14.1 Falling in Love
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
That He might present her to Himself a glorious church (Ephesians 5:27a). We are just approaching the halfway point in this course, and yet this vision of a glorious Church unfolding for us thus far is more wondrous than anything I have ever imagined. What I am describing, most will put off “till heaven.” – “Can’t happen here.” And yet those same Christian unbelievers will reject the same reality after they are dead that they do now.
Either “Love one another” is true as God here and now among us or there is no God. I KNOW that my getting along with you and you with me is a difficulty I would run from, BUT God says – Does God do what He says?
A Practical Expression of Christ. Paul began his thoughts of Christ as a many-membered body in 1 Corinthians 11 when he wrote “not discerning the Lord’s body” inside a discussion of the Lord’s supper. You see, Paul was wrestling in his mind and heart with an exuberant and out-of-control group of happy Christians, formerly pagans, attempting to direct them in some form of order even while establishing the reality of their gathering together inside of the gospel of Christ. It was writing about drinking the same cup and eating the same bread that birthed in Paul the verses I am calling the eleventh and twelfth most important verses in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14. Paul wanted to make Church the practical expression of Christ.
A Critical Pause. However, having placed the communion cup and bread into his thinking, Paul ventured next into the arena of the gifts of the Spirit operating in the gathering together of Church. Paul’s revelation of Christ as a many-membered body, members of one another, came from the Lord’s supper and through the gifts of the Spirit. Then Paul merged together a discussion of the gifts with a brief discussion of the ministries of the Spirit.
In all of that he was continuing to address the many contentions taking place among the excessive Corinthians. Paul most definitely had in mind the thoughts he would express in Chapter 14 regarding order in the gathering together before he suddenly paused.
A Love Story. And yet I show you a more excellent way (1 Corinthians 12:31). Paul’s “Love Chapter,” then, is a parenthesis inside his discussion of gifts, ministries, and the order of church services. Paul is saying, “Listen, brethren, this whole thing is a love story. It’s all about falling in love.” The full expression of what that might mean did not come to Paul until his prison years as he wrote to the Ephesian Church – that He might present to Himself a glorious Church.
Now, in my original outline, I had placed the session on gifts and ministries before the session on the love stories of the Bible. But the love stories cause us to understand what the gifts, ministries, and fruit of the Spirit are all about.
Many Love Stories. Does Christ fall in love with His Church? Is the Christ who fills your heart with His glory head-over-heals in love with His Church all across this earth? Is this whole thing actually a love story?
Christ nourishes and cherishes the Church as His own flesh (Ephesians 5:29 – modified).
In this session we want to explore the love stories of the Old Testament, the stories of Rebekah and Esther, Ruth and the Shulamite, Gomer and Rahab. The next several sessions are about the practical expressions of the Spirit inside the gathering together of the Church. We are talking about a love story, falling in love with the Church.
As Christ to His Church. Let’s first position ourselves in this love story. In every practical expression of any local church, you and I are most certainly part of the bride, part of the mess of learning to get along, even though we don’t want to do so. You see, we have a problem. Jesus said, “Love one another.” – We never have. – Nor can we, except Father fill His House.
Yet I am not writing as to the bride or to those who are inside all that mess of Christianity in this world, that is, the prostitute. – And two of our lovebirds in the Old Testament pictures of Christ are prostitutes; – yes, we receive all the blemishes, spots, and wrinkles of those who appear to fall short. – I am writing to those who would be as Christ to His Church.
Placing Love. But let’s position the role of 1 Corinthians 13 by verses 9-12. For we know out from a portion and we prophesy out from a portion. But when that which is perfect and complete has come, then that which is out from a portion will be rendered ineffective… For now we see through a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know out from a portion, but then I shall know fully just as I also am known fully (JSV).
I have established my utter fidelity to the Bible as Jesus in written form, the Word God speaks, from the beginning of my writing until now. I do not deviate from the Word. Any history or literature, science or current events I might bring in serve only to enable us to know more clearly what God means in the Bible.
That Which Is Perfect. When Paul and John wrote, they knew that measure of Christ they were seeing as they wrote the words. But Paul is very clear. “When I write,” he said, “I only know a part of that which is in these words.” “But,” he said, “when that which is perfect has come.”
We know that Paul was not talking about dying and “going to” heaven. Just two chapters later, in this same letter to the Corinthians, he says, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” Paul saw himself as part of the fullness of Christ in this life and on this earth. And when he wrote to the Ephesians, years later, he placed the Church, the glorious Church as that fullness.
