Adorning The Bride Of Christ
01/13/08 AM
Reading: Revelation 19:7-9
Introduction
Ill: When I was about nine years old there was a wedding held at the church of Christ for the eldest daughter of one of the congregation families who was marrying the son of another long standing family. The family of the daughter was close friends with my family, their youngest son was about my age and we were friends just as were our parents. So it happened that I was with my mother at the house of the Bride on the day of the wedding as several of the ladies had gathered to prepare the bride. I remember being particularly delighted in the discomfort of my young friend as his role in the wedding party required he be dressed in black velour shorts with a vest and bow tie. I do not clearly recall the details of that day but there are two events which stand out in my memories even almost forty years later. The first recollection is of the moment when the mother of the bride presented her with a string of pearls to adorn her neck. It was the reaction of the mom and daughter and of all the ladies to that moment which makes it stand out. The pearls were a family heirloom, passed from daughter to daughter for more than five generations. Their history was storied, not the least of which was having been hidden in a dirt cellar of a South Carolina farm to save them from the looting Yankee troops during the days following the end of the Civil War. Tears and hugs were distributed in great abundance by all the ladies in the household, I didn’t understand the hoopla but I was impressed by the affect it was having on the women. The second event occurred later that morning and generated an almost equal level of emotional intensity but for a different reason altogether.
The wedding ceremony was to be conducted in the main auditorium of the church of Christ building and the bridal party was moving from the parking lot to the smaller auditorium in the back wing where the bride was to await the moment her father would deliver her down the aisle to the expectant groom. To reach the back wing of the building the bridal party had to pass under a covered walkway along side the main auditorium to a set of double doors giving access to the wing containing the smaller auditorium. It happens that in those days this walkway was home to a fair amount of nesting pigeons which for one reason or another were flushed from their perches as the bridal party passed beneath and one of the feathered flying rats deposited on the radiant bride a string of something quite unlike the antique pearls. The reaction of the mother of the bride and the other attending ladies was worthy of battlefield commanders. As the bride and her court were in various states of hysteria and stunned disbelief, the mothers moved like a well-oiled machine, whisking the bride into the mysterious environs of the ladies lounge where in very short order the offensive stain was eliminated from everything but horrified memory.
It’s likely that the bride of this story is not the last to have experienced the seeming disaster of a soiled dress but there is one other bride I want us to consider in our lesson today, a bride for which each of us may choose to adorn as with pearls or as pigeons.
I.The Bride Of Christ
A.Let us meet the Bridegroom
1.From the beginning of Christ’s ministry, John the Baptist understood that he was subordinate to Christ. John used the analogy of bridegroom and bride to show the preeminence of the Lord:
2.John 3:26-30 Jesus is the Bridegroom
3.In his letter to the believers in Ephesus, Ephesians 5:32, Paul equates Christian marriage to the union that exists spiritually between Christ and His bride, the church.
4.Revelation 19:7-8 ““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.”
B.How beautiful will be the gown of the Bride of Christ!
1.History has given us many memorable wedding gowns
a.Princess Diana walking down the aisle of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. 10,000 pearls adorned her gown.
b.In 2006 designers sought to create the most expensive wedding dress in history, The Diamond Wedding Dress, which is weaved throughout with $12M of diamonds.
2.Imagine how beautiful will be the gown of the Bride of Christ, which by His grace, He will use the very righteous deeds and good works which He created us to perform (Ephesians 2:10) as the material for the fine linen of her raiment.
3.And imagine his disapproval when we adorn His bride as pigeons rather than with the pearls of good works
C.We expect the world to sully the Bride of Christ.
1.We expect the world to behave more as pigeons than as pearls.
2.But the body of Christ, the Bride herself often is guilty of besmirching the one for whom Christ gave his life with unbecoming words and actions. And we thoughtlessly do it again and again.
There are several areas in our Christian walk where we may adorn the bride of Christ more like pigeons than as with pearls:
II.Adorning As Pigeons
A.In the area of Commitment
1.Here we are talking about putting our hand to the plow and committing ourselves to the exacting discipleship of Jesus: Luke 9:57 62
a.Where are our priorities, are we seeking first the kingdom of God?
b.Are we subordinating our will to His? When we make decisions for our lives do we consider Him first?
c.Do we make a habit of assembling with the saints, preferring on another, loving one another?
Hebrews 10:23-25 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
d.Do we look not only to our own interest but first to the interest of others?
2.Do we follow Christ or are we pigeons feathering our own nests and soiling the bride when she intrudes in our lives?
