My principle endeavor this afternoon is to speak to two people who are very dear to me, who are going to make one of the greatest decisions of their lives today. Sometimes in preaching the gospel we want to say who is competent for these things. As I'm standing here today I ask myself the same thing, who is competent to speak to you about the greatest of all endeavors, for a man to take a wife. I have found that through my life, it is quite easy to be a missionary, it is quite easy to follow the gospel call, and relatively speaking it's quite easy to be spiritual to even the most remote people. what is the most difficult task vie found, is to be the man I've ought to be , with the woman that must mean more to mean than all other things put together, including ministry, and preaching. I remember years ago, a younger person acme to be and said I want to be a missionary in china. I asked him why, he said I love the Chinese, I think about them all the time. And I looked at him and I looked at him at said, "do yo
u know why you love the Chinese?" He said, "Why?" I said, "Because you don't know any Chinese". The point is, that it's so easy to love someone who is so far away, and so difficult to love someone, even the person most dear to you, because they are so close

Sometimes we degenerately need god in the preaching and the ministry, and that is very true. But I have not needed God so much, in the ministry, as I have needed him in marriage. We actually missed our cue, when I was supposed to come out. they had to send someone over to say "brother Paul its time to walk to the front", simply because I was spending the last few moments not just in trying to pour more truth into this young man's mind, because it is only the power, sovereignty, grace and truth of God to enable you to be what you ought to become toward this woman, and until you become what you ought to become toward this woman, there is no need to talk about anything else. Great preachers, missionaries who do astounding feats, but a man who can truly love a daughter of god, have attained a very high status in the kingdom. As I look through biographies of men and people applaud and seek to be like, I am astounded at how many of them, or even most of them drop the ball, with regard to their wives. And I believe
 that a man who has done such a thing, a biography should've never been written of him. Because the only thing that really matters is that you become a man of god around the person who knows you most. And the person n your life that is most special to god

I found out just after a few weeks of marriage, that I was not as spiritual as I thought I was as a single man, that I was not as selfless, I was not as kind, I was not many of the things  believed myself to be, because it was marriage that truly tested the caliber of my character. And if found myself wanting, and needed grace like never before in my life and until this day, I need more grace, then I needed then.

The reason why I have been talking too much to you (the groom), is because Ten years down the road, the quality of your marriage will have been determined by you, not your wife. And when god goes to observe this marriage, and if god is ever going to call anyone to the carpet in regard to this thing (marriage), it will be you. She will become what you make her to be. Now, Paul says that God causes all things to work together. To me, it's amazing that when we talk about the sovereignty of god, we only talk about it in terms of salvation, election, and such. But the most important thing about the sovereignty of god is that every aspect of my life is under his sovereignty control. I know that to his specially beloved people, they can all say that there's not a maverick molecule in the universe and that you're here today, both of you, at the ordination of god, at his calLg, at his election. The basis of marriage is a medicine much deeper. It's more than a column of mere feeLgs. I've been called of god to preach t
he gospel. We all have such a theology that if I were to turn from that calLg to do anything, it would pronounce judgment on my head because the calLgs of god are irrevocable. What has made my marriage last, it is not because my wife is beautiful, or because there is some beauty or sentiment between us.  It is this: I have been called of god, his sovereignty election, to lay down my life for his daughter, a specific daughter. That is his sovereignty calLg.

There's been time when young men come to me and say I desire to marry this girl and I ask why, and he says "well I love to be with her, and she's beautiful and when I'm with her we feel so good and it just meets so many needs in my life, and when she's around my life is so much more endearing." And I will always asking this question "Well what you're telLg me is that you want to marry this girl because she meets all your selfish self-centered needs of my desires?" The young man will always respond "NO that's not what I mean" But I'll always reply, "Well that's what you said". You want to be with her because she's beautiful. What is going to happen when she's no longer beautiful? What happens if someone more beautiful comes across your path, or we can really talk and that's why we want to be together" What happens if you can't really talk?  "We feel so good together", what happens if those feeLgs, for a season, are gone? You see your marriages must be based upon this one thing; God has called me to lay down 
my life for this woman. You get married because you're in this for god, not for yourself.

The world will tell us that marriage is 50 50 relationship, then years ago Christians came along and said it's not 50 50 it's a 100 100 relationship, I disagree with both. I believe marriage is a 100 0 relationship. You give 100% of everything you have to this woman even if she returns nothing of the sort back to you. Because you've been called by god to lay down your life for her. There is another sense, Sister, that you've been called to do the same. You can also make this man, into something, that at this moment he is not. You can make him hard, and bitter, tried and tired, or you can make him something that we would all want him to be. But the tools of your trade are not a hammer, and most certainly not a tongue. They are reflecting the beauty of Christ, the humble submissiveness of Christ, of knowing this: that if you fight for you, god will not fight for you. If you would give yourself as a handmaiden to god, and respond as god would have you respond, then god will fight for you, and change this man. N
ow, some things those are very important here. Most people will say, what is the purpose of marriage? Well, the world would say, "she meets my needs" we know hats wrong. well then again Christians will come along and say she meets mine needs and I meet hers and we meet each others, and although there's some truth in that, that's not the true foundation, or even the principle column of marriage. Some will say "We reflect the beauty of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his church" that's true but you're going to fail at that. The real purpose of marriage is the same purpose shared by every other thing that occurs on this planet, that you both be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. If you want a perfect marriage, then you want what god doesn't want. All these things happen because god doesn't want a perfect little wedding. He wants to try you, and test you, so you can be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

Now when we speak about the image of Jesus Christ and being conformed, do we speak about his justice? No. Do we speak about his wrath? When we sing the great hymns of Zion, what principally are the characteristics of God that come forth? They are mercy, grace, and unconditional love. Anyone sound in scripture, they hear it, the 3 things that are most pronounced him are, mercy, grace, and unconditional love. Those are the things you sing about, but they are the things you are most likely not to reflect in your life. Because he is unconditional, we are conditional. That that is the one thing god will seek to destroy in both of you, conditions. He has sovereignty given you a woman, to be strong in all the things she must be strong, so you are not tempted what you can bear. But God has also given you a woman, and he himself orchestrated her weaknesses, and there will be weaknesses in her life that will most rub you the wrong way. And he has given you a man of weaknesses, ordained, in his mysterious sovereignty, 
to be weak in areas where you most want him to be strong. God gave to you each weaknesses, not to give you bliss on earth but to make your love unconditional that you will care for her when she does not meet the conditions, and you will love him and care for him, when he does not meet the conditions, and the reason for that is this: you're not in it for the individual, for each other, but for the glory of god, and becoming everything that he would want you to be.