Weddings and Funerals

It's great to see you. Welcome.

If you're here last week, I hope you've had a good week.

I've had a quite a week. I did AI did a funeral on

Monday. I went to Zimbabwe for a few

days. Then I went and did a wedding in

Cape Town and flew back last night to preach today.

So I've done a wedding and a funeral.

I'm celebrating my 32nd wedding anniversary and a whole lot of

things in between. So the the title of the message

is funerals and Weddings, funerals and weddings.

And I noticed a few things this week that people get very sober

at weddings and very, very sober at funerals that very not so

sober at weddings. So funerals are quite sobering

and weddings are quite raucous. And what the book of

Ecclesiastes does is it kind of brings them together.

It brings them together. And so we're going to study

Ecclesiastes. If you haven't been here, it's

your first time, you can catch up.

But we've been studying Ecclesiastes and asking

ourselves, do we ever gain anything in this world?

Or is these few years we have on earth just a gift?

And Ecclesiastes tells us we don't actually leave a lasting

legacy. We're not meant to be leaving.

We're meant to just be preaching the gospel, loving people dying

and being forgotten, and we're trying our guts out to be

remembered. We put statues up of ourselves.

We named buildings after ourselves, We named highways and

airports after ourselves. But nobody really remembers.

I mean, Robert Mugabe, I went into Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe

airport, the Robert Mugabe highway, and in 20 years time,

nobody will even know who Robert Mugabe was.

And so we think that we actually at the center of our whole

world, but God has given us death not just as a punishment,

but somehow is a restriction to stop us from becoming gods.

Because left to our own devices, Robert Mugabe would have become

an eternal God in Zimbabwe, as Hitler would have been Germany.

And we would have in our own worlds because we'd love to be

the center of attention. And so God puts this restriction

on death upon us to remind us we're actually not that

important and our lives are not built around ourselves.

And actually one day we're going to die and push up daisies.

That's the truth. And the Bible says we will be

forgotten. A few might remember us, but not

many. You see lists and lists of names

at schools, head boys and duxes of schools and captains of

cricket. But after the time that you were

there, nobody really remembers that.

Not true. But I want to read you a letter

written to us by a man called Yaku.

I don't know if Yaku is here this morning, but Yaku came back

here. Are you here, Yaku?

It doesn't matter. I want to embarrass you, but he

wrote this letter to three CI came back here was an engineer

could not find a job and sat here for nearly 20 months and he

found a job in the sphere that is not really who he's

comfortable with Us met him at the airport the other day.

He was going on a business journey and he wrote to us this

letter. So I would like to read it to

you if you can put it up please. It actually says dear 3 CR

family, it's been 5 months since I stepped into this unfamiliar

world. His new work a world far removed

from the calculated precision of engineering projects and into

the whirlwind of retail sales. Some days I still catch myself

holding my breath, wondering how I got here.

But then I remember this is where God planted me and even in

the chaos He is teaching me to grow.

Let me be raw with you. This has been the hardest season

of my 35 year career. Learning to sell products I

barely understand, to navigate the fickle tides of retail, To

smile through the sting of suppliers insults.

Oh, the words I've swallowed instead of retaliating.

It's left me humbled. There are days I come home to my

family and I sit in the quiet wondering if I'm failing them

too. But Sundays?

But Sundays, Sundays have become my anchor.

Walking into service, weary and frayed, I cling to every word

preached, every hymn sung like a lifeline.

I know my name isn't on the list.

No one here knows the battles I'm fighting, but God does.

When the message speaks of His relentless love, I feel it is

like a hand on my shoulder. When the prayers rise, I'm

reminded that He sees the unspoken tears, the silent

sacrifices, the courage it takes to keep showing up.

This journey has been a mirror, reflecting all the ways I fall

short. Every day I face a new

challenge, a disgruntled customer, shipment gone wrong, a

moment where fear threatens to swallow my resolve.

And I think this is my chance to reflect his love.

And yet, so often I fail. I react impatiently.

I doubt, I crumble. But Grace meets me there in the

mess and whispers, try again tomorrow.

To my sister, see our family. Thank you.

Thank you for being a sanctuary where I can set my weary spirit.

Thank you for teaching me that God's love isn't earned by

perfection but poured out in the struggle.

