Dennis Tuuri

Genesis 2:18-24. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. It is a command word to us.

And the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a help meet for him.” And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof.

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.”

We thank God for his word and pray that he would illuminate our understanding through it.

We’ve been going through the book of Joshua. And you’ll remember if you were here last week that in Joshua 24 we had the account of the retaking of the covenant by God’s people and we mentioned then that this name of this church involves that term covenant. This is Reformation Covenant Church. You cannot understand this church or the actions of this church without understanding the centrality of the concept of covenant to the scriptures. We are given of course an old covenant and a new covenant. One covenant of grace essentially but under an old dispensation and a new one.

We come now then to a vivid illustration in the providence of our heavenly Father whose thoughts we are to raise up to this day. Even the architecture of this church for instance draws our thoughts heavenward. So when we recited the Kyrie Eleison I hope you realize we look from a heavenly perspective we raise up our hearts our thoughts our minds this day to worship the Lord and the context of this worship service will have a marriage covenant entered into by a couple and it is a vivid illustration to us what we spoke of last week in terms of the covenants that God has established with his people and the covenants he calls us to enter into as well.

The concept of covenant is an old one as old as creation itself but it is one that is not understood so clearly in our culture today and so we need instruction on it regularly. It is like an ancient breeze from an old sea that comes blowing into our lives today. The concept of covenant is so removed from our society today that we don’t understand it at all and our understanding of it has been dimmed to the place of almost being erased from our memories so to speak of what covenants are.

And yet it’s so important in the context of not just how we live our lives and the covenants we enter into but our very nature of our being is covenantal. The scriptures teach us in the book of Genesis that we are created. We are a created being. God makes himself known to man by way of covenant and specifically in the covenant of grace. Man is a created being and specifically is created in the image of God. Man shows the mark of the creator and man enters into relationships with other people, other men and women also by way of covenant because he’s created in the image of God.

Referred to in various passages in scripture as a yoking. In marriage, man enters into the most intimate and closest of covenants humanly speaking that is known to him. A marriage is a covenant and this fact is plainly stated in scripture. For instance, in Malachi 2:14, the passage indicates that she—that is the wife of the man that is being addressed—is thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. The scriptures tell us that man and woman are brought together in marriage by way of covenant. The wife is described in this passage from Malachi 2:14 as being the husband’s companion and also his wife by way of covenant.

The covenantal nature of Christian marriage is stressed throughout the scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 13, love is indicated as a commanded action of man and is at the heart of his covenants that he makes with other men. Love is defined by God in 1 Corinthians 13 as a series of actions. As we said last week, for the last couple of weeks, man is commanded to love God and his neighbor. It is not an emotional state primarily. It is an objective state that man can volitionally act on the basis of love. It is not emphatically then romantic in nature but rather it is volitional or covenantal in nature.

While the Malachi passage that I just referred to affirms the companionship of marriage which carries with it obviously emotional aspects, yet the scriptures focus and therefore our focus must be on marriage as a covenant—a binding commitment—and hence this service will contain vows in which Pam and Tony will affirm their commitment to each other.

This commitment, this yoking, this covenant to which they enter this day must be what they cling to in the years that lay ahead of them as a married couple. While emotions and relationships are transitory and often fleeting, while feelings trip on the rocks that inevitably lie in the path of our lives, the commitment of covenant provides the necessary base for the marriage relationship built of course on the rock that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christians marry other Christians. Second Corinthians instructs us not to enter into covenant with and hence not to marry an unbeliever. And then goes on to state in detail how we are to be equally yoked in the marriage covenant. The passage says that righteousness hath no fellowship with unrighteousness. This statement refers to the consecration on the part of the believer of his whole life to the service of God. Christian marriage is built upon two lives that are both consecrated in covenant to the service of their savior. This is the priestly calling of the believer.

Secondly, the passage in 2 Corinthians says that light has no communion or fellowship with darkness. In the Bible, light is frequently used as a symbol or expression with reference to knowledge. This statement then has reference to the necessity of understanding all things and all knowledge in relationship to the Creator and his word, his covenant word to us. Christian marriage is built upon two people that understand that God and his revealed word are the basis for all knowledge and this is the prophetic calling of the believer.

