Matt Chandler - Legacy

If you have your Bibles, that will be our passage. We’re literally just going to walk through it, so if you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them. If you don’t have a Bible, there should be a hardback black one in the seatback in front of you; you can grab that, turn there, and we’ll dive in. Before we hop into this passage, where we’ll finish up our marriage series, I wanted to take a minute and thank you—specifically, if you’re a member or a regular giver here at the Village—for some pretty cool stuff you were involved in this week, whether you knew it or not. At any given moment, we are actively working globally and locally among the poorest of the poor. God calls His people into that space, and even now, while we’re here, we have two elders in one of the more dangerous parts of the world, loving and encouraging those who have been hit hard by the catastrophes in that area. But here’s what I wanted to thank you for: we have been actively involved for a long time in a country I won’t name because this is live-streamed, and in particular, we’re working in the Red Light District of one of the largest cities on Earth. The way those girls end up in the Red Light District is through a truly evil group of women. I know it’s Mother’s Day, but there are indeed wicked women who go into the mountains of Nepal. When they reach the mountains, they find little villages riddled with poverty and begin to cast a vision to these parents for jobs that they claim to have in the city, either working at a hotel or a factory. These parents, faced with the decision of whether their little girl starves or survives, often turn their daughters over to these women, and that’s how the trafficking begins. We have been actively engaged there for a long time now, and by the grace of God, we’ve planted a church in that slum. We have seen numerous ladies set free from that, and then we built a program for them that lasts about a year. We realized we needed to equip them with skills, to help them secure jobs, and so you have helped participate in building a little textile company in that city where they can create durable, high-quality goods. One of the items they make are backpacks. Every summer, if you’ve been around for a while, you know that we start discussing our fall school drive, as there are close to 5,000 kids in LISD living below the poverty line; that means they don’t eat three meals a day, and they certainly can’t afford backpacks and school supplies. So what we did was create some synergy between what we’re doing overseas and locally. These women have been paid well above the industry standard for their country to produce the 5,000 backpacks that arrived this week, which we will be handing out to the poorest of the poor here—and you made that possible! On top of that, one of our members, who owns a shipping company, had these shipped over here at no cost to us, saving us about $50,000. I just want you to know that you are actively participating in pushing back darkness and establishing light in ways that are probably beyond imagination. Thank you! You embody that generosity prayer we read every week, and that’s not just going toward lights and air conditioning. We truly are, by the grace of God, getting after it at the ends of the earth. Thank you for that. I love pastoring here; you guys are incredible. Now, let’s get started! If you’ve ever been to a Christian wedding, there are a series of elements that can be present. One of them is this setup, usually positioned in the corner, called the unity candle. What happens is the parents of the husband come down and light this candle, which represents their baby boy—all of his good qualities and bad, the things he does well, and the areas where he will need to grow. Then they take their seats. The mother and father of the bride come up next; they light the other candle, which symbolizes their sweet little princess, who’s never done anything wrong—if anything’s wrong, it’s probably the groom. This candle represents all of her qualities—the good things, the bad things, and the aspects that will bring life to this union, as well as those that God will need to work on over time. It’s all right there. At some point in the service, usually right before or right after the vows, the minister or a licensed friend will quote the passage that we’ve…