Thank you for reminding me that even when I feel invisible, I am

seen. This road is lonely, but I've

never felt alone. When suppliers belittle me, I

pray for strength to forgive. When my family enjoys the

sunsets without me, I thank God that they're safe.

When Sunday comes, I arrive hungry and He feeds me.

Maybe that's the lesson in the breaking.

We make space for His light to shine through.

I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I'm learning to trust

the one who does. And if my story, this messy,

unfinished story, can encourage even one of you, then every

tear, every sleepless night, every silent prayer will have

been worth it. With a heart both heavy and

hopeful. Yaku, if you ever see me

lingering after the service, no, it's because I'm storing up

strength for the week ahead. Your smiles, your good mornings,

your never quiet presence, they're all reminders of God's

love and flesh and blood. Thank you for being his hands

and feet. But he said to me, my grace is

sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Thank you, Yaaku. So let's turn to Ecclesiastes

now and we're going ahead a bit. I want to finish this book now

because it's talking a lot about death and all those things, and

so we're going to just catch the gist of it today.

Say Ecclesiastes chapter Chapter 9, Ecclesiastes Chapter 9.

Ecclesiastes 9 · chapter mention

So I reflected on all this. Say I reflected on all this,

Ecclesiastes 8th and verse 14 says there's something else

meaningless that occurs on earth.

Righteous men who get what the wicked deserve and wicked men

who get what the righteous deserve.

So I reflected on laws. It just seems like sometimes

it's just not fair. It's not fair.

I've seen people who have served God for 30 years and it's tough

for them. And I've seen people who have

served the devil properly for 30 years and they're blessed, he

says. Just doesn't seem right.

It doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem like God.

Are you in control? It's under the sun.

But God, do you know what's going on?

I mean, here's a girl, her name is Geraldine.

She was part of the original church plant of this church.

Her and her husband Rudy, decided that they would leave.

He was a world class musician. He led a band.

He was a famous pop star. He was an incredible athlete.

They relocated their family to support this church plant.

Her husband had a brain aneurysm and he's been sick for 25 years,

30 years sick. It just doesn't really seem

fair. So I reflected on all of this.

God. But she just keeps coming to

church. She's got her Home group leaders

and her friends and her family and her children and she just

keeps coming to church and her husband needs special care and

attention. You think, But she's a godly

girl who grew up in a godly family.

And every time I look at you and I see you here, it's like 3 CI.

Thank you for smiling at Geraldine and Geraldine, thank

you for smiling AT3CI and Yaku. Thank you for keeping coming.

Because what's really important when this upside down world of

ours and I can go through every one of your stories.

There's my friend who's preached all over the world, served as an

elder in the church for 25 years.

Now he's working in a coffee shop and the coffee shop's not

working. And I see him there crying after

God praying. And we started the coffee shop

with hope to employ people and to look after orphans.

And I've seen this man working so hard for God.

And there's now the coffee shop is not working.

And I look at him, but he's here every Sunday with his hands in

the air saying, dear God, I'll give you glory.

Somehow I've felt about all this stuff and it doesn't really make

sense. There's a couple in this church

called Young and Wendy Cravenstein, beautiful couple,

served God. And when I was newly here, just

been here for a couple of months as a pastor 12 years ago, I got

a phone call at 4:00 in the morning.

It was young. He said, Rory, it's young here.

Samuel, our newborn baby or couple of month old baby.

It's looked like he's passed away in Pretoria East Hospital.

So I got changed. I raced to the hospital, Little

boy still had pink cheeks. And I remember just being by

myself with that little boy, and I thought, God, these are

beautiful people. These are godly people.

They love you, they fear you, they honor you.

And now we've got a child who's died in his sleep.

You can't make sense of it. So I've had this funeral.

I've had this wedding, and I think there's so much pain and

so much joy. And God says somehow can you put

these two things together and realize that I'm in the

soberness of the funeral and I'm in the celebration of the

wedding. And if you understand that

properly, you'll start to live properly.

And I remember trying to console the Craven stains.

And Wendy's a psychologist, and psychology couldn't heal her.

So she eventually applied to do her doctorate in psychology with

an element of faith because she realized that the pinnacle of

counselling in this world, which is psychology, cannot take away

the pain of death. And so psychology doesn't

believe in faith, but somehow her professors allowed her to do

a, a doctorate on how faith and psychology together can actually

come in and heal the deep wounds.

