18 Jul 2022
Today? Tomorrow? When you’re ready? Never?
Jeremy and Metrisha (fondly known as Met) had to ponder this carefully leading up to their wedding at Luther Centre in June.
As many know, time and ministry are things that fill our daily lives such that before one knows it, years pass and we are often left asking, “what are we doing this for?”
Jeremy and Met are no strangers to this truth.
So as visitors filled the hall desiring to see love on display through hugs, kisses, and declarations of undying love, Jeremy and Met displayed their love for one another and their church by choosing Ecclesiastes 3:1 – 15 to be their wedding sermon passage.
“Looking at myself, my relationships and all that, it was all very meaningless until I saw how the chief end of man is to love and serve God.”
(Jeremy in CERC Through My Eyes when talking about his choice of Ecclesiastes as his wedding sermon passage)
Jeremy and Met exchanging vows, promising commitment to one another and God’s ministry
In the sermon, David Kuok took the listeners on a journey which brought them face to face with our lack of control over the time we have. We don’t have control over when things happen; we respond to a time which is dictated to us.
Particularly for this couple, this message is so poignant, what with Jeremy on the cusp of beginning Church Ministry Apprenticeship (CMA) and Metrisha recently quitting her job to begin further education.
As they worked out their circumstances, the audience were blessed as a result of their clarity. This was reflected in the sermon’s recognition that all our toil, ambition and desires lead to nowhere but the icy grave. Rather, death renders everything of no ultimate gain and our only hope is in God.
Jeremy and Met with CERC’s Council of Elders
A moment that probably hit the listeners hardest was when David displayed that apart from man’s yearning for eternity, we bear little difference from a common animal who can do nothing but eat, drink and toil (Ecclesiastes 3:13). While it may seem depressing, it is this very recognition that gives man the chance to realise that they cannot achieve eternity by their own hands.
Understanding this, it can only be hoped that the listeners also recognised the hope that Jeremy and Met have today is as a result of Christ, the one Man whose work was not futile.
Because of Christ we have hope. Jeremy and Met’s meaningless toil was God’s gift to them that they may recognise that only what God does endures forever (cf. Ecclesiastes 3:14). Understanding this, it makes Jeremy and Met’s clarity for full-time ministry entirely evident.
“I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.” – Ecclesiastes 3:14
As their prayer rang clear in the ending song ‘Yet not I but Through Christ in Me,’ the church prays that their marriage be one marked with utter dependence on the only One whose work has meaning. May they remember that the best way to use their time is by spending it on loving God and His church.
CERC as witnesses to the couple’s wedding as they begin their ministry as one unit under God
