Story of God at Work In Our Identity as His Bride
By Chelsy Massa
Two weeks ago, the women of Resonate Moscow and Resonate Pullman gathered for the first-ever Women’s Discovery Weekend. The weekend was filled with teaching about who women are: daughters, sisters, mothers, and wives. During the daughter's talk, we learned that we are all sons, as in we all had the right to become heirs. I had heard that before, but I was still reminded of the goodness of God to redeem women. As that thought was in the back of my mind that I am a son, it was during the teaching on wives that I realized something.
Not only are all people sons, but all God’s people are wives.
When the church gathers, we are gathering as the bride of Christ, as a unified body—a wife.
Our identity as Christ’s Bride should weigh on us because that is not a light identity we carry together.
Tim Keller says this about marriage between a man and a woman in The Meaning of Marriage,
“Within this Christian vision of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating and to say, "I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on Earth, but now look at you!’”
From the start of Resonate’s story, we have always said, “Church is not a location but a people.”
We are more than a community with shared interests. We are unified under the name of Jesus.
So when we gather, do we think of ourselves as the gathered Bride of Christ? When we gather, do we turn side to side and hope to see our brothers and sisters clothed in their future magnificence?
Our relationship is significant as the Bride of Christ, the gathered saints, and the body of Christ. Right now, we live in a world that loves to be united in the ways they are divisive. The extreme political parties, how we bond over whom we’ve canceled, and even how churches stand on secondary and tertiary issues. However, the Church should be different. The Church should be compelled by the love of Christ to, “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
“So when we gather, do we think of ourselves as the gathered Bride of Christ? When we gather, do we turn side to side and hope to see our brothers and sisters clothed in their future magnificence?”
A marriage is coming that we will all be a part of together. Jesus is not coming back for the individual Christian person. But the gathered body of the saints. He is coming back for the Bride who looks like this:
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
Do we see this picture in Revelation and seek to spur each other on through word, deed, and gathering together that we may be complete and clothed in such fine linen? Let us relish in that unity we have in Christ, and when we gather, let us gather in worship and spur one another on. When we labor, would we labor so the church would be spurred on towards love and good deeds?
May we stop seeing church as a time, a place, or a community group? It is much more significant than that. It is who we are, and Jesus is coming back for us.
