The Bible employs many rich metaphors and images to describe the people of God - the church - across both the Old and New Testaments. Throughout Scripture the church is described as; a people, a nation, a son, a family, a bride, a priesthood, a treasure, an inheritance, a temple, a body, and a city. Each of these images contributes a different sense of the infinite love God has for us in Christ Jesus. A deepening understanding of this love of God for his people is foundational to our joy and fruitfulness here on earth.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the opportunity this morning to assemble and to worship you. Oh Lord, to have our thoughts drawn up into the heavenly realms by the Word of God, by the power of the Spirit, I pray that right now the Spirit of God would just fill this place. I pray, O Lord, that you would control everything that I say and everything that we think together. And Lord, I pray especially that the greatness of the work of God in the church would just ignite our hearts.

That we would see the glory of God in the building of His church. I pray That we would love the church and love the work of God that you're doing. That we would have a fresh vision this morning through the word of God of what we will be someday. Oh Lord, we need that because we struggle so mightily with sin now. We struggle with indwelling sin and with the assaults of the enemy, we struggle, O Lord, with the worldly system that surrounds us and entices us to wickedness.

And we can get downcast and discouraged. Indeed, Satan ministers depression and discouragement to your people constantly. I pray that that would be just blown away like a dark mist by the brightness of the vision of the glory of God in the church of Jesus Christ. I pray that in Jesus' name, amen. Well, We have a delightful time ahead of us this morning as we look at the images, the metaphors, the illustrations of the church and scripture.

Now as a pastor I've done a lot of weddings. And in Western culture it's a tradition that the bridegroom should never look upon the bride on their wedding day before she walks down the aisle and is presented to him by her parents. So on that most special and memorable day, The bride-to-be prepares herself. She gets herself ready. She has selected her dress.

It's the most spectacular garment she's ever going to wear. She's prepared her makeup and her hair. She's aided perhaps by her mother, her maid or matron of honor. All that time, the tradition lays down a most strict barrier of separation between the soon-to-be bride and groom. It's actually somewhat humorous, the lengths to which the couple will go so that the groom doesn't see the bride.

How different it is, dear friends, between that scene and Christ and His bride, the church. Christ had a vision for the perfect beauty of his bride, the Church, before the foundation of the world. He's seen it in his mind's eye before God said, Let there be light. This vision consisted primarily of the Church's reflection of his own glory, his own holiness, that we would be conformed to His image. The church would be fashioned in His own image and would reflect His own glory and He would dress the church perfectly in His own righteousness and prepare it in every way for the wedding day.

Christ's vision for his bride's dress on their wedding day has dominated his every action throughout history. He knew each of his elect before the foundation of the world. He sovereignly rescued them from Satan's dark kingdom. He cleansed each one of his elect from their sins, clothed each one with his own perfect righteousness. He selected from each tribe and language and people and nation, whom he would, choosing not many who are wise, not many who are influential, not many who are of noble birth, but rather the rejects, the lowly, the despised and rejected, the poor in spirit to be his bride.

And having assembled his church in his own mind's eye before the foundation of the world, he then worked through the Holy Spirit in every generation to make his bride be what his internal vision mandated that she should be. He died for her, shedding his blood to cleanse her from her sins. He then washed her with the water of the word in every generation. He sanctified her. He got her dressed in the glowing robes of perfect righteousness.

He adorned her with the jewels of glowing beauty through her own righteous acts of submission to his law in every generation. And when she was perfect, he married her. Now this vision, as I said, has been in his mind from eternity past and every action Christ has taken in world history is dominated by that vision of what the church should be. His heart yearned for his bride, he loves her with a passion that's immeasurable, and this vision is clear in his mind at this present moment in every time of the opening of the word of God, the exposition of scripture, he is working out that vision that the church would be holy and blameless in his sight. Beautiful on their wedding day.

And in a majestic moment of prophecy, he committed this vision to his apostle John on the island of Patmos as he was in exile. John described the glory of the bride of Christ in incredible terms. Revelation 21, 2 and 3, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. This breathtaking vision of the church is described in even greater detail later in that same chapter, Revelation 21 9 and following, one of the seven angels said to me, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God and it shone with the glory of God and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel like a jasper clear as crystal. It had a great high wall with 12 gates and with 12 angels at the gates and on the gates were written the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. Now in this one vision we have a sense of the complexity and beauty of the scriptural description of the church. It's portrayed as a bride, as a city, as a people, a temple, all in one chapter. And throughout scripture then, the metaphors or the images of the church range even more widely than that.

