The Church in a Messy World
The Handsomeness of Christ, our Husband
Isaiah 54:5
July 23rd, 2017
This sermon is part of our series in 1 Corinthians. I preached it as a precursor to Paul’s discourse on divorce.
Shopping for a Husband
I bet you didn’t know it but a "Husband Shopping Center" just opened up in town women can shop for their perfect husband! You know that’s not true but play along with me. The store is laid out in five floors, with the men increasing in positive attributes on each floor. The only way to get to each floor is by way of an elevator. When the doors open there is a sign describing the kind of husbands on that floor.
The only rule is this: Once the door opens a woman has to make a choice of whether or not to step off and shop from the men on that floor. If they decide to go up to the next floor, they couldn’t go back down except to leave the store.
So, a couple of girlfriends decided to go shopping there.
First floor: The doors opened to this sign…"These men have jobs and love kids." The women read the sign and said: "Well that's better than not having jobs, or not loving kids, but I wonder what's further up?" So up the hit the button for floor two.
Second floor sign read: "These men have high paying jobs, love kids, and are extremely good looking." "Hmmm," say the ladies, "But, I wonder what's further up?"
Third floor: "These men have high paying jobs, are extremely good looking, love kids and help with the housework." "Wow!" say the women. "Very tempting, BUT, I wonder what’s on the fourth floor!" And so again, they go up. You see they were looking for the perfect husband.
The sign on the fourth said: "These men have high paying jobs, love kids, are extremely good looking, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak." "Oh Lord what a blessing, but just think?! What must be awaiting us on the fifth?! The perfect husband must be there!" So up to the fifth floor they go.
The fifth floor elevator doors opened. The sign said: "There is no such thing as a perfect husband. This floor proves that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping and have a nice day!"
But there is a perfect husband. His name is Jesus Christ! If you know Him as Lord and Savior understand this: Christ is also your husband. I told you last week that we were going to look at the issue of divorce since that’s where we’re at in 1st Corinthians, but as I began sermon prep Monday the thought of Christ as our husband kept coming to mind. So much so that I took it that God wants me to preach on this today. We talk much about Jesus as prophet, priest and king. We talk much of Him as Lord and Savior and friend, but if you know Christ, He is also your husband. And I honestly don’t think we can understand divorce until we see how handsome Christ, our husband, truly is. You may wonder about the connection between the two, but I assure you it is there as you will see next week.
We often examine divorce in light of its negative earthly consequences to us personally. Many sermons highlight these consequences hoping it will help people will steer clear of divorce. While I think we must continue to do this, it’s not enough to motivate couples to stay married or for singles to stay chase. BTW, this sermon is also for singles. God calls you to chastity for a very important reason. That reason is Christ is your husband, for you are betrothed to Him.
It is the same thing with salvation. I don’t think that preaching about the terrible consequences of hell alone motivates people to seek salvation through Jesus Christ. They must see the superior beauty and righteousness of Christ. Let’s face it, we are motivated by that which we think brings life. We may chase after things that bring despair but no one purposefully runs after death. So in our speech we must talk much about that which brings life. And our talk must be that of Jesus Christ and how He stands head and shoulders above every source of satisfaction.
For example, do you remember the story of Peter and the disciples when they first met Christ? Jesus told them to set out from the shore and to let down their nets. Peter gave Jesus a short lecture about fishing…that there isn’t anything there, but they did as instructed and to his surprise God gave them a couple boatloads of fish!
What did Peter do next? We know the answer. He fell at the feet of Jesus saying, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man!” Christ had not preached about hell and its negative consequences as a way to help Peter see his sinfulness. Instead, Peter caught a glimpse of the superiority of Christ which caused him to see his sinfulness AND also sparked in him a desire to follow Christ for he saw that Christ was life. The story ends with Peter and the boys leaving their nets to follow Christ.
