Review
Last week, we did something that probably stretched a few of you. It certainly stretched me. When God laid the impression upon me to do this, I was both apprehensive as well as excited. I knew a blessing would flow from it, and I knew that many of us would be uncomfortable. Yet, I believe I was obeying God by faith by acting in this way. Some of you were probably uncomfortable hearing these words that many of you probably also knew to be true. Most of you understand and know that God loves you. But it was important that you hear it with your own ears in the first person. It is important that what you know is confirmed by your brothers and sisters in Christ. It is both therapeutic and life restoring when we hear what is on the very heart of God. Thank you for venturing outside your comfort zone!
In our quest to come to grips with what it means to be “the family of God” we have looked at what it means to be children of God. The relationship between children and their Daddy is a powerful one and most closely describes one of the facets of being family.
But there are at least two more facets to that familial relationship with God that we have, that we will be discussing in the weeks ahead.
Today, we are going to look at the role of the church (that’s you and me) as the “Bride of Christ.”
One of the most mysterious and revealing truths about the relationship between God and His People is the fact that Jesus is described as the eternal Bridegroom and we are spoken of as His bride.
This is not a new theme but one that has run the course of the entire Bible…with God calling Israel His wife throughout the Old Testament, and speaking to the people and nation of Israel in the terms of relationship between a husband and his wife. The bible speaks about the unfaithfulness of the nation of Israel in the language of “adultery” and infidelity.
In the New Testament, the Church is not spoken of as a wife, but as a bride, betrothed or engaged, being made ready for her wedding day, the celebrated and much anticipated day when Christ comes for His church at the end of the age.
Jesus used many parables to describe this mysterious thing that he was ushering in called the “kingdom of heaven.” It was something so incredibly indescribable that it had to be illustrated through the use of analogies, parables and stories. So when he compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a wedding, He is setting us up to understand the gloriousness of His relationship with the people He has redeemed.
Matthew 22:1-4 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2 "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 "And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. 4 "Again he sent out other slaves saying, `Tell those who have been invited, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast."’
It is as if everything in life, everything in worship, everything in our relationship to God point to a single climatic event…the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
He invites everyone to join him for this celebration, all are invited!
We get another glimpse into this mysterious picture in Revelation 19:
(Rev. 19:7-9). "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, "Write, `Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’”
Verse 7 tells us that in heaven, all of the angels and Saints are awaiting this single climatic event, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
In heaven, there is an incredible expectation, an anticipation that has built from the foundation of the world to witness this marriage of the Lamb of God and His bride, the Church.
Then the passage says, “His bride has made herself ready.”
His bride, that is you and me, (the Saints, the church) have been chosen to be Christ’s eternal partner.
Why would be invited to our own wedding feast? Because to be invited (and to accept that invitation) makes us a part of the Bride herself!
What does it mean that she has made herself ready?
It means that that bride, that’s you and me, has been prepared for at least two thousand years, and is the collection of broken, obedient and priceless Saints who have submitted to the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit to become this spotless bride.
Jesus desires a worthy bride, a pure bride.
We, as created humanity, turned our backs on our Creator and went on a path of our own, ignoring the please of our suitor who is God Himself. We immersed ourselves in sin, and made ourselves unworthy of being that spotless bride.
But Christ redeems us with his own life, so that we can be embraced by the love of the Bridegroom, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Why does the bible use the picture of the bride and groom and marriage supper?
I think that this is an awesome and difficult image to get our heads around.
For men, we can understand the bridegroom’s perspective.
Women, can understand the bride’s perspective.
What this picture, the parable, or analogy communicates is just how passionate God is for you and I. The picture communicates that God longs for His cherished bride to join Him in heaven.
In Isaiah 62:5b we read, “And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So your God will rejoice over you.”
This reveals the passion of God for you and I!
This reveals the image of a God who enjoys us and is filled with affection for us, embracing us in the middle of our weakness and faults and failures.
When you and I can get our heads around this concept, it will change the way we read the Scriptures and understand and relate to God.
When you and I begin to understand this truth, we will begin to grasp the glorious fact that God delights in us.
Last week, you heard that God is pleased with you as His child.
You cannot change God’s opinion of you.
You cannot change God’s mind about you. He is pleased with you because you bear the image of His only Son Jesus, you wear His Son’s blood, you are covered in His love and God sees nothing but His own Son.
Nothing you can do or not do will make God love you more or less. God loves you because He chose to.
And the glorious thing is if you have accepted that love, received His forgiveness, then you get to ENJOY the very pleasure that God has for you.
Can you hear and receive this truth that God delights in you as his soon to be bride?
He sees you as beautiful, perfect, delightful, flawless, radiant, joyous, sinless, beautiful, awesome, worthy of desire, worthy of the best God has to offer.
God’s love has made you infinitely valuable.
You may feel flawed, you may feel less than radiant, less than beautiful, less than desirable, but God doesn’t. God literally rejoices over you! He delights in you!
