Nick and Kim Vogt Wedding
July 9, 2011
5:00 p.m.
• Opening Music
o CD of Instrumental Music
• Seating of parents and grandparents
o CD of Instrumental Music
• Guys come out and stand in their places
o No music
• Attendants come down
o Canon in D
• Bridal Processional
o Wedding March
• Opening Prayer
• Welcome
• Question to Dad
• Scripture Reading – Mark 10:6-9 (Corrine)
• Message
• Vows
• Rings
• Prayer
• Pronouncement
• Kissing of the Bride
• Presentation of bride and groom
• Recessional Music
o Traditional Wedding Recessional
Opening Prayer
A young boy was asked what he learned in Sunday School from the story of Jesus turning water into wine. After thinking for a moment, here’s how he answered, “If you’re having a wedding, make sure Jesus is there!”
Did you know that Jesus liked to go to weddings? In fact, His first miracle was performed at a wedding celebration. Just as Jesus was invited to that first century wedding, let’s invite Him right now to be the central figure in this ceremony and to do a miracle in the marriage of Nick and Kim. Let’s pray…
Our Father, we thank you for the gift of marriage, for the beauty of intimate companionship. Thank you for this taste of your great unconditional love for us. May the vows being stated today by Nick and Kim reflect uniquely to the world this great love and bring glory to your name. And may it remind each of us of the purpose of our marriages and encourage each of us to fulfill the vows that we have made to one another. Thank you for your presence in this service and your presence in the relationship of Nick and Kim. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Welcome and Personal Comments
Welcome to the wedding celebration of Nick and Kim! Thank you for coming today to show your support and commitment to this couple. You have two roles – you are witnesses and you are cheerleaders. I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Nick and Kim well through our premarital sessions over the past six months. It’s been my privilege to be able to share with them God’s plan for marriage. They are very much looking forward to living their married lives under the leadership of Jesus Christ.
Question to Kim’s Dad
Q. “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”
A. “Her mother and I do.”
Scripture Reading – Mark 10:6-9 (Corrine)
Message
I heard about a couple who went to get their marriage license but when they got to the courthouse, there was a sign on the door with these words: “Out to lunch. Back at 1 o’clock. Think it over.”
I’d like to take a few minutes right now to have you think it over again…though I know you’ve already done that.
The foundational truth to think over is to see that marriage is God’s design and creation. The first verse that Corrine read says this: “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’”
Quoting from the Book of Genesis, Jesus gives each of you three things to think over.
1. Leaving. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother.” God says first of all that when we get married, we need to leave our parents. What this means is that you need to sever the emotional umbilical cord because your loyalty now belongs to your spouse. Your partner should never have to compete with your parents. Leaving your parents does not mean ignoring them or not spending any time with them. It means that your marriage created a new family and that this new family must be a higher priority than your previous family.
The Hebrew word is very strong and means “to cut off, abandon.” We’re never to abandon our parents but we must shift our allegiance so that priority is given to our spouse. Actually, all other relationships must lose their hold on our hearts. Sometime ago a reader wrote into Readers Digest and said, “We were visiting friends when they received a phone call from their recently married daughter. After several tense minutes on the phone, the mother told the father to pick up the extension. The newlyweds had had their first big fight. In a few moments the father rejoined us and tersely explained, ‘She said she wanted to come home.’ I turned to him and asked, ‘What did you tell her?’ The father responded, ‘I told her that she was home.’”
2. Cleaving. “…and be united to his wife.” Second, God says that once you leave, you then need to be committed to permanence. The word “united” literally means to be permanently glued together -- “to melt two separate entities together to form a permanent bond.” It has the idea of joining two things so tightly that they cannot be separated without hurting both things. The idea is similar to being “welded” or “cemented” together. It is a unique joining of two people into one entity.
It’s pretty easy to get married. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the problems. Over their 35 years of marriage, a wife had given her husband a grapefruit for breakfast every day of their married life. One day, she ran out of grapefruit and apologized profusely to her partner. The husband smiled and replied, “That’s okay dear. I never liked grapefruit anyway.” He wasn’t going to let anything sour their relationship.
The first two truths to think over are leaving and cleaving. There’s one more…
3. Weaving. “And the two will become one flesh.” Once leaving and cleaving take place, then you can experience weaving as you become one flesh. This phrase conveys the idea of oneness. This unity is to be experienced emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
To “become one flesh” is a lifetime process, and according to Paul in Ephesians 5:32, this is a great mystery. Marriage is not a contract; it’s a covenant. In a contract, the two parties remain separate, kind of like oil and water. They’re shaken up but not mixed together. Left alone they will eventually separate into their original respective parts. In a covenant, the two become one and the same, more like mashed potatoes. You take two potatoes, one sweet, [that would be Kim] the other regular, skin them alive, cut them up, put them in hot water, which softens them and then you mash them into one.
