The Bride of Christ

Welcome to Hybrid Church. For those who do not know me my name is Faith and I am the kids pastor at EEC.

For those who are new I actually got married 6 months ago. It was such a beautiful day. What was so cool for me about that day was for my whole life I dreamed of my wedding (as most girls do, if your a boy you might not relate to this part). But I would dream and imagine and wondering who I was going to marry, what my dress would look like, what bridemaids I would end up choosing, and of course, praying really hard for good weather. But this long-awaited day came and I remenber right before I walked down the eil thinking, oh my goodness this is the moment I always dreamed about, It is right here! It was such a surreal moment.

In the Bible we see that God is often compared to a groom and the church to a bride. Just as a groom is willing to lay down his life for his bride, Jesus laid down his life for the church. He sacrificed himself on the cross to save us from our sins and make us worthy to be called the bride of Christ.

Being the bride of Christ is not just about what we do; it is also about who we are. We are not just a collection of individuals but a community united with Christ. We are the body of Christ, and just as a bride is unitede to her groom in marriage, we are united to Christ in faith.

Today we are going to focus on this:

What does it mean to be the bride of Christ?

How does this apply to my life?

What does it mean to be the bride of Christ?

I want to be clear that the bride of Christ is NOT that Jesus is going to marry all of his beleivers and have many wives. Rather it serves as a symbol to Gods heart for the church.

When we look at bride, she is often characterized as being full of joy and happiness. They are clothed in white and got their jewlerly on and hair done. And they are given love and affection by their groom.

When we look at a groom we see that they are associated with happiness, rejoicing and they wore special clothing.

There are several verses that show Jesus as a bridegroom For instance, Matthew 9:14-15 “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

Jesus is rerfering to himself as the bridegroom because he is hinting at his crucifixion, and the guests are his disciples. He is saying that He will be taken away from his death on the cross, therefore, do not mourn while he is there.

In Matthew 25:1-10 the future coming of Jesus is also compared to the sudden arrivial of a bridegroom.

Another example is Ephesians 5:22-23 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.”

Paul uses the relationship between Christ and the church as an analogy for the relationship between husband and wife. The wife’s submission, which was expected by Graeco-Roman values, is placed in the context of spiritual submission to Christ (see note on 5:22–6:9). Likewise, husbands, as the heads of households in Graeco-Roman society, are instructed by Paul to show their wives respect (compare v. 25 and note). Paul contextualizes Graeco-Roman values within the larger perspective of Christ’s self-sacrificial love.

Ephesians 5:24-27 “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

When Paul says, “Husbands love your wives”, he is mostly refering to sacrificial actions for the benefit of the wife. The highest model of this is Christs death on the cross.

In the 1st century Pauls words were very foreign to this culture because husbands were actually not necessarily exptected to show love for his wife. Paul goes into detail about the wifes role to submit to her husband while strongly emphasizing the husbands role to love her deeply.

I used to have a hard time with this passage until I learned something so beautiful about it in Bible college.

Wife, if your husband is submitting to Christ and loves you with all his heart, it becomes easy to follow his leadership. Husbands, if you are not submitting to Christ, your wife (who is a Christ follower) is not obligated to follow your lead because she surrenders to Christ first. If you are not loving her as Christ loves the church, if you are not willing to die for her, to cherish her, to be patient with her, be gentle with her, she does not have to submit to godless, fleshly behaviour. Why? Because she surrenders to Christ first. If you ask of her to do anything Christ would not ask, she can say no. She is not a doormate to be walked on, but a woman to be cherished.

Submission is a humble attitude where we follow the lead of those we are in a relationship with wether that is at work, church, marriage, family, by law, and to God.

When we think of the word submit in our culture, not a lot of pleasent images come to our mind because we were taught that it is a bad thing. But it is actually a good thing when used properly. There are horrible times where submission is used to abuse, and misstreat others however, this is not the kind of submission the Bible is talking about.