Third, the passage in 2 Corinthians tells us that Christ hath no concord with Belial. This refers to the lord of our lives or who we attribute dominion or lordship to. Christian marriage, the marriage of Tony and Pam, is built upon two lives that are both committed to the lordship of Jesus Christ and the exercise of Christian dominion under him. And this is the kingly calling of the believer.

Christian marriage is then a commitment or covenant with another person. But it’s also a covenant before almighty God that the marriage will be based upon the work of the high priest, the great prophet and the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is an acknowledgment that this new family thus established by God will serve him in righteousness, holiness, knowledge, and dominion.

Now, we mentioned last week and going through Joshua 24 that one way to understand covenant is by using five words from that passage and they’re applicable to the covenant that Tony and Pam enter into this day. You remember if you were here last week those five words and children this is real easy. Got five fingers on your hand. The five words from Joshua 24 that we used to think through the retaking of the covenant that I want you to use to think about the covenant that Tony and Pam enter into this day.

Those five words are: God, history, choose—and I’m going to change that to commit today instead of choose. Choose seems transitory to us. You choose one thing now, another thing tomorrow. Commit is a better word, I think. So: God, history, commit, witness, and inheritance.

And that’s what we’re going to go through here very briefly in terms of the marriage covenant described for us in Genesis 2 and in other places of scripture as well.

First: God. The covenant, the renewal of the covenant in Joshua took place in the context of God. His presence was located there. Visible symbols of the presence of the ark. God’s presence is affirmed in the passage. God speaks. And in Genesis 2, our sermon text, it says, “The Lord God said, it is not good that man be alone.” God’s presence is at work here directly in the making of the first woman and the making of the first marriage covenant.

The transcendence of God is an important aspect of biblical covenants. And we meet today in the special presence of God in holy convocative worship. The Kyrie Eleison again—lift up your hearts—calls us to acknowledge that we come together to worship God. We come into his throne room. And so we meet now in the presence of God and the presence of his word as it defines these relationships we enter into in celebration of the covenant renewal we have with the Lord Jesus Christ and pictured to us today in the covenant making of the marriage of Tony and Pam.

We come together then today in the presence of God. And it is God’s presence that initiates and develops the covenants that we enter into. Now that’s very important. One aspect of that means that since God ordains marriage for his purposes, it is separate from him. It is subordinate to him. Marriage in the family can never be seen as the ultimate institution in society. It is only defined by God’s word and is subservient to God’s purposes. It is created for his purposes and that purpose is to glorify him through covenants that exercise Christian dominion in all things.

So we meet in the presence of God today in his special convocative presence and we see the importance of God’s presence in the context of the covenants that are entered into and certainly in the context of the marriage covenant. So the first word is God.

The second word is history. Joshua 24—Joshua recited the history of God’s deliverance of the people of Israel. In Genesis 2:22, it says in verses 19-22 rather, God recites a little history for us here. Out of the ground God forms different animals and he brings them to Adam his creation. And Adam is brought to a realization that there’s no help meet—you know, helpmate. It comes from being a helper who is meet, or fit, for Adam. There’s none of these other created beasts, fowls of the air and of the earth that are helpers for Adam that are suited, meet, fit for his purposes. So he brings Adam through a historical lesson of his need for a wife, his need for a woman. And God then emphasizes history as he brings Adam and Eve together into the first marriage covenant.

And so history is an important part. History establishes hierarchy. The passage tells us that man was formed first and woman was formed second. And this becomes very important. Paul in 1 Timothy 2 uses that as the reason why women are not allowed to preach or to teach. It’s not because they’re less qualified or less able. Rather, it’s simply the order of creation. The order then, the hierarchy, the functional hierarchy that God establishes. It was man who was first created, Paul tells Timothy, not Eve.

So this order, this historical lesson as we go into the marriage covenant establishes a hierarchy within the concept of the marriage family. Now, this shouldn’t offend women. After all, the Son came to do the Father’s will. The Son is eternal with the Father and does not follow him by way of creation. He is one with the Father at all times as is the Spirit. Yet, the Son is functionally subordinate to the Father.

