Wedding Sermon On Colossians 3 12 17

Clothed In Love: A Wedding Sermon From Colossians 3:12-17

Friends, family, and honored guests, we have gathered today for one of the most beautiful moments human beings are privileged to witness. Two people are standing before God and before this company, making promises that will shape the rest of their lives. There is joy in this room, and there should be. But there is also something weightier than joy at work here, something holy. And so before we celebrate, we open the Word of God, because it is Scripture that tells us what love truly is, what a marriage truly requires, and what kind of help two people truly need to keep their vows.

Our text today is Colossians 3:12-17, and I want to read it to you in full.

"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 perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were also called in one body. 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."

Paul wrote these words to a church, not to a wedding party. That is worth pausing on. He was describing the daily, ordinary, sometimes difficult life of a community of people who were learning to live together under the lordship of Jesus Christ. And a marriage, at its best, is exactly that kind of community. It is a church of two. It is a household where the same grace that holds a congregation together must hold two hearts together, day after day, year after year.

So what does Paul say this life looks like? He begins with identity before he gives instruction. Notice the order. He does not say, "Try harder and perhaps God will accept you." He says you are already chosen, already holy, already dearly loved. That is the foundation. The Christian life, including the Christian marriage, does not begin with performance. It begins with grace. You are loved by God before you do a single thing to earn it. That settled, secure identity is the ground from which everything else in this passage grows.

From that ground, Paul calls believers to clothe themselves. That word is deliberate. Every morning you make a choice about what you will wear. Paul says that in the same intentional way, you are to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. These are not feelings that arrive automatically. They are choices made in the light of who God says you are. On the mornings when you are tired, when the conversation was hard the night before, when life feels heavy, you still get up and you choose to put on these garments. That is what covenant faithfulness looks like in the ordinary hours.

Then Paul moves to something even more specific. He says to bear with one another and to forgive one another. The word forgive here carries the same root as the word for grace. To forgive is to extend grace. And Paul does not leave the standard vague. He says forgive just as the Lord has forgiven you. That is a breathtaking standard. The Lord forgave you not because you deserved it, not because you had already improved, but while you were still in your failure. He forgave fully, freely, and at great cost to himself. That is the model for forgiveness in a Christian home. It will not always be easy. There will be days when forgiveness feels like the hardest thing you have ever done. But the gospel gives you both a reason and a power to forgive that the world simply does not have.

Above all of these virtues, Paul places love. He calls it the perfect bond of unity, the thing that holds every other virtue together. This is not a sentimental love that depends on feelings or circumstances. This is a love that chooses, that serves, that endures. It is the love described in 1 Corinthians 13. It is the love demonstrated at the cross. When Paul says love is the bond of unity, he means it is the ligament that keeps the whole body from falling apart. A marriage without this love can have two people living in the same house who are strangers to one another. A marriage rooted in this love can weather storms that would otherwise be catastrophic.

Paul then names three more gifts for the home: peace, gratitude, and the Word of Christ. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The word rule means to act as an umpire, to govern decisions. When you face conflict, when you face a crossroads, let the peace of Christ be the deciding voice. And be thankful. Gratitude is not a small thing. A thankful heart sees the grace in the ordinary, in the meal on the table, in the hand reaching for yours in the dark. Finally, let the Word of Christ dwell richly in your home. Read it together. Pray it together. Sing it together. A home where Scripture is alive is a home with a compass that never fails.

So here is the charge I leave with you today. You are not entering this marriage alone, and you are not entering it in your own strength. You are entering it as people who are chosen, holy, and dearly loved by the God who made you for one another. Clothe yourselves in his grace. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Let love be the bond that holds everything together. Let peace rule, let gratitude overflow, and let the Word of Christ be the loudest voice in your home.

May the God of all grace keep you, strengthen you, and make your life together a testimony to his faithfulness. Amen.

Sources Consulted

Moo, Douglas J. The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

Wright, N. T. Colossians and Philemon. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1986.

Melick, Richard R. Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1991.

Garland, David E. Colossians and Philemon. NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

The Holy Bible, Christian Standard Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.