Yes, I will be sharing about my reflection from this trip. Before I do, I will read from Matthew 11:28.
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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.30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, thank you for Jesus. He really is our best friend. His lowly heart, his gentleness makes it so easy for us to fellowship with him, no matter where we are, no matter what we’re going through. Jesus, you’re there and you’re the kind of friend we need always. Thank you, Lord.
We want to imitate your humility, your gentleness. I pray that we can all learn from you together. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
Yeah, the rehearsal dinner leading up to the wedding.
So we flew out Wednesday evening, got there late Wednesday, had a rehearsal dinner on Thursday. The wedding was on Friday, and the weather forecast was for thunderstorms all throughout the week.
So just seeing that report, I at least began praying. And once I got there, I realized that there’s a lot of prayer warriors and people with the spirit of Elijah, who was a man of God, who prayed against the rain. So we were battling and pleading for the Lord because it was an outdoor wedding.
I really wish all of us could have been there.
I really wish it did feel like a retreat to me. It’s the most spiritually uplifting rehearsal dinner wedding I’ve ever been a part of. And I’ve been reflecting on why. Like 1 Kings 19, there is Elijah’s reflection when he’s feeling alone and God says, don’t worry, I will show you that there’s at least 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:18, ESV)
And so, living in California, we might feel like, where are the Christians? Am I the only one at my workplace? Am I the only one in my neighborhood?
It feels that way, that we’re so outnumbered by going to Richmond, Virginia, with groomsmen and bridesmaids from Virginia, from Georgia, from all over that little section of the country.
I was really touched by people who love Jesus and who display the kindness of the Lord and the gentleness and the humility. The rehearsal dinner, starting with that one, it felt like a retreat, honestly. And it felt like the ceremony began there.
I was expecting some jokes and some light-hearted stories, some roasting of the groomsmen in particular. The groom in particular, David.
I was expecting that. But what I got instead was all this heartfelt sharing. Like it’s, it was like church service. And it was not what I expected at all.
That continued on to the wedding itself. And the wedding forecast was 50% chance of rain from five to 7:00 p.m. And the ceremony was exactly starting at five. And so we saw the rain clouds roll in. The rain had not come all week, so we were hopeful that it would not come down.
But about 04:00, an hour before the outdoor ceremony, the rain started coming down, and we all started ramping up our prayers. I was just outside for that solid hour, just praying against the rain. And literally five minutes before the ceremony, the rain stopped.
I thank the Lord for everybody among us and those who are present who were praying to the Lord who can calm storms. We literally experienced a miracle there. Five minutes before the rain stopped, we had to delay the wedding a little bit, wash, and dry up the chairs. It really was amazing.
And the sun came out for a brief moment. It was like 91 and 80% humidity earlier in the week. But because of the clouds, because of that rain, it had dropped to a very comfortable 70.
The sun came out a little bit even during the ceremony itself and the pictures. Literally, as the pictures were done and we moved into the reception, the rain started coming again. I mean, we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Perfect timing. We experienced an incredible miracle just in that itself.
Jackie shared that Jane’s father, the father of the bride, shared a bunch of passages and different things. One of the passages I was kind of sitting on was from Ecclesiastes 4:12, about a three-stranded cord that is not easily broken.
12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand hima threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12, ESV)
The reason why I was meditating on that passage is because when David and Jane asked me to officiate the wedding back late last year, I, of course, wanted to say yes because it’s an honor and a privilege to officiate for your brother-in-law and to be part of this momentous occasion.
And I just want to remind all the singles out there that aside from salvation, who you marry is by far, by far the most important decision of your life. So we should be praying for whoever God brings into our lives.
The reason why I was sitting on that Ecclesiastes 4:12 about the three-stranded cord was as I was sitting on whether to officiate the wedding. I was asking the Lord, give me a clear theme that you want me to cover if you want me to officiate this wedding.
And so I was just praying on it for a number of weeks. And then finally the proposal day came in November, and Jane, the bride, texted us in all caps, I am marrying my best friend. And that’s when I knew, okay, she really understands what the meaning of marriage is. You are marrying your best friend.
And so I felt confirmed about the message. And it’s interesting that God, and I’ll just summarize real quick what I covered at the wedding ceremony, and then I’ll end with some reflections.
