A Covenant, Not a Contract: Thomas and April's Wedding

Music

Thank you.

I

Thank you.

So anyway, so dude, without further ado, I'm going to bring up Cole.

Thank you guys, wow, hold on, hey

come on up here guys, we didn't rehearse, it's pretty

on the spot, okay, yep, yep, yep, you got it, good job, I

almost just broke the stream,

I accidentally hit the wrong button and ended the stream, so I was freaking out for a second

for a little bit, but we're good.

Okay, welcome, guys.

Okay, I have a surprise for you.

Brent wrote a song, and he's going to come sing it for you.

Did he?

That's why I'm hiding over here.

He didn't write a song.

I was like, whoa.

Let's just, hey, let's pray quick, and we'll do this thing.

Lord, thank you for today.

Thank you for Thomas and April and all these people that showed up.

pray that we would honor you today god that you would bless these two at their wedding and

we love

you so much jesus it's in your name we pray amen amen all right so this

i'm gonna be honest this is

uh unlike any wedding message i've ever done in my life so

if i screw it up i'm sorry about

screwing up your wedding but hey tell about your streak though my streak i'm not yeah

i do i have

a hundred percent

streak so far so no divorces yet so let's go okay

um okay so in at the beginning of the bible in the

book of genesis genesis chapter 12 um we're introduced to this guy named abraham

okay

one of the first people in scripture and uh god

essentially he shows up to this guy named abraham

randomly unannounced they've never at least

we know of they've never met before and god just shows up and speaks to

him and he says hey man

get up leave your family leave your father's house and go to this

place called ur that's what i guess

the place is called ur um and the interesting thing about this story

is that we we have no idea

why god chose abraham there's no reason given there's

No, he just shows up, he chooses him, not because of how good he is,

not because he's good looking, not because he's rich, not because he's righteous, none of that stuff.

God just chooses him.

And Abraham, actually, in the story, just listens.

He just, before God has, like, Israel or the Jewish religion,

God meets this guy named God, or Abraham, God meets this guy

named Abraham, and...

just listens to him and we don't know why he chose him other than he just loved him for

some reason

which is really really really kind of interesting to me okay and

so abraham listens to god

and he goes to this place and along the way god starts making promises to

him like hey man i'm

gonna i'm gonna make you into a nation i'm gonna give you a lot of descendants i'm gonna give you

all these children you're gonna have some land

He just starts making these kind of crazy promises to him.

And eventually, Abraham's like, man, I need some assurances here.

You're making all these promises to me.

I don't like, how do I know what you're saying you're going to do, you're going to do?

And I'm sorry, real quick, I promise I'm going somewhere with this.

This has to do with the wedding, so just stay with me for a second.

I'm going to connect it.

So God's like,

all right. Abraham's like, man, you're promising me a nation. I, my wife and I,

we just, we want

one kid. We don't even have one. I, all I'm asked for is one. I don't, all

this other stuff you're

promising. That's great. But I'm just looking for one kid. And so God says, Hey, look

at the stars.

Can you count the stars? And he's like, no. He's like, exactly. That's, that's how many

kids I'm

going to give you. And so Abraham's like, okay, man, how, how do.

How do I know?

How can I be sure?

And so God says, he says, go, go get some animals.

And so this verse gets a little weird.

So sorry, kids.

Go get some.

He gives him this list of animals and he, I don't remember the list exactly, but it's

like a cow, a goat, a sheep, a dove, something like that.

He says, go get these animals and bring them back.

So Abraham, again, he listens to God.

it's probably like okay and so to understand was what's going on here we

have to understand how people made deals back then so 6 ,000 years ago

they

didn't have banks or laws or anything to hold people accountable so when

you made

a contract with somebody what they would do is they would they would get an

animal and they would cut the animal in half again this is a wedding you're

probably like what in the world is going on and they would take

two halves of this animal and they would put them on the ground and these two parties of

people that were making a deal they would hold hands and they would walk through these animals

and the idea was that if if i don't uphold my

end of this deal we're making may god strike me dead

like these animals and so what happens in the story by the way we can do that with

a cat and we can do

And we need to do that.

Sorry.

Kara's like, hey.

So what happens in the story is really interesting and beautiful.

God actually, so they do this.

They cut the animals in half.

And God puts Abraham to sleep.

And it says that night, the presence of.

God, by himself, passes through these animals without Abraham.

