'newlyweds' Series

Lake Washington Fellowship

Date: 2/14/10

Title: ‘NEWLYWEDS’

Text: 2Corinthians 11:2

Theme: Lord’s Supper

Series: The Positive Side of Family

Props: Party Poppers for everyone

‘NEWLYWEDS’

When I first showed up at Doreen’s home for our first date I was not the kind of young man her mom and dad had hoped and dreamed for their little girl. I was a long haired puertorrican who could hardly speak English honking the horn of my car so she’d come out of the house. Well…they didn’t let her out; I had to go to the door. I shaped up in a hurry and three and half years later we married on May 7th, 1983 in Orlando; it was a day I’ll never forget. My brother Hector and I went to the hotel where Doreen and I spent our first night together to prepare the room. I had bought a special hallmark card for her that I placed somewhere in the room; I also put non alcoholic grape juice on ice. Then we went to the church, married, and as newlyweds we flew to Pennsylvania for our honeymoon.

The Bible describes Jesus’ relationship with you and I, the church, as a spiritual wedding and being newlyweds with God, even having a wedding reception up in heaven one day.

Aren’t wedding celebrations the most amazing of parties? In them you laugh and toast to the couple and dance with joy and knock on the glasses, ‘ding, ding, ding’ so the couple can kiss, and you eat and dance some more and take pictures with little cameras on the tables and blow bubbles and dance some more and throw rice as a sign of good faith and wish of prosperity for the newlyweds and you pull on party poppers…Christians ought to celebrate this marriage relationship with have with our God! The apostle Paul said of the church,

2 “For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ.” 2Corinthians 11:2 NLT

In our spiritual marriage with God Jesus is the groom and the church (you and me) is the bride. Let’s think about a Jewish wedding…

Jewish marriages often were prearranged. The young man and his father would negotiate a price for the girl with her dad (mohar). You could say the purchase price was sort of the engagement ring. Once the price was settled the couple was engaged and once engaged they were considered married but before the couple came together physically they were separated for 12 month. The groom would use those 12 months to go back to his father’s house to prepare a place for him and his wife. Then, one night when the 12 month period was over the groom and his wedding party would go down to the bride’s house in a torch lit procession to get her and her wedding party. The bride knew the day he would come but not the time. The groom, bride, and the whole party would then go back to the place the groom had prepared at his father’s house/property. They would get to the bridal chamber and the bride and groom would go into the place alone while the wedding party waited outside. After the physical union the groom would go outside, announce the consummation of the marriage, and go back inside the bridal chamber and stay there for the next 7 days while the wedding party would go tell the guest the marriage had been consummated and they would blow bubbles and dance and party for a week. At the end of the week the couple would come out to see everyone.

This morning we’re going to look at our relationship with the Lord from that newly wed perspective, have the Lord’s Supper together and celebrate.

THE ENGAGEMENT (Jesus, who created you, loves you with all His heart; The Bible says that Jesus loved/knew you before you were even born)

But the Bible says that all of us are sinners and are destined to die one day.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23 Every one of us has sinned, I’m a sinner, you’re a sinner…all of us have done wrong and the a penalty for sin is death,

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23…in other words even though Jesus loves us our sins separate us and keeps from Him and His love.

‘death’- eternal separation (to be eternally separated from God forever; people think that hell is the worst thing the afterlife but as bad as that may be it is not having the love of God for you that a person will hate the most).