It’s interesting that the image of God is described in Genesis 1 as man and woman together. Display the image of God. God could have started with a parent and a child, two best friends of the same gender, two sisters, two brothers, siblings, friends. It could have started in all kinds of ways. But God says the image of God is most fully captured when you have a man and a woman. And that’s the Genesis 1 description about creation, especially the creation of man and woman.
And then the next chapter, we read kind of the slowed-down version of creation. It begins with Adam and Adam. This is before sin entered the world. He is perfect in his humanity, in his person. He was perfect in his relationship with God. There was no sin that had entered. There was nothing blocking his relationship with God, and he actually fellowshiped with God.
As God came into the garden and they saw each other, they interacted so intimately, and yet we read that Adam was alone.
So that tells me, although Adam was perfect before sin came, he was fully, in some sense, displaying the image of God in himself. Still, there was something fundamental missing, and the fundamental part was his other half, Eve, which came in that chapter, chapter two.
Together, Adam and Eve display the fullness of the image of God in ways that Adam alone couldn’t do. Eve alone couldn’t do, had to be Adam and Eve as a couple, display the image of God.
And I talked to the couple that they had a certain picture of friendship, and God is about to deepen their understanding of friends.
Like, David is very extroverted. He and I are very different. Like, I coming back from this trip with. Interacting with so many people, it was a great time, but I feel so depleted in energy. I feel like I need to go up into a cave for about a month to recover.
David is different. He loves. He’s very extroverted, loves. People, can easily make friends.
And David, he had a certain picture of what it means to have a friend. And I think some people he met just for a few months, but he says, oh, we’re like best friends. And I kind of chuckled. I know. Okay. I know you believe you’re very close to this brother that you met a few months ago.
But you’re about to go onto sacred ground, and God is going to deepen your understanding of friendship. You’re going to meet your other half, your best friend, which came in the form of Jane.
But I said, if it ended there and you met your best friend and you’re married and you live happily ever after, then why is there no marriage in heaven? It’s a very puzzling thing.
If we lift up marriage as two best friends coming together, one side is not quite complete. It’s imperfect. It’s impartial. And then the fullness comes when your best friend arrives. Why is it that there is no marriage in heaven?
Because this marriage, as we read in Ephesians 5, is a picture of a deeper mystery that we have discovered in Christ, that Jesus is really our best friend. And marriage in a good godly marriage on earth is probably the best, closest approximation of what Jesus wants with all of his followers.
Like, if you have a strong relationship with your spouse, they know everything about you. Your secrets, your hopes, your dreams, your worries, your fears, your failures. They know everything. In a good godly marriage, they really are your best friend.
Everybody else can move away, like your guy best friend. If your guy can move away for a job, there’s a family emergency. Your best girlfriend for a sister moves away, but this one is with you until death do you part.
It is special, and it is the closest approximation on this side of eternity of what kind of friendship Jesus is looking for from the bride of Christ. And so, while I said, yes, you’ve met your best friend, truly, this is a picture of a deeper BFF, Jesus Christ, and he wants to be your best friend.
So I was reflecting on why Jesus is our best friend, and also my reflection on the people there going to this rehearsal dinner and wedding. I got to interact with many different solid Christians.
I mean, it’s not common that you meet people like this, but when you see Jane, you say, okay, it makes sense. She didn’t just come out of nowhere. She had parents who poured into her. She had aunts who poured into her. She had godly friends that God brought alongside of her in her high school and went with her in college.
And so she is a byproduct of all of that. And so it makes sense. Sense that once you meet the family, it is this kind of encounter.
But I thought about Matthew 5:3.
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3, ESV)
And also verse five.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5, ESV)
You know, some people have an air of self-importance.
And when they gather at these kinds of events, it is tiring to be with people who view themselves as some kind of a VIP in the world or a VIP in the church. It is tiring to interact with people with that kind of an error.
But the people that I met in Richmond, Virginia, did not have that. They had a poverty of their spirit. And I think that’s a reflection of Jesus Christ. Like, he is fully God. He is filled with the spirit of God, fell upon him and rested upon him like a dove.
And yet he says throughout the gospels that I don’t say anything unless I first hear from the father. I don’t do anything on my own accord. I wait until I see what the father does.
That is a poverty of the spirit, just a humility that we see in Jesus. And I saw that in the guests at this wedding ceremony, reception, and rehearsal dinner.
