Weddings: Don't Break the Bank
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Yesterday we talked about gifting a body to science,
00:00:07.820 | a natural question from your cremation article.
00:00:10.760 | The most unexpected follow-up question
00:00:12.660 | from your cremation article is on wedding summer
00:00:14.960 | from here in Minnesota.
00:00:16.620 | Writes on to ask this, "Dear Pastor John,
00:00:19.040 | "in your recent article on cremation, you wrote,
00:00:21.900 | "'Pastors should lead the way in cultivating a church ethos
00:00:24.860 | "'where expensive funerals and weddings are not the norm.'"
00:00:28.940 | End quote.
00:00:30.020 | This is something I hadn't given much thought to before
00:00:32.420 | and really appreciated, thank you.
00:00:34.620 | I was hoping you could speak more directly
00:00:36.580 | on the topic of expensive weddings.
00:00:38.580 | How can we design a Christ-exalting, simple wedding?
00:00:43.060 | - I will have a plea to couples in a minute
00:00:47.160 | for courage to be counter-cultural in this regard
00:00:50.460 | 'cause that's what it's gonna take.
00:00:52.500 | But I'm mainly pleading with pastors in that article
00:00:57.620 | to take the initiative to teach and preach
00:01:00.180 | and help in the church to build a culture
00:01:03.700 | of simplicity in the church
00:01:07.340 | that makes the focus of marriage celebrations
00:01:11.100 | the Lord Jesus, the Christ-exalting meaning of marriage,
00:01:15.700 | the awesome importance of the vows,
00:01:18.900 | the preciousness of the people, the lovers,
00:01:22.600 | and not the clothing, the flowers,
00:01:26.960 | the location, the music, the whole production
00:01:31.540 | that can make the actual act of God in marriage
00:01:34.660 | seem like an incidental prelude
00:01:36.380 | to the big fancy party afterwards.
00:01:39.340 | It's sad, I think.
00:01:41.000 | But of course, this is not an attack on joy.
00:01:46.860 | Just the opposite.
00:01:48.180 | It's a plea for drinking from the deepest pools of joy,
00:01:53.660 | not the peripheral puddles of happiness.
00:01:57.060 | I mean, besides, godly poor people,
00:02:01.560 | godly poor people regularly have more joy than rich people.
00:02:06.560 | There's no correlation between expensive and joyful, none,
00:02:12.660 | unless it's this, more expensive means more hassle,
00:02:17.240 | more stress, more distraction, less joyful.
00:02:20.960 | So this is a plea to leaders
00:02:24.560 | to cultivate an expectation of simplicity
00:02:28.280 | so no one with modest means, and that's a lot of people,
00:02:33.280 | feel like a simple wedding
00:02:37.280 | with a mince and nuts reception, no meal, no dance,
00:02:42.280 | just joy, is somehow less honoring to the Lord
00:02:49.180 | than the couple, that's tragic
00:02:51.140 | if we've cultivated a situation like that.
00:02:54.380 | Now here's the underlying worldview.
00:02:57.060 | She was asking why.
00:02:58.900 | A decisive turn happened in redemptive history
00:03:03.580 | when Jesus came into the world.
00:03:05.980 | The Old Testament was by and large a come and see religion,
00:03:10.900 | while the New Testament is largely a go tell religion.
00:03:15.420 | That's why there is a lavish expenditure
00:03:19.260 | in the Old Testament on the temple.
00:03:21.000 | Come see from Egypt and from Ethiopia
00:03:24.300 | and from the ends of the earth,
00:03:25.180 | come see this expensive temple that we've built
00:03:30.180 | and why wealth was seen so regularly
00:03:34.560 | as a sign of God's blessing.
00:03:37.220 | Now that has radically changed
00:03:40.040 | with the coming of the son of man
00:03:41.700 | who had no place to lay his head
00:03:44.140 | and told us to go risk our lives to disciple the nations.
00:03:48.020 | We're not living in the Old Testament times.
00:03:50.220 | This is not a come see religion.
00:03:53.580 | Christianity doesn't even have a center geographically.
00:03:57.580 | This is a go tell religion.
00:04:00.500 | So the revolution is in the use of our resources.
00:04:04.940 | What governs our lifestyle now is the effort to show
00:04:09.020 | that our treasure is in heaven and not on the earth.
00:04:13.300 | What governs us is the effort to maximize our giving,
00:04:16.460 | to finish the great commission
00:04:17.860 | and love the hurting of the world.
00:04:20.540 | The New Testament is relentless in pushing us
00:04:23.940 | towards simplicity and economy for the kingdom
00:04:27.020 | and away from luxury and away from affluence
00:04:29.340 | and away from finery, including luxurious weddings.
00:04:33.420 | So just to give you a taste of what I mean
00:04:36.700 | when I say it's relentless,
00:04:39.300 | Luke 6:20, "Blessed are you poor
00:04:42.820 | for yours is the kingdom of heaven.
00:04:44.380 | Woe to you rich for you have received your consolation."
00:04:48.020 | Luke 8, 14, "The word is choked by the cares
00:04:53.020 | and riches and pleasures of life."
00:04:55.620 | Luke 9, 58, "The son of man has no place to lay his head."
00:05:00.420 | Matthew 6, 19, "Don't lay up for yourselves treasures
00:05:03.660 | on earth where moth and rust destroy."