I wonder if you can think back to your wedding day…for some of you, that was a long time ago, others not too long, and still others, you have not yet faced that day…but sometimes you dream about it.
I can only give you my perspective of a husband to be, but I remember that day, there was no one more beautiful than my bride. No one captured my attention more fully, more completely than Jennifer, coming down the aisle with her father in her white wedding dress. We may have had stresses that morning getting ready, frustrations in our planning and execution of the wedding ceremony, but for that singular moment, time stood still for me. I saw the fulfillment of my dreams, my desires, my hopes and my future walking toward me and my heart was filled with love. My perfect bride was coming toward me.
Brides, as you walk down that aisle, your eyes are fixed upon the one to whom you have chosen to give yourself completely to. None other can compete for your attention or desires. None can fulfill your dreams better.
This is the picture of Christ the bridegroom and the church, His bride. He buys her back from where she had been, paying the most costly of price to save her and in the process wins her affections.
Folks, Jesus will be returning for His bride, the church. That’s you and me.
The bridal analogy is the last analogy that Jesus emphasized at His first coming, and it will be the final one that the Spirit emphasizes before His second coming! “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!” (Rev. 22:17)
Let us look at how Love affects our obedience
Many people obey out of fear or duty. They say things like “I must obey” or quote “obedience is better than sacrifice.” Obedience is a right action, but its motivations may vary.
Why do we obey?
Because we must? A slave obeys for this reason, because he has no choice.
Because of duty? A soldier obeys orders because its his duty.
Because its rewarded? A laborer in a factory obeys to get paid.
Why do you obey?
The eldest son we read about last week obeyed out of slavish duty, never realizing his relationship entitled him to obey out of love! He was trapped in a mindset that led him to resent his father and his disobedient brother. That mindset was the result of the wrong motivation for his actions arising from a flawed self-identity.
Imagine, however, if our obedience arose from affection. An affection is a feeling of attachment, arising from a strong sense of love and reciprocity to the love of another.
I am not saying “obey when you feel like it” but imagine what would happen if you obeyed because you desired to obey.
Listen to this great quote by Mike Bickle, “A life characterized by affection-based obedience is a life in which a person knows that he or she is so loved by God, and so loves God in return, that obedience is the only reasonable response to anything that God wishes. Fort he sake of love, they give everything and find no sacrifice too great.”
This is more key than you might realize.
When we view our identity as voluntary lovers of God rather than manipulated workers or slaves, something is awakened in our lives.
This leads to affection based obedience and lovesick holiness!
Can you see why do we need to change the way we view God?
We need to live a life in Christ that relates to Him more than just a Healer who heals and a Savior who forgives. Jesus is a lover of your soul, He is God who is love sick for us!
We pray and live differently when we know that God’s heart for us is passionate love and affection instead of anger or punishment.
Since the days of Martha and Mary, the Kingdom of God has been populated by laborers and lovers.
While all of us must move back and forth between the two from time to time, there is an observation that cannot be denied. Lovers will outwork laborers every time.
It is said that once a business man told Mother Theresa, “You couldn’t pay me enough to do what you do for the poor.” To which Mother Teresa answered: “Me either.”
Her motivation was her love of Christ.
Two forces vying for your affections.
There are two forces vying for your attention and affection, not unlike two competing suitors for a bride.
Satan is seeking to seduce you to satisfy his desire to own you and destroy you and make you his slave.
Jesus is wooing and courting you as His bride, to make you spotless and infinitely perfect for your wedding day with Him, that you might rule with Him forever.
Most of us spend a great deal of our energy resisting the inferior pleasures that Satan offers.
We know they are counterfeits, we know that they will not satisfy, yet we fall for their lure over and over again.
Even when we say, “I’ll never do that again” we remember it was pleasurable, it was wrong and yet it felt good. It was sin but it was really, the only kind of “pleasure” that we had ever known.
God desires that you and I be awed solely by the pleasures available only through a relationship with Him.
He whispers to us, “Look around at the beauty of My Son, the greatness of who you are in Christ, how you will rule and reign with Me forever.”
It is only when we fix our eyes on the greater pleasures of God (set our minds on things above) that something happens in our hearts.
The first commandment moves into first place, and we begin to live for God wholeheartedly.
The pleasures that sin offered appear as they ought to…as shallow, cold, temporary and empty with their seductive quality that butchered our hearts in their consumption.
God’s plan is amazing. He created a Bride for His Son, watched her fall into imperfection and then offered His Son to redeem the Bride for Himself.
All along, God was CONFIDENT in knowing that He had endowed His Bride with longings that she could not ignore.
He knew that Satan would attempt to seduce His Bride, to manipulate these longings that God had given us, and even then, God didn’t get nervous or insecure. God knew what He had to offer and that it is infinitely better than anything Satan had to offer..