When you’re around people who are humble, what comes out is this meekness, which is a mild manneredness, a gentleness which is of Christ.
Jesus also describes himself lowly in heart, humble and gentle.
I don’t know how many times I heard thank you. I don’t know how many times. Like, if you are a VIP, if you feel like you’re entitled, like, these people don’t think much or often, but if you’re around people who are genuinely humble, they’re so thankful for David. They’re so thankful for anyone who poured into David. They think they’re so lucky to have David. Like, we just think, oh, that’s David. But they’re so thankful because they’re so humble.
When you’re around humble people, you hear thank you a lot. When you’re around humble people, you also hear I love you. I love you because they’re so focused on the person they’re giving thanks to. And you hear I love you. You hear I thank you.
And I feel like I experienced some of the beatitudes in this community, the poor in spirit and the meek. I was also reminded of Philippians 2:3.
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4, ESV)
This seeking of selfish ambition is literally seeking a following. Like, it’s a VIP who thinks, I should have a group of fans. I should have a group of people who go wherever I go, and I can parade them around and say, look at how great I am.
This is what it means to have selfish ambition. That can happen in the world where you exalt yourself and you have all this adulation and respect from the world.
It can happen in the church, the same mindset. This VIP, this title, this is what I’ve done for Jesus. I have so much to offer you. I’m so gifted. I know the Bible so well, and it just comes out. It’s so tiring to be in a group of people who act that way.
But it is so life-giving to be in a community where there is just a poverty of spirit, just a humility, a meekness. People who just readily, frequently say, we’re so thankful you’re here. So thank you for what you did for David.
We’re so blessed. We love you. We love David. I don’t know how many times I heard that. It was life-giving. Isn’t this what the community is supposed to be like?
And I had a picture of what I hope every wedding going forward looks like. God has some homework for me and what I need to repent of, how I need to change, to be that kind of community, reflected back on what I witnessed.
And I hope my boys, anybody who gets married here, they get transformed by Jesus and become like Jesus.
And they marry someone who also shares that same heart and is part of a community of people on the other side. That we would be that way and they would be that way and the wedding would be replicated, what I experienced this week. That we would see it time and time again.
And this, that selfish ambition. Do nothing, have nothing to do with this. Also, have nothing to do with conceit. And the definition is just empty pride. It’s just empty. It’s like we have nothing to be proud about, unless you want to boast about sin.
I mean, we have nothing to be proud about. We boast about Jesus and him crucified. That’s it.
In our cell, we have nothing to boast about. Not our talents, not our giftedness, not our whatever in our past. We have nothing to boast about. That is what it means to have nothing to do with this empty pride. It’s like you’re proud and you have no reason to be proud. It’s empty.
That’s what he’s saying here. Just put away these things.
But in humility, as we lower ourselves, we look at every person in the room and we say that brother, that sister is more important than me.
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.(Philippians 2:3, ESV)
Let me interact with them as such. Instead of I am the VIP, I lower myself, I will treat them like VIP.
Imagine if we are like that and we are fellowshipping with people who are like that. It’s life-giving. It really is life-giving.
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.(Philippians 2:4 ESV)
We all have self-interest, of course, but we elevate others, and we look to their interest even more than our interest.
Matthew 20. This is an account of a mother who had ambition for her children. This is the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee. And she made a power move. She went quietly to Jesus, said to Jesus, can you make sure when you go into the kingdom that James and John sit on your right hand and on your left?
It was a power move of a mom who had this kind of ambition for her two sons. And the other ten disciples heard about this, and they were indignant, as they should be, like, what is this?
And Jesus gives them an answer which is born out of his humility and out of his meekness, his gentleness. He says in Matthew 20:25,
25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28, ESV)
The people that you respect in this world, the people that you’ve observed in leadership in churches, do they display what Jesus is describing in this text? Many leaders, or so called leaders, even in God’s church, lord it over people. They exercise authority over people.
They boss people around. It is heavy-headed. It is hypocritical. They don’t lift a finger, but they put burdens on everybody in the church.
But Jesus says, I, as a son of God, came not to be served. Although he had every right to be served, he came to serve. And he invites all of us to be servants, to have this mindset that I am here to serve. How life-giving it would be.
Every Sunday, we’re here to serve one another. I can serve through preaching. Others can serve through food.
