Grace Upon Grace: A Covenant Built on What God Has Already Done
Friends, we have gathered in this place for a reason that is older than any of us and more beautiful than any ceremony we could arrange. We have gathered because two people have chosen, before God and before witnesses, to bind their lives together in covenant love. That is not a small thing. It is, in fact, one of the most serious and most joyful things a human being can do. And because it is both serious and joyful, we need a word that is equal to the moment. We need a word from God.
So we turn to two passages that belong together like two voices in the same song.
The first is Romans 15:5-7, where the apostle Paul writes this: "Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice. Therefore welcome one another, just as Christ also welcomed you, for the glory of God."
The second is Colossians 3:12-17, where Paul writes: "Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the bond of perfect unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
Two texts. One theme. Everything you need for a marriage is already in them.
Notice what Paul does not do in either passage. He does not begin with human effort. He begins with God. In Romans 15, before he calls believers to anything, he identifies God as the one who gives endurance and encouragement. The word translated endurance carries the idea of patient, steady faithfulness under pressure. The word for encouragement means something close to comfort that comes alongside you. Paul is saying that the God who calls you to harmony is the same God who supplies the strength to walk in it. You are not left to manufacture this on your own.
That matters enormously for a marriage. Every honest married person will tell you that there are seasons when harmony does not come naturally. There are mornings when patience feels thin and forgiveness feels costly. The gospel answer to those moments is not to try harder in your own strength. The gospel answer is to return to the God who gives endurance and encouragement, and to ask him for what you do not have.
The Colossians passage takes this further. Paul says, "As God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." The foundation is not the clothing. The foundation is the identity. You are chosen. You are holy. You are dearly loved. That is what God has declared over every believer in Christ. The virtues Paul lists are not a checklist for earning God's favor. They are the natural wardrobe of people who already know they are loved. You put on compassion because you have received compassion. You extend forgiveness because you have been forgiven. The marriage flows from the gospel, not the other way around.
And then Paul names the garment that holds all the others together. He calls it love, the bond of perfect unity. Not sentiment. Not chemistry. Not the feeling that comes and goes with the weather. He means the deliberate, costly, Christ-shaped love that chooses the other person on the hard days as well as the easy ones. This is the love that Paul described elsewhere as bearing all things and enduring all things. It is a love that has roots deep enough to survive drought.
To the two of you standing here today, this is the kind of love you are promising. It is not a love you will always feel at full strength. But it is a love you can always choose, because the God who commanded it is the God who enables it. When you are tired, he gives endurance. When you are discouraged, he gives encouragement. When you have wronged each other, he gives the grace to forgive, just as he has forgiven you.
Paul closes the Colossians passage with a word that is easy to overlook but impossible to overstate. He says, "Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you." That is a household instruction. It is a word for a shared life. Let your home be a place where Scripture is read, where prayer is spoken, where gratitude is practiced, where the name of Jesus is honored not only on Sundays but in the ordinary hours of ordinary days. Build your household on that foundation, and you will have something that weather and time cannot take away.
So here is the charge I leave with you. Welcome each other as Christ has welcomed you. Bear with each other as Christ has borne with you. Forgive each other as Christ has forgiven you. And in everything, in word and deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement hold you both. May the peace of Christ rule in your home. May love be the bond that holds every other virtue in place. And may your life together bring glory to the God who made you, redeemed you, and brought you to this moment.
Now, let us witness these vows.
Sources Consulted
Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Academic, 1998).
Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Colossians and to Philemon, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008).
F. F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1984).
John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1968).
The Christian Standard Bible (Holman Bible Publishers, 2017).
Before preaching: verify every biblical reference, replace general language only with couple-approved details, and revise the message in your own Christian tradition and pastoral voice.