Even as the bride of Christ has run to and fro looking to satisfy these longings, God has remained confident that His bride would find fulfillment only when she returned to the identity and destiny for which she was created – to be the bride of Christ.
Our Desirability
Paul was a man romanced by the Gospel. He was a lovesick man. In Philippians 3:8 he wrote, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”
We are defined by the One who pursues us. We are not just the sum total of what we accomplish or perform. We are defined as important by virtue of the One who wants us, loves us and enjoys us. Our value is measured solely by the fact that Jesus treasures and desires us. And that is the key word, Desire.
Desirability.
Everyone of us understands desirability. As young, single men and women, we tried our best to make ourselves desirable to the opposite sex, to attract a spouse, to attract someone that would love us and desire us. Unfortunately, some of that was twisted, the very people we attract desire us for reasons other than we really want to be desired. They use us or they reject us when they get what they want.
Everyone of us understands what it means to be rejected when we have opened our heart to another.
Maybe when you passed a note to a person in high school, hoping they would receive your attention, they shredded your heart.
Or perhaps when you said, “I love you” to another teen and waited in awkward silence for a reciprocation and found none.
Our desirability is muted by our fear of rejection.
Fear of rejection is a learned behavior.
Our earthly relationships have given us plenty of opportunities to learn it.
Nothing is as tender as a bruised ego. Our heart that longs for love becomes calloused when we vow, “I won’t let that happen again.”
It becomes, “It hurts to be unloved and unwanted.”
Yet we are DESIRED by God!
What makes a home increase in value? Its beauty, location, size? Why is a home in Redmond Washington (Microsoft’s hometown) so much more expensive than a home in Wynot North Dakota? Its value is based upon desirability.
You have infinite value because you are desired by the greatest, richest One of all…Jesus Himself.
10 Cow Woman~!
Johnny Lingo was the most shrewd business trader on the island. Everyone respected him and his ability to buy things cheaply and sell them for more. He had a knack for enhancing the value of the things he obtained.
At festival time, Johnny came to the gathering and chose for himself a wife. The custom was that he would return in a week and bring a cow or two to pay the father for her. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a very good one.
Johnny was interested in a plainly looking girl named Sarita. . She was little and skinny and didn’t have much of a figure. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked, as if she was trying to hide behind herself. Her cheeks had no color, her eyes never opened beyond a slit and her hair was a tangled mop half over her face. She was scared of her own shadow, frightened by her own voice. She was afraid to laugh in public. She never romped with the girls, so how could she attract the boys?" Her father was surprised when Johnny expressed interest in Sarita, but figured that if he got one cow, that would be worth it, at least he could get her married off.
The day came for the cow(s) to be offred to Sam, Sarita’s father, and through the jungle the family (and the village that had gathered to witness this scene) could hear the sound of a cow bell being driven down the jungle path. Out into the clearing emerged one cow, then another, and another, until ten cows were driven by Johnny to Sam’s hut.
Then Johnny came into the hut and, without waiting for a word from any of them, went straight up to Sam, grasped his hand and said, "Father of Sarita, I offer ten cows for your daughter." The father was speechless and the village began whispering what a fool Johnny was. They couldn’t believe that Johnny had paid this unheard of price for a pitiful woman as Sarita.
"As soon as it was over Johnny took Sarita to the island of Cho for the first week of marriage. Then Johnny and Sarita disappeared for nearly a year as they began to settle down to family life.
Festival time came to the village the next year and Johnny showed up with a beautiful woman. All at the village were asking, “who is this woman?” and “what happened to Sarita?” Then Sam recognized his daughter, completely transformed and beautiful and approached Johnny. “What happened?” he asked.
"This is only one Sarita." His way of saying the words gave them a special significance. "Perhaps you wish to say she does not look the way they say she looked before?."
The villagers all made make fun of you because you let yourself by cheated by Sam Karoo."
"You think he cheated me? You think ten cows were too many?" A slow smile slid over his lips as I shook my head. "She can see her father and her friends again. And they can see her. Do you think anyone will make fun of us then? Much has happened to change her. Much in particular happened the day she went away."
"You mean she married you?"
"That, yes. But most of all, I mean the day I paid the price for her hand in marriage."
"Arrangements?"
"Do you ever think," he asked, "what it does to a woman when she knows that the price her husband has paid is the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when all the women talk, as women do, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel--the woman who was sold for one or two? This would not happen to my Sarita."
"Then you paid that unprecendented number of cows just to make your wife happy?"
"Happy?" He seemed to turn the word over on his tongue, as if to test its meaning. "I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes, but I wanted more than that. You say she’s different from the way they remember her. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In her father’s house, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows that she is worth more than any other woman on the islands."
God wants a 10 cow bride for His Son. He paid an enormous price for the bride. Satan laughed at God when God said you and I were worth it. God paid with the life of His own Son to redeem you from unloveliness. And yet, she has become the most beautiful bride possible! That is the image of the bride of Christ.