And I remember going to a conference down in Durban about

six weeks after it happened. And, and one of my very dear

friends, a very anointed singer, I'm not, so don't excuse my

singing, but I remember he got up and he just took the

microphone. He didn't know anything.

He just took the microphone and he started singing.

And then the Lord walked in and stood beside the bed of the

little boy and said Samuel. Then the Lord walked in and

stood beside the bed of the little boy and said Samuel.

Then the Lord walked in and stood beside the bed of the

little boy and said, Samuel and I realized God called that boy

home. I realized he called him home.

And I got a message from one of my dear friends, Janet Island.

I've known her since school out of their daughter's funeral.

Annabelle, I'm trying to explain how does God fit this good God

who loves us, who we pray protection over our children?

How does this good God somehow allow?

I don't know, but funerals and weddings must come together so

that we can understand God. And this week as I was

preparing, I started singing in my heart.

And then the Lord walked in and stood beside the bed of the

little girl and said, Annabelle. Then the Lord walked in and

stood beside the bed of the little girl and said, Annabelle,

that's my friend Ryan there. His name is Ryan de Toy.

Watched them grow up. I watched them getting born.

Now sitting in our church next to my children.

His mom and dad are some of my very dearest friends.

Christian, wander the toy. They've been writing me letters

through Ecclesiastes. They had a daughter called Gabby

Lee, Beautiful, fit, healthy, strong girl.

And one day she was going for a run in Cape Town.

She just parked her car against the wall, smacked the wall.

She was gone. Raced at a hospital, kept her on

life support. I've prayed for that little girl

since the day she was born. I took my prayer book, which is

full of people that I pray for, and I asked and everybody had

left. I said, can I just go into the

theater? The life had left.

I put that prayer book on her chest.

I said, dear God, have you heard every prayer?

I know her name was Gabriel Lee, but I started singing.

Then the Lord walked in and stood beside the bed of the

little girl and said, Gabrielle, and sometimes we feel so

powerless, but God has given us death as a gift so that we can

actually learn to live life properly.

It's absolutely certain that we will die.

It's how we live that Ecclesiastes is talking about,

are you with me? How are we doing?

It's not meant to be morbid, meant to be happy.

So I reflected on all this, and I concluded that the righteous

and the wise and what they do are in God's hands.

In God's hands. If I was God, I wouldn't take

those children young. But it's not my hands, it's

God's hands. And you're not God.

So don't give up on God when God does something that you don't

understand. But no man knows whether love or

hate awaits him or share a common destiny.

The righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean

and the unclean, those who offer sacrifice and those who don't.

You think all of us doesn't matter if you go to church,

Don't go to church. Give money, don't give money.

Gamble, don't gamble, bribe, don't bribe.

You're all going to die. As it is with the good man, so

with the Sinner, as it is with those who take oath, so those

who are afraid to take oath. This is the evil in everything

that happens under the sun. The same destiny overtakes.

All the hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil, and there is

madness in their hearts while they live, and afterwards they

join the dead. Anyone who is among the living

has hope. So we in God's hands, verse 4,

says while we're alive we have hope.

Even a live dog is better off than a dead lion.

Interesting. Hey, you know, I don't like

dogs, but I had the most unbelievable experience

recently. When I get out of my car, you

can normally hear me before you see me.

So I was parking my car and one of my my phone kept beeping and

there's one of my friends saying you park really badly, learn how

to park. Wow, wow, wow.

Because he was watching me. So I got out, looked at it and I

said, and I heard somebody called me across the road.

How's it? And I thought they greeted me.

So I said, Erica, how's it? But it was at the vet.

I walked across to the vet, and I realized they're crying.

Oh, dear God. I've never prayed for a dog

before, but I think I'm about to.

So I walked in there and one of our members, one of our church

members sitting on the backseat of his car with his beloved dog

in his hand, and he's just weeping, just weeping because

it's the end of a season. And they said, Lori, we just

prayed somehow, somehow that we'd meet you here.

And so here I am praying for members of church or the dog.

And I realized we've got dog lovers in our church.

I'm shocked. How I'm going to get to love

you, I don't know, but I will. I'm going to get to love you.

But I just remembered this absolutely holy moment.