Submission when used properly is really an act of love. Where the one who is in authrotiy is watching out for us, wanting the best for us, caring for us, giving up everything for us, putting us first, and the person who is submitting saying ‘I trust you, i trust your leadership’

What does it mean to be the bride of Christ?

To be the bride of Christ is to trust Him compleatly.

Another meaning to the bride of Christ is to be cleaned by Him and make perfect.

Ephesians 5:26-27 “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

This imagry here of washing of water applies Christ’s care for his church. It could also be refering to an inward cleansing that accomplished by the power of the gospel to free beleivers from sin.

When paul writes “not having spot or wrinkle” hints at bridal garments as a symbol of purity before God. When we come before God, we dont even have a hint of sin on us becuase of the cleansing of Christ.

Paul again uses the words“holy and blameless”to describe the glorious state of the church.

What does it mean to be the bride of Christ? Not only does it mean to be cherished so much to the point of sacrifical love, and to trust Him wholheartly but it means to be presented holy, blameless, spotless, pure, cleaned, flawless before God.

Another meaning to the Bride of Christ is to be rejoiced over and adorned:

Isaiah 61:10 “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

This again shows the relationship of Christ and the church. This analogy focuses on the care and attention that went into adornment.

Adornment means to put on special jewles and metals to enhance the beauty of buildings or things.

When Christ gave himself up for us he made us more beautiful, enhancing us by taking our dirty rags of sin and clothing us in his righteousness.

Not only did he sacrifice his life for us, and we trust him but He prepares us to be His bride by cleansing us and getting us spiritually ready for Him. By rejoicing over us, adorning us and making us pure.

Now with this, I want to ask:

Why is being the bride of Christ a good analogy?

The bridegroom was required to pay a price for his bride (Christ paid the ultimate price for us “His bride).

What is interesting about this is that at that time in this culture, they had to pay a price for the bride. Now, it wasnt necessarily money that they used rather it was labor because in giving up their daughter they would lose some contribution to the tribe.

In Genesis 29 Jacob serves in order to pay for his bride, 7 years for Leah and another 7 years for Rachel.

We see a lot of spiritual parallels between paying for the bride in this culture and Jesus paying the price for us on the cross.

But why does all this matter? How does this even apply to me?

How does this apply to my life?

For those of you who do not know I actually have OCD. Now, OCD is often missunderstood. For instance, I often hear people say “omg sorry im so ocd” because they like a really organized room, and likes to use coloured highlighters during college. That is not OCD, that is called being uptight.

OCD is like, OMG i better not forget to take my vitamin or else I could get a life threatening illness and die! Now, for many years of my life I thought I was just anxious. But overtime, my counsellor was like umm no, this is OCD.

Now, sometimes, for those who are not aware of this mental health issue. Here is how it is categorized,

O is for obsession. It is the fear and thought that is connected to that fear

C is for compulsion meaning that when we feel the fear we compulse to cope with the fear or thought.

These thoughts are usually reocurring, unwanted and often feels uncontrollable.

Now the reason I am telling you this is because sometimes the church can be a bit OCD when it comes to religion. Meaning that I noticed some Christians give into their fearful thoughts and allow it to control them (Just a disclaimer that people with OCD have it much worse, HOWEVER, I notice patterns of fearful thinking within church memebers that is kinda like it)

For example,

“I need to pray 5 times a day or else I might not get into heaven”

“How do I know that i did not blasphemy the holy spirit? What if I did the unforgivable sin and God wont accept me?”

“I did not pray enough, or I do not know my BIble enough, even though I pray and know scripture, I feel unqualitifed to lead others and not only do I feel unqualified but I will avoid all areas of serving because I am just ‘not ready’.

“What if God has left me?”

“I sinned and now I am worried God has or might abandon me”

And out of these fearful thoughts, you might be tempted to repeat prayers over and over. Or repent for the same sins again and again even though you have already asked for forgiveness.

You might be tempted to repeatedly check the same Bible verses just to make sure nothing has changed.

