The Church and Me: The Church is the Bride of Christ

The Church and Me
Acts 20:28

INTRODUCTION:
One day, the Father will decide enough is enough and He will nod to the Son sitting on His right and the Son will stand up and eternity will begin. Jesus is coming back to get His bride, the church. It should always be remembered that Christ promised to prepare a mansion for His bride (John 14:1-3).

Time and again Jesus has encouraged us to be loyal and faithful to Him until He comes back. Unfortunately, there are many members of His church who will have denied the faith, left their first love, and defiled their wedding garments. We have no reason to believe that Jesus will overlook unfaithfulness and spiritual adultery and give unfaithful members of His church mansions in heaven, the same as we expect He will do for those loyal and faithful. For the unfaithful, Christ has told us what He will do: they will be thrown into a lake of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 13:41-42).

To the faithful, Christ has promised to say: “Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). Don’t forget! “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number” (Jeremiah 2:32).

Family, let’s not forget whose clothes we are wearing!

ISRAEL WAS MARRIED TO GOD:
Israel was spiritually married to God as we see in Jeremiah 3:14. Take a look at Romans 7:1-4 for a NT reflection of that teaching.

But Israel could not stay faithful to God; they were absorbed into their religious culture and it led them to disobey God’s commandments. That’s when God said they had committed spiritual adultery against Him. He was concerned, so He announced in Jeremiah 2:13…

The spiritual leaders - the priests, shepherds, prophets, had all committed adultery perverting the word of God and propagating false teaching and leading God’s people astray. These false teachers had “strengthened the hands of the evildoers” (Jer. 23:14).

Once Jesus came and the Jews were baptized into Christ, they joined themselves to a new husband, one who would be faithful to them (Rom. 7:4). The Law of Moses, which was the covenant between God and Israel, was taken out of the way through the death of Christ: Colossians 2:14.

The Jews who had become Christians were now married to Christ and they were dead to the Law of Moses. As Paul teaches in Ephesians 2, both Jew and Gentiles are members of the one body, the church of Christ, spiritually married to their Groom.

When we obey the Gospel of Christ, we become engaged to Jesus Christ, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:2.

DRESSING FOR OUR WEDDING:
Just as nearly every bride and groom dress appropriately for their wedding day, so Christians also must put on the appropriate clothes for the consummation of our marriage to Jesus Christ.

It begins with putting Christ Himself on in baptism: Galatians 3:26-27.

But it also includes the teachings that Christ has given to us through His apostles and prophets: Titus 2:10; 2 John 9. So we can’t alter or defile the teachings of Christ because that teaching is what makes us fit for the coming of Jesus Christ. If someone changes that doctrine Christ has given, then they have forfeited their right to His presence: 2 John 10-11.

As we studied last year, there were Christians in the first century who flirted with false teaching and they had a sad experience. The churches of Pergamum, Thyatira, Laodicea, and Ephesus were all impacted morally and doctrinally by false doctrines and immoral behavior. John identifies the doctrine as the “teaching of Balaam and Balak” and then “the Nicolaitans” and also “Jezebel.”

Nothing can replace healthy, balanced teaching from the Word of God. So Paul told Timothy: “Preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2). Paul warned Timothy that there would be some - even in the first generation of the church of Christ - who would turn their ears away from sound doctrine and because of “itching ears,” they would turn from the truth (2 Tim. 4:2-4).

Truth makes men free (John 8:32). The Gospel and it alone is the power of God to salvation (Rom. 1:16). Bedtime stories will not save man from his sins. Poems and the philosophies of men will not get us to heaven. Psychology and positive mental health platitudes will not convert anyone. As much as in the days of Paul and Timothy, there is a need today for plain positive, sound doctrine, straight from the mouth of Jesus Christ.

The nature of man has not changed since Christ was on earth. Man is still distracted; man is still governed by his passions and impulses. Yet, at the preaching of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, 3,000 men and women obeyed the Gospel and were saved (Acts 2:37-38). They were added to “them” by the Lord Himself (Acts 2:47).

We don’t need to view ourselves as married to the preacher or married to the local congregation. We need to be married to Christ. Unfortunately, too many people want to be Christian but at the slightest provocation, they deny the faith, quit the church, as if they can be scripturally divorced from Jesus Christ.

God was concerned with Israel when she forgot her wedding garments. He rebuked the priests and prophets of spiritual adultery, walking in lies, compromising and perverting the Word, and encouraging even more evil doers to do the same.

People do the same today.

THE CHURCH, THE BRIDE:
We are, then, spiritually married to Christ. In Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul talks about the relationship between the bride and the groom.

So the church must be subject to her head, to her groom. We must love, honor, and obey Christ who is the head of the church. Ephesians 5:24. There is no authority, no head, no pope, no priest, no preacher, no organization on this earth that has authority over the church. As the bride of Christ, the church is subject only to the authority of Christ, the head of the church.

Ephesians 1:22-23. Matthew 28:19-20.

Take home message: Be married to Christ and submit to Him as the One Who gave His life for you.