Sacrificial Love

Introduction

Read Ephesians 5:22-32

Typically when preaching Ephesians 5:22-32, the focus is the relationships within the family, which make sense.

But, for this series, I want to allow the commands to husband’s and wives to fall to the background and allow what Paul says about Christ and the church to stand out.

Look again at verses 31-32...

Paul’s point throughout this passage is that the relationship between a husband and a wife is like the relationship between Christ and His church in that there is a profound, yet mysterious unity in both relationships. In fact, throughout Scripture, the church is often called the bride of Christ.

But, the connections that Paul uses when it comes to the relationship between Christ and His church aren’t limited to this verse in this passage.

So, using this passage as a jumping off point, we are going to begin an eight-week sermon series focusing on what it means to be the bride of Christ.

In this series we are going to see:

What Jesus has done for His bride, which initiates the relationship between Christ and His bride.

What Jesus does for His bride, focusing on what He is constantly doing for His bride.

What His bride does because of His love, which is the reasonable response of His bride because of what He has done and what He continually does.

Unlike my typical sermons, each week we will start in Ephesians 5:22-32, but then we will look at another text that illustrates the truth we find in Ephesians.

Body: Ephesians 5:22-30 & John 19:16-30

Ephesians 5:25-27

We learn in these verses our first of two things vital truths when it comes to being the bride of Christ: what Jesus has done for His bride:

“...gave himself up for her...”

So, what has Jesus done for His bride? He sacrificed Himself for His bride.

“…that he might sanctify her...”

What has Jesus done for His bride? He sanctified His bride for Himself.

This morning we will examine the sacrifice. Next week we will look at how He has sanctified His bride to Himself.

John 19:16-18

Most today realize that Jesus was crucified and that crucifixion was an extremely brutal form of capital punishment. However, for most people today, the cross is a symbol of Christianity or of Jesus. We need to be careful with that.

Crucifixion was brutal on a number of levels:

Typically people would die of asphyxiation, as they could not hold themselves up long enough to breathe.

The pain would have been unbearable as the victim was nailed (one in each wrist and one in the heels) to the cross, which stood roughly nine feet in the air.

Additionally, the hot temperatures and scorching sun would eat away at a person’s strength.

Plus, he had already endured a Roman beating, which was so brutal it sometimes killed people before they could even be crucified.

This was called the verberatio. The victim would be stripped naked, tied to a post, and beaten by several soldiers with a whip laced with chips of bone or metal. (At times the beatings were so severe that entrails and even bone might be exposed!)

And they would be forced to carry the cross beam themselves to the execution hill!

Further humiliation and brutality...

It was reserved only for capital murderers and insurrectionists.

It always took place right off the major highway leading into a Roman controlled city as a sign saying, “Mess with Roman, this will be your fate!”

Its call Skull because it’s a place of death. (Golgotha in Aramaic. Calvary is Latin, not Greek.)

Two others were facing the same fate, but not really...

This is where we need to pick up the impact of this every time we read it in Scripture:

Jesus, the Only Holy One. The Savior of the World. The Good Shepherd. The Perfect One. He is facing the worst form of torture for you and me.

And it’s more than that. Jesus is becoming sin. Becoming the sin of the guy on the cross next to him. Becoming my sin. Becoming your sin. Becoming all his people’s sin. Forsaken by God, because He has become the very embodiment of the sin that we so often blush at, hide from the world, or deny.

Thus, when we say it was a sacrifice, it’s not an understatement. The only worthy One dying for an unworthy sinner like me and like you.

John 19:28-30

Jesus fulfills another Scripture (Ps. 69:21) by asking for a drink.

Instead of water, they give gall, a sour vinegar.

This was used by soldiers to quickly quench their thirst.

But notice that now that all has been accomplished, Jesus himself gives up his spirit.

Don’t even forgot that Jesus himself stayed up on that cross until it was finished.

What was finished?

Until the penalty for sin was paid in full. And it was! (You cannot, could not, and will never have to pay the penalty for sins…Jesus paid it in full!)

When it speaks of Jesus “giving up his spirit”, that’s a euphemism for dying.

It doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit left him, as JW’s say.

The focus is on his voluntary self-sacrifice. Jesus is in control!

Why?

Go back to Ephesians 5:25-27

Look closely at verse 27

Ephesians 5:27 ESV

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.

Why did Jesus sacrifice Himself for unworthy sinners?

To cleanse His people of all unrighteousness.

We are all stained with sin...

So His people might be set aside for Himself.

We belong to Christ. We are His people; His bride.

To be holy is to be set apart for God’s purposes.

So His bride can be presented to Him in the splendor of purity.

One of the happiest days of my life happened on September 12, 1998...

When April walked down that aisle, she came to me (unworthy as I was) as my bride. No one else could claim her as their own. And, to me, there has never been a more beautiful bride.

Her white dress symbolized the purity of a couple who chose to wait until marriage. The promise we made to each other that, “My beloved is mine, and I am my beloved’s” was, is and always will be exclusive for us. When we claimed the promise that a cord of three strains isn’t easily broken we entered into a covenant with one another that will last until the bridegroom Himself takes us home.

As beautiful as that picture is to me, the marriage of the Christ and His Bride, the church, is far greater. Because, Jesus sacrificed everything so His church could be everything they need to be.

Consider for a second that the church is holy and without blemish because Christ’s love made it that way.

In fact, we see here that Christ love sanctifies us in the present, cleansed us in the past, and prepares us for the future. Thus, it’s a total love.

Remember also, Christ didn’t love the church because she was lovely. In fact, as Paul says in Romans 5:8: “…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

What that tells us is that Jesus didn’t wait for His bride to clean up her act!

I’m glad I didn’t meet April when I was in high school...

I’m glad I didn’t meet April when I was in my very early twenties...

I doubt seriously she would have been drawn to me.

And yet, Christ Jesus loved us even when we were still sinners.

That is sacrificial love. And that’s what we are the recipients of when we respond to the Holy Spirit drawing us to Himself in faith.

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