He’s not subordinate in terms of his essence or his being. The Son is no less God. He is fully God and fully man. And the Father is fully God. And yet, the Son comes to do the will of the Father. That doesn’t offend the Son. It is what he set the task for himself to do. And God has set the task of women to act in terms of the family as a functionally inferior, although certainly not in essence, but rather in the historical lesson that God teaches us.

There is an order, a hierarchy to the family as well as every other institution. Now, there is a history to Tony and Pam as they come to us. These are two young people who have committed their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. God has established them in the eternal covenant of grace. And it’s on the basis of that covenant work that he’s accomplished for their lives through the Lord Jesus Christ that then leads them to this step today of obedience to the Lord’s teaching, the King’s teaching relative to marriage and relationships and they want to covenant together in Christian marriage.

So they have a history that they bring to this establishment of their marriage covenant as well. God has brought them together. God’s providence has caused these two young people to come together into relationship and they want that relationship defined by a covenant and the King’s law.

God, history, commit—or choose. We said last week. Today I’m saying commit—a stronger word. Adam says after God takes woman and makes her out of Adam, he says, “This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and he shall cleave unto his wife and these shall be one flesh.”

And here the covenant is actually entered into on the part of Adam. He uses covenantal terminology here. To leave his family is the same word as to forsake the faith. There is a covenantal breaking with the old family as he creates the new family that God called him into—to cleave to his wife. That’s described here in verse 24 is the same word that’s used in Joshua as people are to cleave to the Lord God and to be in covenant relationship with him and to be covenantally faithful to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost who has redeemed them from sin.

And so there is a call for a commitment here. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. This is covenantal language being talked about here. This is not a physical relationship that’s described in this verse. Rather, it’s the unity of the marriage couple in all aspects of their lives. And so they come together as one flesh covenantally in the sight of God. And there that requires commitment on the part of Adam in this text and on the part of Tony and Pam one to the other in our marriage covenant that we celebrate this day.

Psalm 45 is instructive to us. We just recited that responsively. That’s Psalm 45 that teaches us that marriage really teaches us a lot. If we had time to go through it, we would, but we don’t have a lot of time. But if you look at Psalm 45, there’s a real picture there of a marriage going on. It talks about a king and a queen. Very instructive for us for the Christian family. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes.

But Psalm 45 gives us a picture of the bride leaving the headship of her father and coming instead into the headship of her new husband. Verse 10 of Psalm 45 says, “Hearken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people in thy father’s house. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is the Lord, and worship thou him.”

You know, there are old marriage vows that call for the wife to worship the husband—not idolatrously, of course. The word worship simply means to ascribe worth or value to, and it’s important thing for husbands and wives to treat each other with the value and respect that God calls them to do.

Psalm 45 is a picture that you’ll see here in a few minutes of Pam’s father giving away the bride and taking her hand and transferring the hand to Tony. That’s a picture of the covenantal transfer of Pam from the father’s household and his covenantal authority to the new household created and that’s by way of covenant and that’s what that marriage service is all about.

In Psalm 45 it talks about the beautiful clothing that the bride wears, the queen wears, and Pam becomes a queen in a fuller sense as she enters into the covenant of marriage and Tony becomes a king in a fuller sense as he’s married to the bride that God has created for him. And so all these things are pictured together in this commitment.

There’s a commitment that’s called for. This commitment implies then law. Marriage is to be regulated by God’s law. Tony and Pam come to commit themselves today in covenant relationship according to law. And as I said in 1 Corinthians 13, they’re of course commanded to love one another. And that is a command to them.

Ephesians 5 tells the wives to submit to their husbands. And it tells the husbands to love their wives as they love their own flesh. And then he goes on to say that no man hates his own flesh. He does two things for it. He protects his flesh. He wears clothing. He protects himself. He doesn’t let people hit on him and he nourishes his flesh. He feeds himself. And so the husband is to do that for his wife as well.

