she see things? How does she relate to this? Use those gifts for the good of your family. For the glory of God. But you have the final vote. If you disagree, you cast the final vote. Maybe some of you took exception that Who gives this woman to be with this man? I do. That's not to say my wife didn't. We have already talked about that. I cast the vote for the family. Do you know that if I was dead, she could not give my daughter away? Do you know some other man would need to stand in then for me? You're to submit to him. And Mark, you're to love her. And you're to do so as Christ loves the church. When you see the church walking in submission to the Word of Christ, then you see the biblical picture. When a husband is loving his wife, you are seeing the biblical picture as Christ laid down His life for His bride, the church. It's not enough to say you'll die for her. Will you, brother? Will you live for her? Christ didn't only die. I mean, that's the problem of the evangelical world. What did Jesus do for you? He died for my sins. That's not all He did. That's half the gospel. He lived that I might have a positive righteousness. You must live for her. You must, yes, die for her. But you love her in that way, and love is seen in an action. She not only needs to see that, she needs to hear it. Love her in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. This whole wedding, this whole marriage is about Christ. Christ came and He lived. He bore the judgment of God against those that were given to Him. And He bore it all. He drank the dregs to the last drop. To where He could say, it is finished. The question I have for you in here this evening is, are you trusting in that Christ? I'll tell you, as I told those people sitting in that coffee house, if your hope and your trust is not in the Savior Jesus Christ, you're without hope, you're without God in this world, and you are in peril of eternal damnation. There is one hope, and His name is Jesus, and we're here this evening to honor Him. And I plead with you, be reconciled to God. You do that by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, who embodies all of the virtues that we just read right here this evening. Are you trusting Him? Are you trusting Him? And live it. Amen. Shall we pray?