These are all fearful thoughts that are rooted in a lack of understanding of scripture.

Now, the reason I am so passionate about this is because I see some preachers who missinterpret scripture, who yell at their congregation saying “REPENT!!!!”

One of my mentors said this to me once, he said “God does not yell at his bride” They have already repented, they have already turned their life to Jesus. God does not yell at his bride.

So why does understanding our position as being the bride of christ matter? Because we need to deeply know Gods heart for us and live in that understanding. That when a scripture makes us afraid, with the understanding of Christ, dive deeper into the scripture with biblical scholars and reaserch that helps us further understand.

That when we are tempted to pray the same prayer, we can relax and TRUST that the groom is who He says He is.

This practice has greatly helped free my heart from a lot of mental beatings.

God does not speak harshly to His bride. He speaks truth, but he is never harsh to those who belong to Him. He is full of joy, happiness, love, willing to do anything to cleans and sanctify her, to pay the price for her, to care for her, to lead her and guide her into all truth and life.

So why do we speak so harshly to ourselves? Why do we allow mental beatings from ourselves? God does not yell at his bride.

Even when you make mistakes, God has mercy on you just like He did to Israel in the book of Hosea.

He says, Hosea 3:1-3 “And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.””

I want you to picture something for me. Imagine your in a marriage where one is perfect. Where they could literally do no wrong. They are loving and kind and gentle. They respond to everything you say and do with love and grace. And the other is imperfect. They get araid, have a lack of confidence. They doubt the other person and worry about them being unfaithful to their promise. They get angry at them when things do not always go right and they sin against them. Would this be a healthy marriage in real life?

This marriage is symbolic for sometimes our marriage to Christ. We doubt if he will keep his promise of being faithful to the end. We think its all on us to keep the relationship going, but really its both and it is God who draws us.

Gods love is so deep that even when we fail consistently he takes us back again.

Hosea3:1 “And God says, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel.”

He says, “Go again”

This implies that this wasnt the first time that she has been unfaithful. In other words, she is consistently unfaithful. And she has a lover, meaning that this is not an act of prostitution rather this is an act of commiting adultery by living with another man as if she was his wife.

But hosea is to redeem his wife. Through him buying back his wife he was able to redeem her. He had to buy her because she had come under some kind of debt slavery. And he paid the price for her.

1 Corinthians 6:20 “for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Galatians 4:7 “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

Romans 6:6-7 “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.”

Hebrews 9:22 “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus paid the price for us, to get us out of the slavery of sin with His blood. Like Gomer who is Hoseas wife we are no longer a slave to sin. We are the bride of Christ.

Conclusion:

To be the Bride of Christ is to

Trust In Christ

To be cleaned by Christ

To be adorned by Christ

This is valuable truth in our lives because we do not want to fall into the trap of thinking or beleiving that God for any reason wouldn’t go to great lenghts to find you.

This is a very deeply personal story for me. But, a lot of you dont know that I actually have a brother. My brother is not a part of my life anymore, but I often get updates about Him from my parents. When he was on the streets there was a time where he overdosed and called my dad and asked if he could come get him. My dad came as fast as he could, driving 2-3 hours to go get him. He gets to the spot Daniel said he was and he wasnt there so he began to walk around the neighborhood to find him. After searching and searching he sees my brother lying there in disgusting clothes that hadnt been washed in god knows how long. Unwashed hair, dirty skin, dirty clothes, and a deep smell, he looks up at my dad and says, “you found me.”

My dad then picked him up and drove him to the nearest hotel to get cleaned and sober. After the went out and got food to eat and spent the rest of the day together buying some new clothes and a few things he had to leave.

Now, if my dad who is human can run after his broken son to come to his aid, how much more Christ to His children? How much more Christ to His bride?

That God would run after you again and again and again.

I want us to come into a moment of worship again, so if the worship team could come up. Let’s worship our groom, our Christ, the one who we trust, who cleanses us and adornes us. Let’s worship Him for how good He is.