Some can serve through helping with the slides and the sound equipment. By the way, we need some more volunteers, please. Jeremiah is graduating. Timothy is not here every week. Matthew is not here every week. We need people with musical talent, people with a little bit of technical aptitude who can help with the sound.
But it’d be weird if I, like, demanded it. And so what kind of Christian are you? You’re not going to volunteer. And I guilted you, and I, like, made you feel bad, and I took you aside and I scolded you.
That would be lording over you. Jesus just wants people with a heart to serve. He came to serve. And now we imitate Christ in his humility. And out of his humility, counting others more significant than himself.
How can I help the body of Christ? How can I serve the body of Christ? Not just come here and receive, but how can I serve? We shouldn’t be so busy serving, so tired, but just that attitude of, I’m here to serve. I’m here to serve. What can I do to lighten some other brother or sister’s burden?
Like, if you see them carrying all the food from their car, oh, you notice it. Oh, they shouldn’t be carrying. Let me literally lighten your load and help you carry. That’s a servant’s heart, and it’s not heavy handed.
It’s like we just imitate Christ. Christ demonstrated this. He is the best example of this. And we say we follow Jesus. He is our example. And so we, as we grow, we want to become more like this.
Out of a community of self-importance and self-centeredness and insecurity comes a lot of comparison, a lot of envy, a lot of grumbling, a lot of condemnation, a sense of unworthiness.
Conversely, out of a community of those who are poor in spirit, humble, meek or gentle, is a lot of thanksgiving, a lot of serving others in love, considering others more important than myself in love.
And that is how the Lord ends. Philippians 2, or he continues. Philippians 2:5.
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11, ESV)
This is what renewal of our mind looks like, is having this mindset. You’re not, like, struggling or striving to be this way, but it just naturally starts coming out because you’ve practiced. You’ve repented of selfish ambition, vain conceit. You’ve repented of self-centeredness and insecurity.
And you’ve practiced an imitation of Christ. This considering of other people more significant. I want to serve them. I want to love them. I want to appreciate them. I want to thank them.
It is the mindset of Christ who came to serve, not to be served. And no wonder that as the son of God, who was the highest man who ever lived, he went to the lowest. No wonder God the Father exalted him above every name. At the name of Jesus, every tongue confesses. Jesus is Lord.
I want to end with a hymn, one of my favorites.
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer. In His arms He’ll take and shield thee. Thou wilt find a solace there.
Okay, let’s pray.
Jesus, you are lowly in heart. You are humble in all of your ways, starting with your thinking and how you related to people, your actions.
We see the gentleness in how you spoke to disciples who are hard-headed, who are slow and had little faith, slow of heart, who failed many times. You are gentle in all of your ways, interacting with them.
We see your humility and gentleness throughout your earthly ministry. How you interacted with a woman caught in adultery. Everybody else wanted to stone her in judgment, condemn her. You stooped down. You brought attention away from her. You showed her such dignity.
Lord Jesus, this is who you are. You came to serve and not to be served.
We also want to be like you, poor in spirit, meek. We repent of all self-importance, all pride, vain conceit, all self-centeredness, all insecurity.
We want to be learned, to be loving more, other-centered, considering others more important, being forgetful about ourselves, not comparing, not analyzing, not judging.
We want to be a safe community, a loving community, a life-giving community. Here at Hill Community Church, with Jesus as the head, forgive us for all the ways we still fall short.
But you’re giving us homework so that when we fellowship with one another, we can become more and more like Christ.
Thank you, Lord, for the blood that was shed and your body that was broken. And you birthed your church by laying down your life for your friends.
Thank you for calling us much more in a tender way, much more than servants. You call us friends. We have a best friend named Jesus. No wonder. Because of your humility and gentleness, we can come to you. No matter how we are, what we’re going through, you’re always safe.
We can always go to you. We can always learn from you. You never turn us back. You’re never irritated with us. You’re never angry with us. Thank you.
What a friend we have in Jesus. You truly are our best friend. Thank you for the gift of marriage as a metaphor for Christ. The kind of friendship, best friendship status you’re looking for from your bride, the church. Thank you, Lord.
We pray that you minister to us and meet us as we close out this service. We open up our hearts wide.
May you meet us, Lord. In Jesus Name, Amen.