And it’s interesting that in the divorce regulations of the Old Testament that if a man fails to provide clothing or food, guarding or nourishing for his wife physically, then the wife can legitimately sue for divorce in the scriptures. And that’s a picture of course of what he’s really supposed to be doing spiritually and covenantally for the wife as well. He’s to protect the wife from all sinful influences, to protect her from her own sin if need be and the sins of others, and he is to nourish her. He’s to bring her to maturity as a saint and as a mature Christian believer. And so God’s law is implied in this commitment that they enter into today to one another.

The wife is to submit to her husband and in so doing to encourage him in the faith and to build him up as a mighty warrior for the Lord Jesus Christ. And she has that calling and it works together beautifully. And then we have a king and a queen establishing a dominion household.

Tony and Pam come together today to commit themselves in light of God’s love and law of marriage. They acknowledge that law. They acknowledge that law has relevance for their marriage. They want their marriage to come under the visible law to establish Christ—or rather to obey Jesus Christ’s crown rights in the words of the old covenanters—over the marriage itself and over their family. The crown rights of the King Jesus over their household.

And so Tony and Pam today commit themselves to one another, but not just with each other—to the Lord Jesus Christ to honor him in their household.

God, history, commit. And then fourth: witness. And that’s why you’re here. One of the reasons you’re here is to worship. The primary reason is to worship. A part of that worship is witnessing the covenant that these people enter into.

The book of Joshua and the retaking of the covenant—there were witnesses. I was talking to Greg Skipper last week around the dinner table. He was saying the Puritans—they wanted it very difficult for people to leave a church. Why? Because the church family are the people that witness your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. The church covenant is a visible symbol of your commitment to work in relationship to God’s word and all things and people when they sign the church covenant in the context of the church body, the body witnesses that and witnesses hold them accountable to that covenant.

This is such a foreign concept. We have witnesses required in marriage and you know when you have a marriage certificate as we’ll sign today you have to have two witnesses on it. Well, who do you pick a witness from? You pick your friend or whoever happens to be handy. Yeah, I saw that happen, so they sign the thing. No, that’s not what the witness is. What did the stone serve in the book of Joshua? The stone witnessed to the people. It was a picture of blessings and cursings upon them in terms of how they obeyed or disobeyed that covenant law.

And so as you come together to witness the covenant of marriage entered into by these two people, you witness and you are to witness to them reminding them of the blessings and cursings that come to them in terms of how well they fulfill the obligations of that covenant of marriage that they enter into. And the two people particularly who witnessed that document, who put their names on it, they have a heightened responsibility as does the minister who brings them together to witness to them of the blessings of obedience and the cursings of disobedience to point those things out to them clearly as they walk along in their marriage life.

And in our transitory society, when couples get married in the context of witnesses they never see again for years, maybe ever, they leave the group of people that they are married in the context of, the idea of witness falls away and the family is left on its own. It cannot stand. Well, in the grace of God, it can, but usually it doesn’t. The secondary means of people to witness, to exhort, to encourage to covenant faithfulness is such an important part of what we do today. It’s an important part of the church covenant and keeping people to faithfulness to it. And it’s an important part of the marriage covenant that we observe this day.

There’s a ring that rings will be exchanged. The rings are a witness as well. The Song of Solomon—the groom, it says, “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm”—asking for a ring or identific mark of the identification of this covenant to be placed upon the person of the bride herself. And these two young people when they leave will have rings on their hands as witnesses to them, external witnesses like the stone was to the people in Joshua’s time. External witnesses to remind them of the responsibilities of that commitment they’ve entered into and the blessings and cursings of God that come to them in relationship to how well they fulfill that commitment.

So understand your place in all this today. Part of your worship to God is giving your amen to this marriage and being a witness of this marriage to taking that responsibility seriously as you then exhort this couple to faithfulness of their marriage vows in the years to come.

We’re going to witness baptism today too and very significantly also there the church that sponsors or witnesses the baptism of a child is responsible to encourage and exhort that child in faithfulness and that cannot happen yet people drift here and there round and about and become isolated. That’s the mark of our culture—isolation. And as a result it’s a culture that tends to not mature in its faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ in its various relationships.

