Embracing Christ's Love for His Church

"Recently, I heard a minister give a sermon that was somewhat unusual. The title of the sermon was simply a question, “Who Loves the Church?” And it was a poignant experience for me to listen to that sermon because I realize that in this day and age, in our culture and in our nation, there are many people who have expressed a serious disenchantment with the visible church, with the institutional church, and many people feel that somehow in these days the church has let them down and the church has not met their expectations." [00:07:12]

"But if no one of us loves the church, we know with certainty that Christ loves the church. And indeed, if we are of Christ, we can’t possibly despise what is so lovable to Him. And what I want to do in this brief series on the church is explore the question, basically, what is the church? What is the church comprised of? What is the church’s vocation? What is the church’s mission?" [00:01:18]

"I thought, isn’t it strange that religions of all sorts, of all places in this world, all have their sacred sites, their holy places? And we, again, we think of the church, so often, as a building, as a structure, as a place where people come and gather for worship and for religious activities. Well, let’s think about that for just a second. I think we will discover very soon that through our study of Scripture that in the first instance, the church is people; it’s not a building." [00:03:13]

"Yet even in the Scriptures, the church building, at least in the Old Testament was very important to the religion of Israel. If you recall, the Tabernacle was built by the expressed, detailed provisions and commandments of God. The articles that were placed in that building were crafted by men who were uniquely endowed – charismatically endowed, if you will – by the Holy Spirit to perform their tasks." [00:04:00]

"Again, according to the anthropologists, they say that there is an insatiable hunger that is in the heart of every human being, somehow, somewhere, sometime in this world to make contact with the holy. And all religions in all cultures throughout the world have their individual examples of what we call, technically, . Now that’s probably a word that most of you’ve never heard in your life." [00:06:36]

"Now, we have to be extremely careful with that because we remember Jesus’ teaching to the woman of Samaria, how she wanted to engage Jesus in a theological dispute about the proper place of worshiping God. “Is God in this mountain?” she said, pointing to Gerizim, “or is He residing in Jerusalem?” And Jesus had to free this woman of her narrow conception of the localization of God." [00:09:32]

"And she had to instruct her that God is never contained in buildings made by hands, that God cannot be captured within defined boundaries, that God’s presence is as much in the secular realm as it is in what we call the sacred realm. But in spite of that warning that we have from Jesus, we cannot ignore how basic it is to our humanity that for each person among us there is a desire to set apart certain times, certain places for special significance and holiness." [00:09:52]

"But as I said, the church isn’t a building; the church is people. The word for “church” that we find in the Bible comes from the Greek word ekklesia (put it here in—ekklesia). We get the English word “ecclesiastical” from it, but this simple word, which is the Greek word for “church,” is built upon a root with a prefix. This “ekklesia,” or “ek” up here, comes from the Greek word “ex” or “ecs,” which means what?" [00:13:37]

"The ekklesia are those who have been called by God out of the world. The church are those people whom God has given a divine summons, a sacred vocation or calling by which He has commanded them to cross that line that I was mentioning, to tread into the inner sanctum, to cross the threshold into the area of the holy." [00:15:19]

"This was symbolized and illustrated in Israelite worship in the Old Testament, for when the people were summoned by God to gather for corporate worship, so often this occasion was signaled by the blowing of the shofar, or the ram’s horn. That was a signal, like a bugle call, to the people that the – now, the time has come, the moment is here that you are to leave your daily tasks, you are to leave your commonplace activities, and assemble now in the presence of God." [00:16:10]

"Now that leads me, in the time that I have left in this session to one of the most important images that we have for the church in the Bible. And that is, the church is called the bride of Christ – the bride of Christ. What a fascinating figure or metaphor, isn’t it? Obviously, the roots of that idea are found deeply established in the Old Testament, where when God takes a people to Himself, He makes a vow." [00:21:07]

"Now I just take that little track for this reason: we have to understand that concept if we’re to understand the image of the church as the bride of Christ because the reason, the primary reason why the church is called the bride of Christ, beloved, is because Jesus purchased His bride. He paid the ultimate bridal price, with nothing less than His own blood." [00:27:09]