Wedding Sermons Funny

A Merry Heart and a Faithful One: A Wedding Sermon on Joy and Covenant Love

Good afternoon, everyone. Before we get too far into the solemnity of this moment, I want to say something that might surprise you coming from a preacher: it is perfectly fine to smile today. In fact, the Bible practically insists on it.

Proverbs 17:22 says this in the Christian Standard Bible: "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." Now, I have been to weddings where the atmosphere felt more like a solemn board meeting than a celebration, and I have been to weddings where the joy was so loud it rattled the windows. Scripture, it turns out, is on the side of the rattled windows. Joy is not decoration. Joy is medicine. And today, joy is entirely appropriate.

So let us begin there, with a joyful heart, and then let us go deeper.

Opening: Why Laughter Belongs Here

There is a temptation to think that the more serious a thing is, the less room it has for joy. Marriage is serious, so perhaps we should be grave. But that reasoning gets it exactly backward. The most serious things in life, the things we love most deeply, are also the things that make us laugh the hardest, cry the most freely, and sing the most sincerely. A marriage that has no room for laughter is not more reverent. It is just less alive.

Proverbs 17:22 is a short verse, but it carries real weight. The Hebrew word translated "joyful" carries the idea of gladness that shows on the face, that spills out into the room. A joyful heart, the proverb says, is like medicine. It heals. It restores. It keeps the bones from drying out. That image is almost funny in itself, the idea that a good laugh can do what a prescription cannot. But the proverb means it. Joy is not trivial. Joy is therapeutic. And in a marriage, joy is a spiritual discipline.

The Two Of You: A Covenant, Not Just A Ceremony

Now, I want to speak directly to you, the two of you standing here today. What you are doing right now is not simply signing a contract or hosting a party. You are entering a covenant. A contract says, "I will do my part as long as you do yours." A covenant says, "I am yours, fully and finally, regardless." The distinction matters more than almost anything else I could say to you today.

And the good news is that you do not have to figure out what covenant love looks like from scratch. The Apostle Paul describes it with remarkable clarity in Colossians 3, beginning at verse 12. He 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 perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since you were called to 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."

That passage is a wardrobe. Paul says, "put on" these things. Which means there will be mornings when you have to choose to put them on, the same way you choose what to wear. Some mornings, compassion will feel natural. Other mornings, you will have to reach for it deliberately. That is not a failure of love. That is the practice of love.

Exposition: The Wardrobe Of Covenant Love

Notice what Paul lists first: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Not passion. Not chemistry. Not compatibility. Those things are gifts, but they are not the foundation. The foundation is character. It is the slow, daily decision to treat the person across the breakfast table as someone God calls "dearly loved."

Then Paul adds something that no marriage can survive without: forgiveness. "Bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance." The word "if" is generous. Paul knows there will be grievances. Not because you are bad people, but because you are human people. The question is not whether conflict will come. The question is whether you will meet it with the same grace that Christ extended to you.

And then Paul reaches the top of the wardrobe. "Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." Love, in Paul's understanding, is not what holds everything else together by sentiment. It is what holds everything else together by will and by grace. It is the belt around the whole outfit.

Finally, Paul says something that ties the whole passage together: "Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you." A marriage built on Scripture is not a marriage without trouble. It is a marriage with a compass. When you lose your way, and every couple does at some point, you will have something to return to.

Charge And Blessing

So here is your charge, the two of you. Laugh together, and laugh often. Not at each other's expense, but at the beautiful, bewildering, grace-filled adventure you are beginning. Let joy be medicine in your home. Let the wardrobe of Colossians 3 be what you reach for every morning. Let Christ be the center of your covenant, not because it makes marriage easy, but because it makes it meaningful.

May your home be full of warmth and full of laughter. May you forgive quickly and love generously. May the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. And may every year together give you more reasons to be grateful than the year before.

Now, go get married. The whole room is cheering for you.

Sources Consulted

Longman, Tremper III. Proverbs. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms. Baker Academic, 2006.

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

Garrett, Duane A. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. New American Commentary. Broadman and Holman, 1993.

Pao, David W. Colossians and Philemon. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Zondervan, 2012.

Waltke, Bruce K. The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15 to 31. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 2005.