Seeing, but Still Incapable. Church IS the perfect to come; – falling in love with the Church.
What I am saying is this. Through all these incredible words written by Paul and John, through the same words by which they saw, we are seeing far beyond what they were able to see, even as Paul claimed. Again – it was Paul who asserted, “I only know a little bit about what I am sharing with you.” We look for nothing different from what Paul and John saw through their words; we are simply seeing further through the same words.
And the fact that it is me writing about these things is almost absurd. Ask anyone who knows me well; they will assure you that Daniel Yordy isn’t capable of bringing forth anything.
Impossible and Fantastic. And yet, as I am drawing the ten most important verses through the prism of the ten patterns of home as through a diamond, we are seeing the brilliance of the fire that is a Church so beautiful and glorious that she simply takes our breath away.
Are we just fantasizing? I am very good at fantasizing, more than most. Yet my contending with practical reality in many directions has been the equal all the way through. I know Christian community. I know how impossible what I am now writing about really is, how far it is from us. And I know that everything I am writing, as fantastic as it seems, is rooted in utter practicality inside the experience of Church and inside every word God speaks.
Because God Says. I am writing to those who know that Church on this earth, as we are now envisioning it, is impossible. I am writing to those who know that they, like me, are entirely and utterly incapable of bringing forth the first part of such a thing.
I am writing to those who know that if we did succeed in gathering on a property that we would be such a pain in the rear to each other that, without a miracle, it would all collapse into bitterness. And I am writing to those who have committed themselves in their fifth signature upon God to love the Church, millions of Spirit-filled believers in Jesus across this earth, yes, a prostitute, for one reason only. – Because God says.
Gomer. Love one another in just the same way that I love you. I am simply unwilling to believe in a God except a God who does what He says in our lives on this earth. I am unwilling to be a Christian except “love one another” becomes my entire reality.
Does God do what He says?
We have already looked at the story of Rahab the harlot in Joshua. You will find the story of another prostitute in Hosea Chapter 1. The Lord said to Hosea (Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus – different ways to spell the same name): “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry.” …So he went and took Gomer.
Our Inclusion. And it is from these words that Paul discovers that the Gentiles are included inside all that is Christ. God told Hosea to call their third child Lo-Ammi, “for you are not My people and I will not be your God.” Yet in the same breath God says, “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons of the living God.’”
Now, most will have the image of a stuffy old prophet being told right out of the blue to go find someone he’s never seen, some prostitute somewhere. And that could be the case; we don’t know. But it is just as likely that Gomer had already caught Hosea’s eye.
Despising the Church. Here is what this means to me; here is where our love story begins.
It is the nature of ALL deeper truth preachers of any kind anywhere, all I have ever heard or read, to despise the general run of Christians in this world as the harlot. And, regardless of whether they will admit it or not, a deep sense of despising even those who listen to them grows as well. You do not measure up to this vision of a glorious church I am preaching. And all preachers who are not deeper truth have simply given up entirely on the possibility of a glorious Church, leaving all that for after we are dead.
We ARE a Prostitute. Do not sugarcoat the Church, even in the thought of gathering together with like-minded believers inside the word that I share. We are a prostitute. We do not measure up. We cannot get anything right. We run after the lusts of our flesh at the drop of a hat. And we especially don’t like one another, not really. The Lord Jesus Christ married us in our uncleanness. When Jesus entered into union with us, He married sick, perverted, self-centered, obnoxious, filthy, and wicked humans.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:10-11).
Allow Me. When you and I were filthy prostitutes, still, we, for some reason unknown to us, caught Jesus’ eye. Jesus fell in love with us when we were utterly unlovely. And in falling in love with us, the first thing Jesus did was to take all of our uncleanness into Himself, that He might wash it all away with Blood. Then Jesus became us, in all of our present folly and our continuing self-centered misery.
And now this same Jesus says to you and me, “If you believe in Me, allow Me, now, to be Myself through you. Allow Me to fall in love with My prostitute church through you.” Our only reply is, “Let it be to me as You say.”
A Miracle. The vision God is giving us of a glorious Church far beyond what we have ever heard or seen or known IN NO WAY removes the practical impossibility of Christians in this world. And the practical ridiculousness of Christians on this planet IN NO WAY removes from us our vision of those same ones as that very Glorious Church – and including one another.
Falling in love with Christians, all Christians, including each other, as we are now, would take a miracle of God Himself. God, making Himself visible, is a miracle.
It is also the normal Christian life.
Let me invite you to join with me in asking God for a miracle, God Himself falling in love with His Church through us, God Himself planting us into a Community of Love.