3.God had made it clear where our commitment is to lie:
Matthew 22:35-40 “One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
B.In the area of Contribution
1.When the word “contribution” is heard we seem to immediately believe the topic is about giving more money.
a.Time; Talent; and Tithe is the way I heard it preached growing up (Tithe being a tidy way to say money.)
2.Believers often fall into the “hotel mentality” when we assemble with the saints.
a.We walk in expecting everything to be prepared for our comfort and convenience and we walk out leaving dirty towels on the floor and the bed unmade, complaining to anyone who will listen on how the service did not meet our standards.
b.In the process we treat the brethren as if they were hotel staff, the concierge, the bellboy, or the maid.
c.The fact is that we are to be the servants of each other. We should be falling all over ourselves to contribute all to the Bride of Christ.
d.It is recorded in the thirteenth chapter of the gospel of John that Jesus washed the feet of His disciples and made the following statement:
John 13:12-16 “So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? “You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. “Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.”
3.This should put to rest any notion that we come into the assembly to be served but there are those in many congregations who continue to judge solely on how well their expectations have been met and when the church falls short the feathers fly and once again the bride of Christ is splattered.
C.In the area of Contentment
1.This area of our Christian walk is closely linked to the area of contribution.
2.There is a comedy show that has been on American TV since the Seventies, Saturday Night Live which during the 1982 season featured a series of skits starring Joe Piscopo and Robin Duke playing the characters Doug and Wendy Whiner -- and they whined, and they moaned, and they complained about everything, all the time. Nothing made them happy. They just couldn’t be satisfied, ever.
3.In one segment Doug & Wendy (Joe/Robin) are airline passengers who even find something to complain about when their Economy Class tickets have to be upgraded to First Class. It seems that the First Class seats are simply too uncomfortably large for them!
4.Sadly we are so often like Doug and Wendy whiner, the malcontents, the chronic complainers, those for whom things are just never good enough even when it is the best we have ever known.
5.No amount of grease can silence these squeaky wheels, the feathers on these pigeons are forever ruffled and the world is going to hear about it, over and over and over again. Their complaints will air non-stop to all who listen and make the bride of Christ appear cheap and shabby to those who do not know her.
D.In the area of Character
1.The final area in which we may act more like pigeons than pearls is the area of Character.
2.It has been said that Character is how we behave when no one can see. And it is in this area that we can do the most damage to the bride of Christ.
3.How often does the world trumpet the short-comings of a supposed Godly person? When our hypocrisy is exposed, the world gleefully reports every little detail.
4.We know we are not perfect and claiming to be Christian does not make us perfect but without proper humility we can broadcast that “holier than thou” attitude to the world (remember that the world hates us anyway John 15:19.)
5.“Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” St. Francis of Assisi
a. “He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.” Francis Bacon, Sr.
b.To adorn the bride of Christ with pearls we must strive to practice what we preach in all things at all times:
Colossians 3:17 “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”
In these areas of our walk in Christ we need to be sensitive to how we adorn the bride of Christ and admit that at times we behave more like pigeons. This does not mean that we are bad Christians; it does not mean that we do not love the Lord; it does not mean we are not going to heaven. It may be that we have simply slipped into bad habits without being aware of how it affects the bride of Christ.
III.The Results of Our Actions
A. The devil is handed an opportunity.
1.Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
2.I Peter 5:8 “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
3.If we were of the mind that our adversary is always lurking, waiting to exploit our words and deeds whenever possible to further soil the bride of Christ we might be more careful in what we say and do.
B. The lost are handed an excuse.
1.There are those who are lost that will exhaust every excuse to deny the gospel of Jesus.
a.It’s like the children’s story “If you give a mouse a cookie…” Then he wants a glass of milk, (straw, napkin, mirror, scissors, broom, mop, bucket, little box, pillow, story, paper, crayons, pen, tape)
b.There are people like this and every time we act like pigeons we are handing them excuses with our own actions. With every splatter we provide the rationalization they want to avoid the truth.
C.The Lord is handed a heartache
1.Jesus is the bridegroom of the church. He gave us everything for His bride. Philippians 2:5-7
2.First Lady Laura Bush has been quoted as saying the that most difficult thing about being a politicians wife is hearing people say ugly things about your spouse, things you know are not true. And we all feel that way about the ones we love.
3.And if that is the way we fell, can’t we assume that Jesus feels the same way about His bride. When people callously sully His bride, how much greater must be the heartache felt by the Lord especially when it is done by those who should be adorning her with pearls.
Conclusion:
We have all at some time or another behaved as pigeons, the question we need to address is in these areas: commitment, contribution, contentment, and character, have we made it a habit to adorn the Bride of Christ as pigeons or as with pearls?
Invitation