I am pretty well convinced that we will not lay down our paltry sins until we see something…I should say, someone that is better to lay hold of. That someone is Jesus. And we will continue to see divorce through the eyes of this earth until we see what it means to have Christ as our husband. He is handsome beyond compare. He is the perfect husband in every way! He is way beyond the 5th floor!
Will you pray with me before we begin? (Father, do not let me mess this up)
The Handsomeness of Christ, our Husband
The Bible says much about Christ as our husband beginning in the Old Testament. Most OT passages refer to God’s relationship with Israel but I think God means for us to also see them as a picture of Christ’s marriage to His bride, the church.
5 For your Maker is your husband,
the LORD of hosts is His name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth He is called.
Isaiah 54:5
You ask what is it that makes Christ so handsome?
The handsomeness of Christ, our husband
He is handsome because…
#1: He chose us to be His bride when there was nothing attractive about us.
Christ is unlike single men and women in the hunt for a spouse. We look for someone we are attracted to. Are they cute? We want to see their picture. We also look for someone we think will make us happy. Get this: Christ did not choose His wife with these thoughts in mind. He did not look for a beautiful woman, a smart woman or even one who would be faithful.
He chose an unlikely wife…a peculiar wife.
6 For the LORD has called you
like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,
like a wife of youth when she is cast off,
says your God.
Isaiah 54:6
Turn your attention to Ezekiel 16 on the screen. It’s important that we see our state before Christ. These words were spoken to Israel but I believe God would have you see them as a picture of Christ, as your husband.
3bThus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
In other words, you came from an immoral family. They weren’t blue-bloods. You’re family of origin was extremely dysfunctional.
4 And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. 5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.
During the day s of Ezekiel, things had sunk so low that infanticide was practiced by many. If a newborn baby wasn’t wanted their birth parents had the option of throwing them naked into a field, unwashed, with the umbilical cord still attached. Verse 6 tells us that the baby would then wallow in its’ blood until it died of exposure. E.W. G Masterman indicates that if the baby was accepted by the family, they would cleanse the newborn with water, rub it with salt and oil and then wrap it tightly in swaddling clothes. They then repeated the same process 7 days later. Apparently they believed salt and oil would cleanse and firm the skin.
God is telling us that your condition before Christ was like that of a helpless, ugly baby, spurned and rejected. People saw you but had no compassion. You were wanted by no one wanted you. If a parent threw their baby in the field they relinquished all rights which meant another could come and take them as theirs.
God says, even though they could, no one wanted you.
6 “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’
But God did not despise us! Even though there was no beauty in us, He took us into His arms. Now look at what God did…
7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.
This exactly what God did for Israel.
8 “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of My garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made My vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became Mine.
He took care of His betrothed! When a man spread the hem of his garment over a woman it was the equivalent of a man dropping to one knee asking a woman to be his wife. The spreading of the garment showed his willingness to love, support and care for her. We see this care in verse 9.
9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. 10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. 11
Ezekiel 16:3-10
This is what our husband, Jesus Christ did and still continues to do! While we were ugly and unloved He entered into a covenant relationship, vowing to never leave nor forsake us. And He provides us with the best. No hand-me-down clothes from a thrift store for His bride!
We see this in the New Testament as well.
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
Revelation 19:8
Give My bride the best!
We see His choosing work in the book of Ephesians…
4 He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy [set apart as special] and blameless before Him.
Ephesians 1:4
Please note: We were not chosen because we were blameless. He chose us so that He could make us beautiful and blameless!
In chapter 2 Paul states:
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
God actually chose a lifeless woman to be His Son’s wife! Like any corpse we were ugly and unable to fulfill the duties of a wife. Ezekiel gives the picture of a spurned baby gasping its last breath. Paul says we had no breath. Before we could look beautiful God had to raise us from the dead!
This is what it means to have Christ as your husband. Speaking to this John Piper says…
“You were cast out, bloody, dirty, and dead. And then the Son of God walks by. Stops. Looks at this disgusting, filthy, aborted thing and says, ‘At last! My wife. My beloved. My chosen. Live!’
