A wedding sermon preached on July 10, 2025.

Someone once said, “Mawwaige is what brings us together.” But what has brought you both to marry today? Love.

No matter who you are, love is a big deal. The Beatles say it’s all you need. Elvis keeps falling into it. Our culture loves love, but it doesn’t seem very good at it, especially in marriage. Fewer people are getting married and many who do end up divorcing. Some think love is overrated because of this, but I don’t think love needs a better PR team—it needs a better definition.

How can a world that loves love be so bad at it, especially in the most important human relationship we have? The answer: the world values the appearance of love, but not its substance. The world’s definition of love we often see in movies and hear about in songs is counterfeit—cheap and short-lived. It is a Temu love.

What Is Love?

So I’d like to ask, along with the great theologian Haddaway, “What is love?”

Seth and Ellie, I’ve good news for you, God answers Haddaway’s question. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the Scripture Ethan read for us, God offers five truths about what true love actually is. This is the love that will make your marriage not just survive but thrive.

1. Love’s Character (1 Corinthians 13:4a)

First, Paul teaches us two essential characteristics of love, “Love is patient and kind.” First, love is patient. It willingly endures the hard things from our spouse for their good. Like I tell my girls, patience is waiting with a smile. Second, love is kind. It isn’t only willing to patiently stomach our spouse’s hard things, love eagerly desires to give our spouse good things. In patience, love is resilient. In kindness, it’s generous. Love is not only prepared to take our spouse’s hard things, but excited to give them our good things.

Love’s patience and kindness are like the two wings of the plane; you need both. Love without patience is temporary. Love without kindness is miserable. Together, these characteristics make love a fountain that kindly gives and patiently lasts.

So, what is love? Patiently working for the good of another.

2. Love’s Focus (1 Corinthians 13:4b-5)

Second, Paul explains love’s focus. “Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” What do all these have in common? Self-focus.

We envy because we want what others have. We boast because we want others to notice what we have. We’re arrogant and rude when we insist on our way without regard for how our words, tone, or actions affect others. We get cranky when the world doesn’t revolve around us. Self-love puts a microscope on the faults that make our life harder—nothing escapes our notice, and everything gets on our nerves.

But true love flips the focus. It looks outward. It puts the good of the other first and puts the burden to change upon ourselves. When we love this way, we trade our microscope for a mirror. Instead of zeroing in on how our spouse is failing us, we begin asking how we might be failing them. When we stop focusing on King-Me, we toss the list of ways they’ve failed us and start writing a list of ways we need to grow for them.

When that happens, arrogance gives way to humility, crankiness gives way to patience, and resentment gives way to grace. And that’s when real love begins to take root.

3. Love’s Values (1 Corinthians 4:6)

Third, we see what love values. What exactly does love love? “Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” Your marriage will always offer you two paths: what is easy or what is good. What you value most determines the path you take.

True love always chooses the second path; the good over the easy. When you are corrected by your spouse, the easy road is to become defensive or combative, but the hard road of love accepts correction and learns from it because it seeks to grow. It’s easy to fight for our preferred way, but love travels the hard road of giving up our preferences when it contributes to marital unity. In the daily grind, love doesn’t seek the good I want today, but the good we need tomorrow. True love shares God’s standards, forsakes the easy road and takes the hard road toward what is true, good, and beautiful.

4. Love’s Power (1 Corinthians 13:7)

Fourth, Paul explains love’s power. True love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” This power is essential because marriage is hard.

Your marriage will face challenges from outside and inside your relationship. Love will teach you to bear them. At times, Seth, Ellie may say or do things that confuse you, but love will train you to “believe all things” – to give her the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping to conclusions. Ellie, if your optimistic view of Seth is shattered by reality, love will make you hope and work for his best. The love Paul speaks of here doesn’t give up when things get hard. It endures.

For how long? Notice Paul doesn’t say, “Love bears some things” or “Love endures most things.” No, true love works in all times, difficulties, and circumstances. “It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

5. Love’s Permanency (1 Corinthians 13:8a)

Fifth, Paul tells us of true love’s permanency. “Love never ends.” The world speaks about falling in or out of love like it’s a pothole, but any love you can fall out of was never really love.

It’s important to remember you cannot force your spouse to love you, but you can choose to love your spouse. True love has no expiration date. It doesn’t quit. Because it is not a fleeting feeling, but a permanent choice, love never ends.

Though the love we sing about or see in movies may thrill us, it won’t sustain us. The world’s version of love is temporary, self-focused, superficial, and cheap. But the love described here is permanent, others-focused, meaningful, and priceless.

Three Lessons for Seth and Ellie

These truths will only help you if you remember them. If you are considering tattoo ideas, consider these three lessons because your marriage and joy depend on remembering them.

1. This is the love you promise today

The world thinks love is a feeling, but God says it’s an action. Feelings come and go, but actions are a daily choice.

Think of your marriage as a private garden that only the two of you can tend. It’s a place meant to be enjoyed—full of shade, fruit, and beauty. But like any garden, it only thrives with regular work: watering, planting, pruning, and pulling weeds. If you neglect the work, you won’t enjoy the garden.

Marriage is the same. You won’t enjoy it unless both of you are personally committed to the daily work of love—especially when you don’t feel like it. You work toward enjoyment, not from it.

As Gary Thomas puts it, “Couples don’t fall out of love; they fall out of repentance.” When we stop humbling ourselves, stop saying sorry, stop forgiving, and stop growing, love withers. But when repentance is regular, love stays alive—and the garden flourishes.

Seth and Ellie, when you vow, “to love and cherish,” you’re not promising to feel something, but to do many things. Seth, you’re promising that if Ellie is ever making you late, you will be patient. Ellie, when Seth leaves dishes in the sink, you’re promising to address it with kindness. When Ellie turns down every restaurant idea you propose, you’re promising not to be irritable. When apologies happen, you’re promising to forgive and forget. When the baby isn’t sleeping, you’re promising to endure.

The love you’re promising today doesn’t always feel good, but it always does good and not just in some things, but all things.

2. This is the love you need tomorrow

You’ll fall short and you will need the church’s help—godly marriages to watch, sound Bible teaching to learn from, faithful pastors to watch over you, and Christ-centered friendships to cheer and challenge you toward Christ when your love wobbles.

I just saw the movie F1 so forgive me if this is corny, but see the church as a pit crew that works with you, at your side, to keep the engine of your love running smoothly so you finish the race. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a church to nurture a marriage.

3. This is the love you have always

Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” If God loved you when you ran from him, how much more will love you when you run to him? His is the love that will sustain your love.

Your love for one another and even the church’s love for you won’t be enough. You have a God sized hole in each of your hearts that your spouse, church, work, or family cannot fill. Only with Christ firmly enthroned in your heart will this kind of love overflow in your marriage and your life.

Seth, if you want to love Ellie best, love Christ the most. Ellie, if you want to bless Seth, savor the blessing of Christ above all. Just like plants need water and cars need gas, your marriage needs the love of Christ daily. If your hearts aren’t full of his love, you’ll have none to give one other.

The good news is, his love never runs out. Remember the words of Jesus:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29

Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, is the love we read about in 1 Corinthians 13  personified. What if we’re slow learners? His love is patient and kind. What if we’re difficult? He is not arrogant, rude, cranky, or resentful. He doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing so he won’t lead you into it. He rejoices in the truth so he’ll always guide you by it. His love has born your sins, it works for your good, and will endure to the end.

The love you give each another depends entirely on the love you receive from Him. Seek daily to be happy in Jesus like your marriage, family, and life depend on it, because they do. He alone can and will help you love one another with the true love described here, until death do you part.