Someone has said that marriage is when a man and woman become one; the trouble starts when you try to decide which one. Awhile ago I visited with a couple who has been married for over 50 years. The wife had a stroke several years ago so the husband provides care for her, makes meals, and keeps the house clean. When I asked him what he thought the secret of marriage was, he responded immediately with just one word: Christ! Jesus has mashed their lives together in amazing ways. Then he got a grin on his face and said that when you repeat your marriage vows, it’s best to forget the “better” stuff in the “better or worse” part because it will never be better than on your wedding day!
Nick and Kim, your marriage matters to the Majesty and therefore it should matter to you. See your spouse as your companion, as one who completes you, and as one you are to live in communion with. And make sure that you have done the leaving part, that you are cleaving to each other, and that you are allowing the Holy Spirit to do His work of weaving your lives into one.
God’s objective for marriage is a loving relationship of oneness. Jesus said it this way in the last verse that Corrine read in Mark 10:9: “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Divorce is not an option. Be vigilant to guard your vows and determine to keep them, even when your feelings change.
God never intended for you to try to make it totally on your own. That’s one reason He’s given you family and friends to cheer you on. But, God has also given you someone else who wants to be involved in your marriage. With His enablement, you can have a marriage of oneness. His name is Jesus.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
It takes three to make your marriage work. With Jesus at the center, He can help each of you develop patience, understanding, forgiveness, and unconditional love.
The “leave and cleave” in the marriage bond is also a picture of the union God wants us to have with Him. Check out Deuteronomy 13:4 in the King James Version: “Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.”
It means we leave all other gods, whatever form they may take, and join to Him alone as our God. We cleave to Him as we read His Word and submit to His authority over us. And then the Holy Spirit weaves His character and fruit into our lives and we follow His ways and do His will.
It is Nick and Kim’s great desire that each of you come to know the God whom they worship. The Lord who has led them together also wants very much for you to become a part of His family. Just as Nick and Kim have received one another and become a member of each other’s family, we must receive Jesus Christ as our personal Savior to become part of God’s family.
It’s as if Jesus is the bridegroom and all who hear Him are his prospective brides. You see, Jesus wants each of us to open our lives to Him. He wants to have a relationship with us because He is unconditionally committed to imperfect people just like me, and just like you. He’s waiting for each of us here this afternoon to say, “I will” to Him. Will you love Him and honor Him? Will you trust Him to forgive your sin and give you eternal life? Once you do, you will receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life. That’s something to think over…
Challenge
To Nick: Nick, will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to live
Together after God’s ordinance in the holy state of matrimony? Will
You love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health;
And forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?
“I will”
To Kim: Kim, will you have this man to be your wedded husband, to live together
After God’s ordinance in the holy state of matrimony? Will
You love him, comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health;
And forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?
“I will”
You’re now going to make vows before your family and friends, but most of all, in the presence of a Holy God. I urge you to not take these lightly. Listen to these words from Ecclesiastes 5:4-6: “When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it.”
Malachi 2:14-15: “The LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth… she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not [the LORD] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.”
If you’re sitting next to your spouse, I invite you to hold hands and reaffirm your own vows of commitment.
Exchange of vows [Face each other and hold hands]
[Nick, repeat after me…] I, Nick, take thee Kim, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance.
[Kim, repeat after me…] I Kim, take thee Nick, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance.
Exchange of rings
Every covenant has a sign or a symbol to remind each party of the responsibilities he or she brings to the covenant relationship. These rings are visible reminders to you, and to others, that what you have promised, you will do.
When the first Christians began to exchange rings, they had a fascinating custom. They would start with the pointer finger and put the ring on the tip, praying, “In the name of the Father,” and then move to the middle, “in the name of the Son,” and finally with the words, “and of the Holy Spirit,” the ring would be slipped onto the ring finger. It’s a way of saying that marriage is not only a commitment to one another, it’s more than just a commitment to your family of birth and your family of rebirth, it’s a vow that you’re making to the triune God.
To Nick: “Do you have a token of your love?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you Nick, give this ring as a token that you will keep this pledge and
perform these vows?”
“I do.”
[Repeat after me] “This ring I give thee in token and pledge of our
constant faith and abiding love.”
To Kim: “Do you have a token of your love?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you Kim, give this ring as a token that you will keep this pledge and
perform these vows?”
“I do.”
[Repeat after me] “This ring I give thee in token and pledge of our
constant faith and abiding love.”
Prayer
Pronouncement
By the authority committed unto me as a minister of the good news concerning Jesus Christ, and of the State of Illinois, I now pronounce you husband and wife. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. What God has joined together let no one tear apart!
Kissing of Bride
Nick, would you like to kiss your bride?
Introduction of Nick and Kim
Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m pleased to present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Nick Vogt!
Recessional
