Loving The Bride - A Valentine's Day Sermon Series

Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.’”

Here we have Jesus appearing to His disciples for the 3rd time since His resurrection. He has a private time now with Peter and is sharing with him one of His most important thoughts. And essentially, Jesus tells Peter: if you love me – take care of my bride. Jesus is instructing Peter to make sure that the Church is fed, protected and nurtured

That was His highest priority then… and it is His highest priority now.

When Jesus set up the church, He wanted to make sure that it was overseen by the most experienced individuals that could be found.

In 1 Timothy Paul writes: “Now the overseer (an Elder) must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?” 1 Timothy 3:2-5

Jesus is saying that He wants only the most experienced people to watch over His bride. He only wants men who have proven themselves as good husbands and good fathers to make sure His bride is taken care of.

And from what we see here in John 21 (from Jesus’ conversation with Peter), if we love Jesus we need to take care of His bride/ the church. If the Church is the most important thing on His mind… it should be the most important thing on our minds as well.

Now let’s be clear here. We’re not talking about a church building, or the church budget, or the church’s organization. Christ’s most valued possession is the body of believers that makes up local congregations like this one.

That means that (if we love Jesus) we should do everything we can to make sure the bride of Christ is strengthened and nurtured and built up.

How can we do that?

Well, I gave this a lot of thought, and I came up with at least 4 things I believe we can do for her.

1st – we need to make sure we spend time with her.

ILLUS: I heard about a wife who had a terribly rough day with her 3 small children, all day and they had been terrible. To make matters worse, her husband didn’t come home right after work. He had other things he wanted to do and never bothered to let her know of his plans. So when he eventually got home about 5:30 that evening and before he could sit down, she lit in on him about the children’s behavior.

He came back with – she was at home, and it was her fault that they act like that. And things went downhill from there. Their argument grew in intensity and loudness.

Finally after 2 hours of fussing and fighting, the husband said, “I’ll tell you what, let’s start the whole evening over again. I’ll go back outside and come in again and we’ll start over.”

She agreed. He went outside on the porch and turned around, came back to the door, opened it and called out, “Honey, I’m home.”

To which she replied: “It’s about time. It’s 7:30. Where’ve you been for the last 2 hours?”