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Four Wedding & A Funeral - Wedding #3 ::

As the Minister of a University congregation in Canberra, DAVID McDONALD has plenty of opportunities to preach at weddings! Here is the outline of the first of four gospel-based sermons that have proven particularly effective, based on Colossians 1:13-23

Source: Perspective Vo5 No1 ©Perspective 1999


All five sermons in PDF format:

“Made for each other?” – Colossians 1:13-23

When it comes to weddings, you don’t want to make mistakes. You don’t want to get to the honeymoon and discover you’ve married the wrong person. There was a bloke in the Bible who did that! Marcus… take care!

How can you make sure you’ve married the right person? How do you know when a couple are right for each other? Traditionally, people have said differences are good – there’s complementarity. Nowadays people seem to look for sameness, like on Perfect Match that used to be on TV. People are looking for compatibility.

A phrase that often gets used at weddings is “THEY WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER.” I’m sure we all know couples we’d say that about. They both like football, sewing, children, cooking; they have the same length of hair! But that’s all pretty trivial.

Sometimes we can see in others: like a guy who wants to be a missionary in Egypt meets a Christian girl from Egypt who wants to go back there. I guess you’re all wondering “What about Kelly and Marcus?” Some of you have known them for a long time – family, friends. They look great together. They’re both committed Christians. They’re both headed in the same direction.

But, I’ve got to say, Marcus and Kelly are definitely not made for each other. Not because one likes football and the other doesn’t. Not because one likes heavy metal and the other Abba. Not because one is noisy and the other is quiet. Not because they have very different family backgrounds. I didn’t discover it from pre-marriage counselling. I discovered it from the Bible – from the passage we read from Colossians.

Marcus and Kelly are both made for someone else. The same someone else. “All things were created by him and for him.” For Jesus Christ. Everything. That includes you and me, Marcus and Kelly. We were all created by Jesus and for Jesus.

Think about it. You have been created, made, manufactured – for a purpose. When you open your presents, if you get a toaster and an iron, don’t mix them up. They’ve each been made for a purpose!

We too have been made for a purpose. Marcus and Kelly, you’ve been made for a purpose. You have been made for Jesus. If you’ve been made for Jesus, then live for Jesus. Jesus is to be number one. Put Jesus first in your marriage. Not the presents. Not your jobs. Not your home. Not your hobbies. Not your children. Not even each other. That’s an extraordinary thing to say , isn’t it?

Here I am, marrying you both. It’s a Christian wedding. And I’m telling you, “You’re not made for each other.” “You’re not to put each other first.” Who has the right to be more important? What person can possibly be more important to Marcus than Kelly; to Kelly than Marcus? Doesn’t sound right, does it? We know instinctively that we are to put each other first. But the Word of God says ‘No! Jesus is more important.’

Who is he? And why should we put him number one? And how can we say we’ve been made for him? First, he was a 1st century Jew, from the backwaters of the middle east. But more importantly he is “the image of the invisible God.” And “all things were created by him and for him.” And “in him all things hold together.” He’s “the beginning and firstborn from the dead.” And in the passage there you see words like “supremacy”. “All the fullness of God”. He’s the one who “made peace between God and us through his death on the cross.”

Back in the first century something extraordinary must have happened to convince people that a Jewish carpenter, an itinerant preacher was the Lord, the Saviour, the God over all.

Marcus and Kelly, something extraordinary has happened to you. You have heard the good news. You, too, treat Jesus as Lord, Saviour, God.

Marcus and Kelly, if I told you that you were made for each other; to put each other first in your marriage; I’d be misleading you and sabotaging your marriage from the start.

If you put yourselves first, it will be a disaster. If you put each other first, then you will not be headed in the same direction. But if you both put Jesus first; if you continually acknowledge you’ve been made for him; then your marriage will grow strong and God will provide you with a deep and lasting joy. More importantly, God will be honoured and you will be the people you were made to be.

David McDonald is the pastor of CrossRoads Christian Church in Canberra, and AFES chaplain to students at Canberra University and ANU.




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These are articles dealing more broadly with the general topic of preaching.

There are sample sermons for those challenging occasions like funerals and weddings, articles looking at preaching on difficult topics such as sex, and even the full text of an evangelistic sermon based on Isaiah!

Use them to stimulate, encourage and equip your preaching of the word.

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