John Piper
Christ chose you when you were unattractive. Jesus is attractive beyond measure!
Another reason Christ is handsome is that…
#2: The dowry for His bride was His very own blood. (Romans 5:7-10)
The idea of a dowry is confusing to us in the USA. We don’t do it this way. When I asked for Jean’s hand in marriage it was a deal. I got her “hand” and the family paid for the wedding and ceremony! That’s not how it was done in Israel.
Romans 5 Paul tells us that Christ sacrificed Himself, shedding His blood while we were lost and sinful and most of all His enemies! He did not die for an ugly woman…a helpless woman. He died for a woman who thought of Him as repugnant! Don’t miss this! Ephesians 5:25 tells us that Christ gave Himself up for the church which means those chosen before the foundations of the world were in His mind when He died! Romans 5:10 states…
10 …while we were enemies (Hateful) we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…
Romans 5:10a
This means Christ’s bride-to-be found Him repugnant, offensive and even ugly! Isaiah 53 tells us that He was despised and forsaken by men. So Christ knew ahead of time that He would be hated, but He paid the dowry to God anyway so that He could call us His own.
This too makes Him handsome.
#3: He gave us His name. Our identity totally changed.
We didn’t keep our maiden name. Like a bride, who takes the last name of her husband, Christ gave us His own identity. Our new name is “Christian.”
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17
With this came all the rights and privileges that He has for all eternity. The old dysfunctional family is forever gone. His property and rights are ours. And our property and rights belong to Him.
When you came to faith in Christ, it’s as if Jesus said “I Christ take you __________ to be my wedded wife. All I am and have is yours. I give you My name.”
If you doubt this read the opening chapter of Ephesians later today.
This means also means that…
#4: Our reputation is tied to His and His is tied to ours.
To gain a deeper understanding of what it means to have Christ as our husband, I had to dig back in time to men like Wesley and Charles Finney.
In his sermon, Christ the Husband of the Church, Charles Finney states that our reputation is so tied to Christ’s and His to ours that what affects our character, affects His; and what affects His character affects ours. This is one reason why sex outside of marriage isn’t a personal, individual choice since our reputations are inseparable.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
1 Corinthians 6:15-17 (emphasis added)
There is a one spirit union which includes the joining of reputations.
So we must guard His reputation, but know this too: Christ guards our reputation like a zealous husband guards the reputation of his wife. You go after my wife, you are going after Me! says Christ.
Finney powerfully states,
“Never was there a human being so pledged, so devoted to the interest of his wife, or felt so keenly an injury, as Jesus Christ feels when his church has her reputation or her feelings injured. He declares that it were better a man had a mill-stone hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the depths of the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones that believe in him.”
Charles Finney
APP: Be careful what you say against His bride, both individually and corporately! Jesus doesn’t like it when you talk “smack” about His bride! It’s why He hates gossip and slander.
This too makes Christ handsome.
This means that Christ, our husband…
#5: He zealously protects and defends us.
Earthly husbands know they should do this, but let’s face it, many fail. More than once I asked Jean to go check out a noise downstairs because I was too lazy to get out of bed! Sorry.
3 But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
2 Thessalonians 3:3
Just as a wife expects her husband to protect her, Christ has pledged to protect His church, His wife from every foe, because He is our protector.
Again, I lean into Charles Finney at this point:
“How often have the powers of hell tried to put down the church, but her husband has never abandoned her. No weapon formed against His bride has ever been allowed to prosper. Never will the Lord Jesus so forget His relation to the church, as to leave His bride unprotected! Let all earth and hell conspire against the church; and just as certain as Christ has power to do it, His church is safe. And every individual believer is just as safe, as if he [or she] was the only believer on earth. The devil can no more put down a single believer, to final destruction, than he can put down God Almighty! He may murder them, but there is no injury. Overcoming a believer by taking his life, affords Satan no triumph. He put Christ to death, but what did he gain by it?”