But you see, friends, the reason why I said because the lion was

the king of the jungle and the dog was the lowest form, he

says, But it's better to be a live dog than to be a dead lion.

So while you're alive, while you're alive, God's talking to

us. While you're alive, you better

do what God wants you to do, because when you're dead,

everything's gone. You can't have a chance to love

anymore. You can't have a chance to give.

You can't have a chance to be jealous.

You can't have a chance. Everything's going to go for the

living know that they will die. But the dead know nothing.

They have no further reward, and even the memory of them is

forgotten. They love, they hate.

Their jealousy have long since vanished.

Never again will they have a part in anything that happens

under the sun. Go, say, go.

Say go see when I read that word, go.

I've got a little bit of a strange imagination, but being

the athlete that I am and the 100m school champion in under 7

at Harry Smith on your marks gets it.

That's not how they said it. Let's try it again.

On your marks, gets it. Let's try it one more time, but

with a gun in your hand. Point the gun up in case you

shoot someone. On your marks, get said, go.

Let's see the gate. On your marks get said go.

When I see that word, that's what it says, go.

So in the midst of all this thing, death is happening.

We don't understand, we're not fully aware.

God says go, have a go. Go eat your food.

Hit Nando's or Poiki. Go.

I'm going out for lunch today with the guy who's sitting up

there. On Thursday he sent me the piece

of meat. On Friday he showed how it was

cut up. I was waiting for the marinade

on Saturday, but it doesn't seem like he's marinated it, so I'm

going to go and have a dry piece of meat for lunch.

Go eat your food with with gladness and drink your wine

with a joyful heart. Don't get smashed.

You're going to die. So go and have a dope.

That's what it says and we'll talk about it just now.

For it is now that God favors what you do.

It is now that God favors what you do.

Stop being depressed. Always be clothed in white.

There's a man here. He doesn't think he's prophetic

at all. But six weeks ago, he arrived at

my house with a beautiful imported white shirt, and he

gave it to me. He said, Rory, I want to bless

you with it. I said, why?

He said, I don't know, but I want to bless you with a white

shirt. When I did the funeral, I wore

that white shirt. When I did the wedding in Cape

Town, I wore that white shirt. And that man's got no idea why

he gave me a white shirt. But Ecclesiastes, he says, put

on a white shirt. Get rid of this black.

Black stuff, take it off. Take off your sackcloth and

asses and put on a white shirt. RIP the sackcloth off and put on

a white shirt and always anoint your head with oil.

Always anoint your head with oil.

The Pretoria E amplified version says this.

Buy a Laka Gucci outfit and you can have a couple of injections

just in your eyes, round your cheeks and your lips.

This is the only scripture I know for Botox in the Pretoria E

amplified version. Put on Gucci, keep fighting,

enjoy your life with your wife whom you love.

All the days of this meaningless life that God has given you

under the sun. Enjoy her, enjoy her friends.

He's he's talking about a wedding, he's talked about a

funeral. He says, don't understand this,

but you're all going to die. Funerals take a lot of

preparation. I did one on Sunday night.

The family came in, they cleared the stage, they put out flowers,

not too bright flowers because you're mourning.

They put out all the rugby jerseys, the sombre, it's quite

deep. People got up and there was a

lot of tears. I went to the wedding.

There were 1200 candles. You walked in and just glass.

It's just spectacular. I thought he has the funeral, he

has the wedding and I'm reading Ecclesiastes now and he's saying

there's funeral, we're all going to die.

But just put on white clothes like a bride and put up some

makeup and have a go. Have a go.

Because you don't know how long you live for.

For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the

sun. Whatever your hand finds to do,

do it with all your might. For in the grave where you are

going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor

wisdom. I've seen something else under

the sun. The race is not to the swift or

the battle to the strong. Nor does fools come to the wise,

or wealth to the brilliant. Some of you think you're wealthy

because you're brilliant. Sometimes you're just lucky.

Yeah, and you sit there and you think I can enjoy all this

because I'm brilliant. The Bible says even your wealth

has been given to you by God, even if you've worked your

bottom off or favor to the learner.

But time and chance happened to them all.

Time and chance happened to them all.

The actual translation is time and happened, happened.

I had a schoolmaster, Tony Rick, the amazing guy.

His father was a preacher. He walked away from God.

