A Glorious Church (Ephesians 5:25-27)
Tammy and I married in a huge ceremony; we had about 300 guests and enough food to feed an army. My clearest and favorite memory of that day was seeing Tammy walk down the aisle on her father’s arm. I burst into tears and cried like a baby; marrying her was everything I had ever wanted.
How clearly do you remember your wedding day? How many of you have a precious memory from that day? How many of you have memories clouded in grief because you’ve lost your spouse? How many of you have memories clouded with pain because your marriage ended in divorce?
Pentecost was Jesus’s wedding day, for he established his bride, the church of the living God, that day. And this morning’s text explores that truth. And from that word, we learn “Jesus married the church.”
Scripture (Ephesians 5:25-27)
verse 25:
Godly husbands follow Jesus’s example in loving their wives. But Jesus set a high bar: He gave himself for the church. Only Jesus’s blood forgives sin; therefore, he shed his blood so that his people—the church—would be forgiven.
verse 26:
In Judaism, the betrothal ceremony came to be known as “the sanctification of the bride.” The bride was, from that moment, set apart from everyone else for the groom. The church has been set apart from anyone and everything else to belong to Jesus Christ alone.
verse 27:
After the bride was sanctified and washed, she was presented to her husband. The church, having been made perfect through his blood, is presented to Jesus.
Application
“Jesus married the church.” What are the implications of Jesus’s marriage to the church?
First, the church submits to Jesus. “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Eph 5:24). You have no right whatsoever to decide how the church will worship, what the church will teach, or what the church will do. The church submits to Jesus, not to you.
Second, the church is one with Jesus. “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. . . . We are members of his body” (Eph 5:28, 30). Husbands and wives are one: “A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Matt 19:5). The New Testament often refers to the church as Jesus’s body.
Because the church is Jesus’s body, the church represents Jesus on this earth. The church feeds the hungry like Jesus. The church cares for the outcasts like Jesus. The church cares for the sick like Jesus. The church clothes the naked like Jesus.
What can you learn about the church as Jesus’s bride?
One: The Church is a Treasure.
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church” (Eph 5:25).
See the church as a Treasure. “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Pet 2:17). Early churches saw the church as a Treasure.
- “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints” (Eph 1:15).
- “We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints” (Col 1:4).
Do you see the church as a Treasure? Do you pray for her? Do you help sick members of the church? Do you serve the church? Do your actions show you find the church a Treasure?
Two: The Church is Tender.
“Christ . . . gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25).
Our first brethren sacrificed because the church was Tender to them.
- “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:34-35).
- “Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life” (Rom 16:3-4).
- “I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life” (Phil 4:3).
Is the church Tender to you? How generously do you support her work? Have you asked the elders how you might serve? Have you seen needs and stepped up to fill those needs? What do you say about the church to your friends? How Tender is the church to you?
Three: The Church is Taintless.
Jesus died “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” (Eph 5:27).
The church is made up of sinners—you know how sinful you are—but through Jesus’s blood the church is Taintless, “holy and without blemish.”
Because Jesus died to make the church “holy and without blemish,” you live a Taintless life
- “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Pet 1:15).
- “The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery” (1 Pet 4:3-4).
- “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him” (1 Jn 3:6).
How Taintless do you live? Would your family say your life is Taintless? Would your neighbors say your life is Taintless? Would your friends say your life is Taintless? Would the server at the restaurant say your life is Taintless?
Do you need to come to Jesus this morning and make your life Taintless?
This sermon was originally preached by Dr. Justin Imel, Sr., at Church of Christ Deer Park in Deer Park, Texas.