The answer of course is nothing!
“There is no power in the universe that can prevail against a single believer. Jesus Christ is the Head of the church and Head over all things to the church, and the church is safe.”
Charles Finney
Christ, our husband, is our strong protector.
Let me tell you one more thing about our Christ, our husband.
#6: Christ, our husband, patiently, persistently, pursues us.
2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:2
Betrothal was equivalent to marriage back then although the final “consummation” or “ceremony” and party was still future. We are married to Christ while the consummation is yet a future event. In this passage we see the pursuing, forbearing love of Christ for the affections of His bride.
Sometimes we dirty ourselves up like the bride in this picture, for every time we sin, we soil ourselves in some way. Dirt happens.
https://juliehunter.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/trash-the-dress-7823-2-copy.jpg
Many in the church of Corinth were whoring themselves after other lovers. This has been the case throughout history. It is true of us personally.
Think about this: What husband on earth would bear with how we treat Christ, our husband? Yet Christ still offers to be reconciled to us! He lays Himself out again and again to regain our affections! Sometimes a husband can treat his wife in such a way that she loses her love for her husband. But where can anything be found in the character and conduct of Christ to justify the treatment He receives? Where can any fault or deficiency be found in Him? And even after all we do to Him, what is He doing now?
What husband would follow after his wandering, guilty, soiled wife, from place to place, entreating her, with tears, to return to his house and be reconciled? What husband would persist in this even though she continues to chase after other lovers?
Yet this is what Christ, our husband does for us. Yes, at times He leaves us to wallow in our sin, but only so that we might wake up and return to Him.
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her [there].”
Hosea 2:14
He doesn’t leave us in the wilderness. He brings us there so that we might repent and turn back to Him and His ways so that we might find life and joy in Him.
He forbears and pursues and aren’t you glad He does? Wow!
This is our husband!
There is so much more I could say about Him. He is perfect in every way! There is such a thing as a perfect husband!
Why does He treat us this way?
And we must ask why does He treat us in this manner?
To present to Himself a lovely bride who lives with Him happily ever after! This is no fairy tale. I’m not trying to be cute.
Think about this: One goal of marriage is the happiness of both husband and wife. As I pour out love on Jean, I share in her happiness that comes as a result.
I think it’s the same with Christ. The happiness of Christ is increased as we experience the outcome of His love toward us. Hebrews 12 seems to back this up…
2b Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2b
Christ endured a world of shame for His own happiness, which was not and is not wrong. The word “joy” in the Greek includes the idea of cheerfulness! Christ receives joy as we find our satisfaction in Him. It would be very strange to hear of a husband contributing to the happiness of his wife, without enjoying it himself.
Happy church, happy Christ! By this I don’t mean that Christ serves our every whim. He is not subservient to us. It’s the opposite. I mean Christ’s love for us brings happiness to Him as we experience the pleasure of being in relationship with Him. Look at the happiness of His bride in Revelation:
6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
6“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give Him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and His Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
Revelation 19:6-9
16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
17 The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.”
Revelation 22:16-17
This future wedding celebration will be the final culmination of our marriage to Christ. And oh how He anticipates being with us! What a happy celebration it will be!
The Brides response to Christ, her Husband
And what must be our response? We are to honor and obey. He invites us to enter into His joy.
Who in their right mind would turn down a proposal like this?
This is what we must see before we look at divorce, which we will do next week.
Where are you this morning?
You may have been abandoned and divorced. Know this, you have a husband that will never leave you nor forsake you. His name is Jesus.
As a husband, he is present right now. I love calling to God in prayer. I love saying Christ is My Lord, but sometimes those terms, even though good, make Him feel distant. But not “husband,” that is a term I understand since I am one. It speaks of closeness, or being available to help, at a moment’s notice. You can call out to Him as your husband.
If you’ve never put your trust in Him, I invite you to receive Him as Lord and Savior, and husband.