00:05:05.980 | Luke 6, 25, "I tell you, don't be anxious about your life.
00:05:09.540 | Life is more than food and clothing."
00:05:12.340 | Luke 12, 33, "Sell your possessions, give alms,
00:05:16.340 | provide yourselves with purses in heaven."
00:05:18.540 | Luke 14, 33, "Whoever does not renounce all that he has
00:05:22.300 | cannot be my disciple."
00:05:23.900 | Luke 18, 24, "How hard it is for those who have riches
00:05:27.860 | to enter the kingdom of heaven."
00:05:29.300 | 2 Corinthians 6, 9, "Paul was poor yet making many rich.
00:05:34.060 | He had nothing yet possessed all things."
00:05:36.660 | 1 Timothy 6, 7, "We brought nothing into the world.
00:05:39.500 | We can't take anything out of the world.
00:05:41.500 | But if we have food and clothing,
00:05:42.620 | with these we will be content."
00:05:44.500 | Hebrews 10, 34, "You joyfully accepted the plundering
00:05:48.940 | of your property since you yourselves knew
00:05:52.060 | you had a better possession and an abiding one."
00:05:56.060 | When Noel and I were married,
00:05:58.180 | she wore her mother's wedding dress free.
00:06:01.620 | No, she had some alterations to make.
00:06:03.780 | Probably a few dollars.
00:06:06.620 | I wore my best and only Sunday suit.
00:06:10.460 | My best man did the same.
00:06:11.980 | Her matron of honor wore a nice Sunday dress.
00:06:14.540 | We had an open Bible and a cross on the platform
00:06:18.500 | just to show what our values were.
00:06:21.060 | The church organ was played.
00:06:23.180 | My father preached.
00:06:24.900 | The church provided a reception,
00:06:27.300 | which was in the church fellowship hall.
00:06:29.620 | No meal, no refreshments.
00:06:31.700 | There was a cake.
00:06:32.980 | I borrowed my father's car to go on a honeymoon,
00:06:36.420 | seven hour drive to St. Petersburg, Florida,
00:06:38.620 | where we stayed in a single story motel on the beach.
00:06:41.100 | It was all simple.
00:06:42.220 | It was all full of joy.
00:06:45.780 | It was explosive with happy expectation.
00:06:48.900 | Nobody borrowed any money.
00:06:51.020 | The Lord, the word, the vows, the lovers were the foreground
00:06:54.940 | and God was honored.
00:06:56.260 | And we are just as married 47 years later as anybody.
00:07:00.740 | I think that's a good idea.
00:07:03.700 | Now, let me stress again,
00:07:04.940 | there is a place for special.
00:07:09.380 | Okay, hear me?
00:07:10.580 | There is a place for special, special dress,
00:07:15.100 | special expenditures, special beauty
00:07:17.740 | in the simplicity of the Christian life.
00:07:19.940 | There's a place for beauty.
00:07:22.540 | But what is happening in the evangelical church today,
00:07:26.420 | it seems to me, is careening out of control.
00:07:29.860 | And somebody needs to put the brakes on.
00:07:33.300 | And I'm pleading with pastors especially,
00:07:36.420 | let the service and the word and the vows
00:07:39.940 | and the Lord and the love be the main thing.
00:07:43.940 | There does not have to be a meal after the wedding.
00:07:47.420 | Believe me, there doesn't.
00:07:49.140 | There doesn't have to be a dance.
00:07:51.060 | It doesn't have to be an expensive hotel.
00:07:54.020 | There doesn't have to be a paid quintet.
00:07:56.540 | Really, it doesn't have to be.
00:07:59.020 | So besides pastors who lead on this,
00:08:02.700 | we need young people with backbone
00:08:06.180 | and radical Christian courage to stand against a culture
00:08:10.500 | and show what truth and beauty and joy can look like
00:08:14.180 | at one fourth the cost and one fourth the anxieties
00:08:17.660 | and one fourth the stress and double the focus
00:08:20.820 | on the glory of Christ and the advancement of his kingdom.
00:08:24.100 | - Wow, thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:25.180 | That is powerful.
00:08:27.100 | And this episode reminds me that we have a free book
00:08:29.260 | on our site titled "Preparing for Marriage,
00:08:31.260 | "Help for Christian Couples."
00:08:32.940 | You can download it free of charge
00:08:34.020 | at desiringgod.org/books.
00:08:37.180 | And we will talk more about marriage in about a week
00:08:40.020 | on the question of should I finish school
00:08:41.900 | before I get married?
00:08:42.820 | I know that's a question that you and Noel
00:08:44.500 | were faced with as well.
00:08:46.380 | But for now, thank you for listening
00:08:47.660 | to the Ask Pastor John podcast with author
00:08:49.540 | and longtime pastor John Piper.
00:08:51.580 | We are nearly 900 episodes into this thing now.
00:08:54.420 | And of course, you can search our entire archive of episodes.
00:08:57.920 | You can download our podcast app.
00:08:59.940 | You can subscribe to the podcast,
00:09:01.460 | even send us a question of your own.
00:09:03.140 | Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:07.740 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:08.860 | Thanks for listening.
00:09:09.700 | We'll see you tomorrow.
00:09:10.740 | (upbeat music)
00:09:13.320 | (upbeat music)
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