I used to call him Pique, but there was a PK at our school

called PK Remner, an Indian guy and PK Remner and used to

organize all the buses. But Tony Richter, I used to call

him PK and he'd say, Rory, have you forgotten my name?

PK is the guy who does the buses and I used to quit call him PK.

I said, hey, how you PK, how you PK?

And he said why do you keep calling me PK?

I said one day you'll realize and about 10 years lady came to

me said I know why you call me PK.

I'm a preacher's kid. I said, yes, you are.

And I said, and your dad put Christ inside of your heart, Mr.

Richter. Your dad prayed for you, Mr.

Richter. And then he started calling my

son PK and he made my son captain.

And my son was the last boy to captain one of his rugby teams.

And then his daughter had a puncher.

And I mean, how many of you had punches before?

How many of you had punches? 90% of us have had punctures.

His daughter had a puncture. She found them.

What's her daughters do when they have punctures?

They found their dads because my daughter's husband's too dumb to

change the tire. I'm trying to get him to change

his attitude. Let alone a tire.

You're the most beautiful gift in the whole world.

So you find your dad. Hi, Dad.

It's your daughter. What's wrong, girly?

I've got a puncture. I need your fixie.

So my daughter speaks. So Tony just got in his car and

he went to go and fix his daughter's puncture.

And as he was fixing the puncture, truck went through the

barriers and killed him and his daughter.

But how many of you have fixed the puncture?

And time and chance happened. It just happened and you think,

why? Friends?

I don't know why, but I can tell you this.

You're alive because God wants you to be alive and you are

going to die. It might be changing attire.

I'm sitting at this wedding. The father of the bride is an

advocate. Unbelievable speaker, best

speaker I've ever heard in my life.

I heard him speak. He used to be the chairman of

the Hilton board. I heard him speak and then he

got up at his daughter's wedding and I heard him speak and I just

sat there and I thought of three CI and, and, and 1200 candles

and I thought of having dinner with you.

The reason, friends, he talks about food is because food is a

thing of heaven. Jesus comes and he eats all this

food and then and then he wants us to be homesick.

He wants us to think of food because we're going to eat

together. And as this father, the bride

got up, this eloquent advocate, he just spoke brilliantly.

I just, I was just, I wanted to weep.

I thought, I want to hear the father speak about 3 CI like

that. On our wedding day.

I got goose fire. And then the groom got up and he

started speaking eloquently. Just unbelievable.

The wine was flowing. The, the, it was just absolutely

eloquent. And this lady next to me, Pat

McDonald, because God always puts the right person next to

me, Pat McDonald. Her son was best friends with a

groom son, his name was Matthew. And Matthew came home one day in

his early 20s or late 20s, and he said, mum, I've got a

headache. He said, we'll go to bed, 2

pinatas off to bed. And the next day he said, mum,

I'm not feeling so great. So he went to the doctor and the

doctor said, I think he's got a virus.

And 18 months later, he died of leukemia.

And she's sitting next to me, she said, Rory, why am I placed

next to you? I said, Because I'm studying the

book of Ecclesiastes, Pet. And in Ecclesiastes, you've got

to take death and marriage. You've got to put them together.

So when the father of the groom gets up and speaks, you've got

to know your son. Matthew's already sitting at

that table of the bride when the groom gets up and speaks.

You've got to know Matthew's there.

And one day we're going to join Matthew.

And as I heard those things, I thought, one day I'm going to

sit with you, with you. Deacon, who had Robben Island,

is a political activist sitting on Robben Island.

You and our poles apart. Different ideologies, different

philosophies, different everything.

And one day God's going to take off our black shirts and he's

going to put on white clothes and we're going to sit next to

each other and the Father's going to talk about us and we're

going to be holding hands. And God's going to say, this is

my bride. So as I close, are you with me?

It's, I know it's deeply sobering and Ecclesiastes is

quite deep, but it's good. It's good.

I see some of my friends. I love you, I love you. 35 years

of great marriage and separated. I don't know.

I'm thinking about all these things.

God doesn't seem fair. Moreover, no man knows when his

hour will come. We're certain of death.

We're not certain of when, but it's going to come.

Samuel came when he was six weeks old.

Annabelle, she was 17. Gabby when she was 24.

Matthew MacDonald when he was 28.

You and I have got no idea when we're certain of death.

