More and more of my friends are joining the married masses, they are standing at the end of aisles and saying "I do" to one person and "I don't" to a whole world of people.
They are promising to stay and to love and to sacrifice even when they fall out of love, when they fall out of infatuation, when they fall into bed exhausted after cleaning up sick kids and sticky finances.
When they fall into gray hair and wrinkled complexions, when they fall into tight budgets and the unexpected.
Yeah, they are saying "I do" to all of the falling.
They are saying "I do" to preaching the gospel together, using their lives to say "It's not good that man is alone."
When people pay attention to them, to the way they keep saying "I do" and "I don't" through all of the falling, then they get to tell how we are all the fallen.
But how one man said "I do" to the whoring, sinner bride and "I don't" to the right he had to deity and he took on our sin and our shame so we could repent and believe and be the blood bought bride.
They are promising to stay and to love and to sacrifice even when they fall out of love, when they fall out of infatuation, when they fall into bed exhausted after cleaning up sick kids and sticky finances.
When they fall into gray hair and wrinkled complexions, when they fall into tight budgets and the unexpected.
Yeah, they are saying "I do" to all of the falling.
They are saying "I do" to preaching the gospel together, using their lives to say "It's not good that man is alone."
When people pay attention to them, to the way they keep saying "I do" and "I don't" through all of the falling, then they get to tell how we are all the fallen.
But how one man said "I do" to the whoring, sinner bride and "I don't" to the right he had to deity and he took on our sin and our shame so we could repent and believe and be the blood bought bride.
There’s this truth about marriage that sometimes on this side of the vows we forget;
The truth that the only alter that offers life is the one with the replacement ram.
Because wasn't that the whole point of Abraham taking his man child onto that mountain.
The man he had prayed years for, waited years for.
They walked to the alter and Abraham put Isaac there, he picked up his knife to take life.
Because ever alter demands life, requires sacrifice.
No one goes to the alter to live.
Because wasn't that the whole point of Abraham taking his man child onto that mountain.
The man he had prayed years for, waited years for.
They walked to the alter and Abraham put Isaac there, he picked up his knife to take life.
Because ever alter demands life, requires sacrifice.
No one goes to the alter to live.
And all of us self-righteous, self-absorbed, self-worshiping need the truth that more than the sacrifices of a man we need a replacement ram.
The truth that no altar can alter our reaction to the past but the one that reassures us God’s wrath has been pacified.
No aisle walked speaks safety to our insecurity but the one the God man walked to Calvary.
No man offers safety like our replacement lamb offers identity.
No future offers hope like that final breath of our bride groom when he declared bloodied and submitted it. is. finished.
No alter offers peace with our past like the one bloodied by the one bent on bringing good of all things.
No aisle walked, no alter approached could be as beautiful as the feet washed with tears and confidence in the presence of adversaries because one woman had finally found her advocate.
They say when God writes your name on a good man’s heart there’s nothing you can do about it. But better than that is when God etches your new identity into the palm of his own hand.
They say when God writes your name on a good man’s heart there’s nothing you can do about it. But better than that is when God etches your new identity into the palm of his own hand.
So we’re not waiting around for the day we get a new last name
Because we're already the renamed.
We're not hanging hopes on any man
Because we've got a resurrected replacement Lamb.