Marriage Finds Hope In The Gospel of Grace

I so enjoyed the wedding I had the privileged of preaching at this past weekend. My prayer was that the Lord spoke through me and into to the live of those there to celebrate, and into the lives of Matt Nelson and Catie Kilgore who are now Matt and Catie Nelson united in Holy Matrimony.

The following are some excerpts from the ceremony:

I John 4:7-16
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son[a] into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[b] our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.


Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling... Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from "being in love" — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriage) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God... "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it. CS Lewis in Mere Christianity states

There will be times when you can’t do without each other and there may be brief times when you struggle to do with each other. Knowing that, I desire for you and every person in this room to find your strength in the Hope of the Gospel of Grace.

-It is only by the Grace of our Lord and Savior that we can have hope.

-Only by His Grace can love one another.

-Only by His Grace can we love God.

-And only by His Grace can we be united with Him for eternity.

1 John 4:7-16 ...so graciously read for us speaks loudly of the Hope of the Gospel of Grace and how we are to love one another, of how Christ showed his love for us by sacrificing and suffering for us, and it shows that the love in us and through us testifies of Jesus- Savior of the world.

In closing Matt and Catie as you enter into and continue in the covenant of marriage I pray, because “you are the salt, you are the light, because you are a city on a hill, practice love for each other as exemplified by Christ and find your Hope in the Gospel of His Grace

A Hundredfold

"Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brother or sister or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many that are first will be last."

Is a hundredfold not a good return on your investment, who would not like to invest a dollar and receive a hundred or $10 and receive $1,000 or $100 and receive $10,000...? God's has commissioned us, charged us, directed us, authorized all those who believe, all who have the Holy Spirit living with in them to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" Matthew 28:18. Spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth is not an option, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit come on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Said Jesus in Act 1:8.

These words have been speaking loudly to me in the wake of the death of Chris Leggett in Mauritania, who's murder was claimed by Al Qaeda for sharing the Gospel and in a time where my Brother and Sister in-law will board a plane in three week in route to central Asia to spread the gospel in a Muslim land. As He speaks to me, I for the sake of His commission, for His saving grace, for His sacrifice, for His love want to experience the glory of God, a hundredfold!

Matt