We're uncertain about when, as fish are caught in a cruel net

or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times

that fall unexpectedly upon them.

I want to just tell you this, friends.

Go eat your food with gladness and drink your heart with wine.

We know death is certain. We're not quite sure when it is.

So this is what you've got to do.

You've got to eat together. Niko, can you come stand with

me, please? This is my friend.

Name is Niko. Don't know how we became friends

but my one friend Anton said I must meet Nico and through Anton

who's an Afrikaans guy who welcomed me here with his wife

Erica, he said I must meet Nico and I must meet meet Anita.

And Nico said hey Roy, I want to take you away for a few days.

I said what we're going to do Nico, He said we're going to eat

together. I said who's going to cook?

He said I'm going to cook cook. And the first night he took AT

bone steak that was 8 fingers thick like this, he made a fire,

he sat around the fire, he put it on its on the bone like that

for an hour. And then he put it like this for

8 minutes and like that for 8 minutes.

And then he put it on the fat. And he called his friends

together and he started to slice the meat.

And I thought you're creating heaven on earth.

We're going to die. We don't know when to die.

But in the meantime, can the English and Afrikaans guy eat

together and talk about God and speak about our families and

enjoy the work of his labor? He's built a house and enjoy the

work of his labor. And I sat around that table.

I was deeply humbled. And I looked at the scripture

and I thought, thank you. Thank you for serving me, thank

you for serving my wife, thank you for being my friend.

I think you are the most successful man I know, or one of

them, but you still just humble yourself and go inside and get

me a drink. Because the Bible says go and do

what? Just serve some different

people. Get them a drink, make them your

favorite food, cook their veggies, say grace and speak

about God. So I wonder what he's going to

do tomorrow. And tomorrow he made a big fire.

I still prepare these chickens and this foil.

Sign aside in, sign aside in. You plump them on the fire, turn

them around. I thought, I don't think he

knows what he's doing. And then he opened them up and

we smelt it. You see, God has designed it so

they'll become homesick. We've become homesick because

we're going to spend the rest of lives eating together.

And then I realized he's got many gifts.

He's a businessman, he's an educator, he's all those things.

But actually his gift is to enjoy God and to make food for

his friends. I want to tell you, as I've

studied Ecclesiastes, my family went away the other day.

So I just took a chicken and I wrapped it in foil and I made a

fire and I put it on. I said, God, it came out

perfectly. I thought, I've learned many

things in this church, but the things that we have to learn is

how to eat and drink together better.

Thank you. I wrote a list.

We're going to close in a moment.

I wrote a list. We're certain we're going to

die. We're uncertain when, but we do

have to go. Say, go take off your sackcloth

and ashes. Take off your sackcloth and

ashes. Cravenstein family, the toy

family, Island family, those of you who are depressed, who are

divorced, take off your sackcloth and ashes because you

are going to die. You don't know when you've got

to start enjoying this. You've got to trust God to get

off your medication. And I've been on medication for

mental health, so I'm not putting any heavy on you.

You've got to work with your psychologist and psychiatrist.

But if God is speaking to us, he's buying us a white set.

This black thing must go. Ride a bike, watch the sun rises

and the sunsets, and honor God. Go to the Kruger and to the

beach and to the foot tracker monument with a black person and

study Ephesians 2 that says that we were dead in our

transgressions. And he made us alive with

Christ, and he seated us in heavenly places, and he took

those who were far off and made them close.

And he abolished the dividing wall of hostility that was

between US. And while you sit to the black

person, or if you're a black person or the white person on

the steps of the foot tracker monument, gaze across to the

Union buildings. And one day, if one day somehow

we can share our favorite T-bone steak and chicken in the House

of a person who's different to us.

But we can have the feast in heaven now before we have the He

feast in heaven. Then let's talk about God making

21 and removing the dividing wall of hostility as you gaze

upon the Union buildings. Have an ice cream at Royal

Danish. Go and watch the show at the

bridge. Take some friends, new friends,

strangers you made at church, maybe yaku.

Learn a musical instrument. Visit the sick, care for the

dying, cook a meal, feed the hungry, watch the series with

your family. Go on walks, visit Zimbabwe,

read a book, go to Lofters, shout for the bulls, love the

fat ladies dressed in blue, laugh.