Of course, God is the preeminent witness here and he will bring blessings and cursings into the lives on the basis of this covenant commitment and their responsibilities fulfilled in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then finally: inheritance. In Genesis as God witnesses, he brings the couple together in his transcendence. He establishes a hierarchy. He brings them together historically. He causes them to come into commitment to each other and he witnesses to them the blessings and cursings to flow to them on the basis of their covenant commitment. This is all to a purpose.

It’s not good that man is to be alone. Why? Just because he feels bad? No. Because he’s here for a purpose—to be fruitful and to multiply and to replenish the earth as the scriptures tell us.

In Malachi, as we said earlier, the wife is a companion but she’s also the wife of your covenant. It goes on to say, “And why did he—that is God—make one? Why did he make two people into one person covenantally? Yet is he the residue of the Spirit, and wherefore one—that he might seek a godly seed.”

The purpose of Christian marriage, one of them, is a godly seed—physical lineage that is godly—and that is to raise children for the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham was called into covenant because God knew him, that he would indeed command his children after him to serve the Lord God. And so inheritance as this covenant proceeds into the future. Tony and Pam commit themselves to bring their children in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ as well.

And that’s why we have baptism immediately in the context of this wedding service today to show their obedience to that portion of the King’s law, the consecration of their son as well for the purposes of the King and bringing him into the visible kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But you know, not all people can have children and not all couples have children. Does that make them pointless in the providence of God? Absolutely not. The children are not the end result. The end result is that man might exercise dominion over the creation that God has given him, as the highest element of that creation made in the image of God, to rule over the earth and to bring it—as he brings his wife—from glory to glory, maturity to maturity. As Adam was to take the garden and make it more beautiful, all men are called to make this earth a beautiful place and we come together in a beautiful setting today and this is a model for us.

We’re to take the beauty and order found in the throne room of God pictured for us here in this physical setting in which we stand to worship God. We’re to take that beauty, that order, that submission to the Lord Jesus Christ out the doors with us as we go into our callings, at work, in our families, and our political action. And we’re to beautify all things and in doing that, we worship God.

So dominion is the end result of all this. Proverbs 31 says, “Who can find a virtuous woman?” And you know, we read that text and we don’t know what it means because of the translation problems, etc., because of our failure to understand the Old Testament. That term virtue—it is the term that’s used of the mighty men of the old covenant. A hundred times it’s used to refer to armies. Women are to be dominion women and men are to be dominion men. The whole picture of Psalm 45 is the marriage of a king and a queen. Ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ and his church. But every marriage is to bring together a king and a queen to rule for God.

And so Psalm 45 gives us that picture. The signate ring in the Song of Solomon gives us that picture as well. We talked about that ring earlier. That ring that signifies and witnesses to covenant identification between the couple. The bride in the Song of Solomon in chapter 8 that we referred to earlier, she puts upon herself the covenant sign of the groom.

This is very important. The signate seal in the Old Testament and described in the verse from the Song of Solomon signifies real authority as well as covenant identification. Authority. The seal was in biblical times a sign of the authority of the owner of the seal. When wicked Queen Jezebel wanted to do something, she used Ahab’s signate ring or seal to carry out her plot against a righteous man. Even today, corporate seals are used to indicate the authority of the corporation in legal documents.

The wife is pictured as having a seal or signate upon her, and so as having real authority, though delegated from the husband. She is to be, as I said in Proverbs 31, a virtuous woman, a strong dominion woman as a mighty man in battle. So she is in her correct position in terms of the household and the exercise of dominion through what God gives her to be there. The woman is to be a mighty woman of valor exercising authority in her home and in her role outside of that home in business affairs as well if that’s what God calls her into.

It is a derived authority. It is the husband’s signate seal that’s placed upon his wife. It is Tony’s ring that’s placed upon Pam. And as the bride of Christ exercises authority in the Lord Jesus Christ’s name, so the godly wife exercises authority in the name of her husband with his seal also taking upon herself his name. And that’s why that happens. Her authority is under her husband’s authority. So she must be submissive to him as her covenantal head acknowledging the derivative nature of her authority.