Abraham's asleep.

And essentially, this is the good part, God's saying, hey, I

understand that you're not

going to hold up your end of the deal.

I know that you're going to waver.

I know that you're going to doubt.

I know that you're going to sin.

know, when things get tough, you're going to get all weird. Like, I know that you can't possibly

uphold your end of this deal we're making, but I will. And

so God, by himself, and it's a beautiful

picture here, passes through these animals saying, Abraham, no matter what you do or

what happens,

I'm going to remain. I'm going to hold up my end of this deal. And

so I'm going to connect this.

I love this story because I think it actually solves a tension

that people feel but can't

articulate when it comes to weddings because, let's just be real, most

people at weddings,

we look at vows and we think, if we're being honest, that's

impossible.

We say things like, till death do us part.

richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, you know, in sickness and in health. And the

problem

is, April, you don't know who he's going to be in 30 years. Same.

Like, Tom, you don't know who

she's going to be. You guys have, we can't see the future, right? You don't know

what you're

going to go through together. You don't know the pain you're going to face, the struggles

you'll face, the whole thing.

You get it, right?

And it's really hard to make promises to people when I don't

know how things are going to go.

But I think God, in this story, demonstrates that he's

a God of covenants, not contracts.

And he demonstrates for us that a covenant relationship is,

hey, I don't care about the future.

I'm choosing you anyway.

I'm not going to choose you today.

This is great.

The beauty happens when both of you can mutually say,

no matter what happens in the future,

I'm still going to choose you.

My wife, she asked me, she goes,

Cole, if I ever become a vegetable, are you going to leave me?

I'm like, I guess I'm stuck.

No, I actually tell her, I say, honey, if you ever leave me, I'm coming with you.

But I think that's the beauty.

That's the point of this random story I'm sharing today is that I think this is

the chance we get as humans to model what God

actually does for us.

It's this, hey, I love you today, and I don't know what's

happening in 10, 20, 30 years.

but I'm still going to choose to love you then.

And that, I think, it's within covenant that we actually find,

really, I believe this, some of life's best blessings.

So when Eric called, I don't know when, a couple weeks ago he called you,

and I was there, and to be honest, originally I was like,

dude, leave them alone now.

But seriously, I'm like, dude, get out of their business.

um but he said he said something that honestly i've been thinking about a little bit he said

man that's awesome congrats you got married but you just signed a paper we

need to make a covenant

right and so i think i actually think there's as annoying as it might be love you i

think there's

something to that um and so that i think that's what we're here to do today like i don't

know he

he came up to me before this he goes man we got rings we need to do anything with them i'm like

I don't know.

We're just winging this thing.

I just found out about this yesterday.

I don't care about all that.

What I think is really important is that you guys make a covenant with each other through

what we call vows.

Are you ready to do that?

And I can't memorize those, so I have to read them.

You want to go first?

Sure, let's do it.

I love that.

Yeah, get in there.

Thank you.

Let me find this.

Okay, you ready?

I, Thomas, take you, April, to be my wife, to

have and to hold from this day forward,

for better or for worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness

and in health, to love and to cherish,

till death does part.

You ready? I, April, take you, Thomas, to

be my husband, to have and to hold, from this day

forward, for better and for worse, for richer and

poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and

to cherish, till death do us part.

That's beautiful.

okay guys great news you're uh that's all it takes you're married so

hey do you want to pray

for them real quick yeah sorry i'm just on the fly this is impromptu i'll be happy let's

pray for

them dude let's pray jesus i i just i

just ask you to just bless bless these guys and just pour

out your blessings on top of them because lord they are all

them I love them and Lord I know you love them and and they're gonna make

mistakes and they're gonna be like man I'm so over this Lord

you're never ever

gonna leave them and and I just pray that you just you just remind them that

hey even through all the crap you're still gonna still gonna be there with

them and they're gonna be with each other and and I hope they have a great

day in your name we pray

amen amen okay guys so we're not we're not we don't have a tree to

plant we don't have like

one of those little what do people do light a candle things but we got biscuits you already

got your rings on yeah we do have biscuits so guys seriously congrats so

everybody help me out

yes so thomas you may now kiss your bride

Ready?

Twist the bottle.

Twist it like this.

Hold it.

Let me see your bottle.

Ready?

There you go.

Hey-ho!

All right.

that was awesome actually

dude congratulations man

that was awesome