Enjoy your friends. Listen to David, Cromer, Kurt,

Darren, maybe Mozart. Phone your mum, Write a letter

to your friends or the man you met on the plane.

Plant a church. Go on a mission.

Take your neighbor a cake. Start a school.

Do some pro bono work. Look to bless.

Be generous. Sacrifice for other people.

Let others use your gifts and resources.

Adopt A child. Speak about Christ.

Be kind. Forgive others.

Spend money. Give away a car, fix somebody's

teeth. Add joy.

Bless people. Serve coffee at church.

Pray for your kids. Smile.

And enjoy your wife, enjoy your wife because there's some of you

have been married here for a long time.

You're enduring your marriages and you're not enjoying them.

I remember I was walking down a French St.

I was walking down a French St. on Boxing Day in 1987 and I got

a Telegraph from a 19 year old girl.

They said, hey Rory, I have to tell you this.

I love you Melanie. I never forget sitting down in

that street in France. That's 40 years ago nearly.

I love you too and I want to speak to you like Christ speaks

to his church. And I know that we will die.

I don't know when we will die, but until we die, I'm going to

go. I'm going to eat with you and

I'm going to drink with you and I'm going to enjoy you.

I'm going to tell you that you are beautiful and that your eyes

are deep and that your voice is kind.

And the fact that you don't gossip is a great gift to our

family. And the fact that you pray for

people and you pray for your children and the fact that you

cook food with so much love is a deep joy to me.

The most sacred room in my whole life is our bedroom where we

drink tea together every morning and every night.

And I want to say in front of all these friends, I pray that

we would sit around the same table with them.

We're not endure our marriage. And as our children leave home,

we would study theology together.

And I will cook that chicken for you on the briar this week.

We are going to die. We don't know when, but in the

meantime, let's have a go. Let's have a go.

I'm not talking about drunkenness.

I'm not talking about sin. God created food and God created

drink. The devil is distorted into

gluttony and drunkenness. I'm talking about feasting.

I'm talking about buying meat on Thursday, cutting it on Friday,

marinating it on Saturday so that you can host people on

Sunday. And if you don't have meat

friends and just make sandwiches, and if you don't

have sandwiches, then just invite them for tea, but get

them around your table and enjoy them.

I enjoy you. I enjoy you because you came to

me after your wedding rings were stolen and you said you could

never afford them and you took many years to buy wedding rings

and so you decided to publicly recommit yourselves with your

wedding rings. So when I stand here, I've got

to tear this black shirt, I've got to RIP it off and I've got

to put on a white shirt because this is a holy place where you

recommitted your marriage to each other, where you saved up

for years to buy wedding rings, where you took your age-old

family traditions and you shared your food and your wife and your

house with us. But your dad, Ryan, kept

blessing me, even when your sister.

The first person they called when your sister got sick was

me, and we raced down there and we stood around with all those

pizza boxes you'll never forget. And Eugenie, how you give

hearing to people and your whole life is about putting hearing

back into people. And I can teach every single one

of everyone of you. We met in the car park, my

shoulder. So he's just had a shoulder

injury. We we met and we started talking

about rugby. We thought, how did God get us

to the same church? Why don't you stand Deacon and

come and stand here. We close.

Just stand like that. Look at me like this, say after

me Viva lo no, no, I don't say that.

How on earth are we in the same church?

How are we? By the grace of God, By the

grace of God? I never thought I'd worship with

a man on Robben Island. Never knew that.

I never thought I'd do that. But we're here.

You never thought you'd worship with a white man in one church?

Do you love me, Deacon? Too much?

Too much. And I love you, Deacon.

123 go. I'm going to say it.

OK? On your marks, get set.

I like this. On your marks, get set one more

time. On your marks, get set.

Take the sadness, take the joy. Put them together.

Celebrate, feast, eat, enjoy your wife.

Don't endure her sacrifice. I'm not a wife.

I can't tell you what you must do.

I'm a husband, Sir. Lay down your life for your

wife. Give up your pride, stop being a

God, start to serve her, lay down your life for her.

Write poetry to her, look into her eyes, treat her carefully,

treat her gently, look after her and treat people who are

different to us with respect because we are the same.

God has removed the wall of dividing hostility and he's made

US1. And so we can sit on the steps

for a tracker monument, we can look at the union buildings, and

then we can eat together. And when we eat together, God

says this is my Kingdom.