Properly understood, then, this understanding of the marriage covenant, inheritance, the establishment of a dominion family, the role of the wife to bear the authority of the husband, a delegated authority—this concept is an antidote for two poisons in our land.

The first poison is that women are somehow inherently useless except for certain narrowly defined tasks. That is not the mighty woman of valor that the scriptures speak of.

The second deadly poison, however, is that the woman is functionally equal with her husband and is not to submit to his authority. That is not in keeping with the derivative nature of her authority under the husband.

These two sins—the wife as doormat or the wife as the head or part of a two-headed beast—are corrected with a proper understanding of Christian marriage.

It’s interesting the ancient Armenian wedding ceremonies pictured what I am talking of here. During these ceremonies, the bridegroom was married as a king, a cross in his crown, a dagger in his belt to defend his realm of dominion. And the Gospel was clasped to his breast as the principle of dominion under the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The bride also was mantled and also wore a crown indicating her authority as queen under her king again with a cross on it acknowledging that both authorities are derived ultimately from the King of Kings who died that sinful men might be brought to repentance, salvation, and dominion.

Both groom and bride were seen as dominion man and wife. The purpose of their union being the advancement of kingdom work. And all this is pictured in the wedding ceremony as the king and queen come out decked in their finest array—probably the finest array of their life—decked up as kings and queens, signifying the real kingly and queenly calling that God calls Christian husband and wife to.

So the passage tells us a lot about the importance of what is happening today. Pam and Tony are about to become joined together in the biblical covenant of marriage. They’re joined or yoked in light, not in darkness. Both acknowledge and confess Jesus Christ as the true prophet and true source of all knowledge and wisdom. They’re yoked in righteousness, being obedient stewards under Jesus Christ, seeing the implications of the crown rights of the King, his law, to their relationship.

Jesus Christ is the high priest who consecrates all things to God’s use. And so they consecrate their household to God’s use. They’re covenanted together in Christ, the King of Kings, not in Belial, the ruler of darkness, and his wicked sons. They acknowledge that their rule is a real rule, although delegated to them under the King, the Lord Jesus Christ.

They understand that marriage is a covenant and that covenant is bound and controlled by the laws of God and calls them to a consecration of all their lives to serve him, to a reordering of all their thoughts to the subjection of Jesus Christ and to proclaim and joyfully accept the dominion of the King of Kings over all affairs in their household.

And they claim and cling to the promise of the power of the Holy Spirit who makes these vows effectual. They cannot perform these vows in and of themselves, but only through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Second Corinthians, that I mentioned before, goes on to say, “I will dwell in them.” This is God’s promise to such that are yoked together in Christian marriage. “I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” It’s the empowerment of the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is in that power that these vows made today shall be carried out.

And as they’re carried out and as the people who are here gathered exhort and fulfill their responsibility as witnesses to them of the crown rights of King Jesus over all of their lives, their home becomes then a dominion sphere, a place of blessing, peace, order, and a base by which they carry the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ into every area of life and thought. That’s what your families are called to be.

And as you witness the covenant taking of terms of marriage and the covenant sign of baptism, all in the context of our covenant renewal, the covenant of grace this day with our Lord Jesus Christ, reconsecrate yourselves. As you come forward in offering today, consider your marriage relationship. Do you fulfill what’s pictured here before you and was pictured in your marriage covenant? How well are you doing that? Repent of your sins relative to that regard and then come forward in consecration to God to once again make your home a place of blessing based upon the covenant relationship of marriage which itself pictures the greater covenant of grace the church has been brought into in its marriage with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if we do these things, we shall surely be blessed by God. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for covenants. We thank you, Lord God, that you’ve come, that you’ve had us understand in relationship to your scriptures that we are created in your image, and so we enter into covenants with one another. We pray, Lord God, that this marriage service would indeed resound to your glory. That we would worship you this day correctly by observing covenant taking and then applying it to ourselves, our own households, our own covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank you, Father, for this day. We pray that it would be one filled with joy and wonder as we bask in the glory of the Son Jesus Christ and what he has accomplished for us through his death on the cross. We thank you, Father, for the covenant of marriage. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.