They cover family images, architectural images, national images, biological images, many others as well. And these images for the church, the people of God? And what value can there be in understanding these rich metaphors? How can they help us in our present walk with Christ and in our relationship with the local church? Now, these questions are in front of us.

And the answering of these questions is the focus of my talk. Not just this one, but also the one I'm going to give in the breakout session. I believe the primary reason that the Holy Spirit has inspired the writers of Scripture to use this wide range of imagery and metaphors for the church is to instruct us at many levels what we will be and what we are to be now and to help us to love the church that we would do the good works of ministry through the power of the Spirit through our spiritual gifts to bring about the vision that Christ had from before the foundation of the world. As we love the church, we will serve the church in God's vision and image for the church and bring it about. It's a means to an end.

And so that's what's in front of us today. What a delightful time we're going to have in scripture to celebrate the beauty and the majesty of God in the church and to love the church as a result of what He is doing. I tell you, to love the church is to love what God is doing in the world. To hate the church is to hate what God is doing in the world. To be indifferent to the church is to be indifferent to what God is doing in the world.

And so we need to love the church. And so we're gonna just ransack scripture. We're gonna go from beginning to end, not in that order, but following more of a topical arrangement to see these metaphors. And before I go ahead and venture into the old covenant to get some of those images, I need to say a word about the complex relationship between Israel and the church. It's not an easy topic.

Wayne Grudem defines the church as the community of true believers from all time. And I accept that's a good definition. The image in Romans 11 is that Gentile believers, and I would think that would be the overwhelming majority of us who are in this room right now, Gentile believers are like wild olive shoots grafted into a cultivated olive tree. And the roots of that is Jewish. It's a Jewish olive tree.

And we are grafted in as adopted children of Abraham. So there is one work of God, not two different works of God going on. And in the Old Testament, the people of God are given this name Israel, he who wrestles with God. And so what is the relationship between Israel and the church? That's the complex question.

Key verse for me in that, Romans 9 and verse 6, Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. So there's a physical nation of Israel, of the Jews. And then within that there's, it seems, a true Israel, true people of God. And the Lord has described them in the Old Testament. The true people of God are described in the Old Testament.

And I feel the freedom then, since I believe there's just one work of God here, across Old Covenant and New Covenant, to use those images to describe the Church. Other people, theologians, make a strong distinction between the Jews and the Gentile church. I do not make that distinction. Ephesians 2 tells me that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall, the barrier of hostility. By abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations, His purpose was to create one new man out of the two, thus making peace.

That one new man is the Christian, the believer in Christ, the church. And so in that spirit I feel the freedom to scour across the terrain of both Old Testament and New Testament. John Calvin did that, you know, when he's commenting on Old Testament passages, talking about Israel, he would frequently use the word the church. I love this. Calvin's commenting on Pharaoh's attempts to destroy the Jewish boy babies.

Calvin said this, this was that wicked and deceitful design frustrated, which the Egyptians had set on foot for destroying the church. Calvin does this kind of thing all the time, because he just sees the unity of the work that God's doing across the covenants. And so We're going to go in both Old Covenant and New Covenant, we're going to see all kinds of images and metaphors for the people of God. We're going to look at national metaphors in which the people of God are depicted as a nation or a people. Religious metaphors in which the church is likened to a temple or a priesthood or a sacrifice, picking up on the sacrificial system language.

We're going to look at family metaphors in which the church is spoken of as the family of God in a variety of ways. And I think that's probably all we're going to be able to do in this session now. And then in the breakout session, for those of you that are able to attend, we're going to look at four others, although we may get further than that this morning. We're going to look at biological metaphors in which the church is likened to something alive, something that can be nourished, something that grows. Architectural images in which the church is likened to something being constructed or built.

Possession metaphors in which the church is likened to something that is owned by God, a treasured possession, an inheritance, that kind of language. And then finally what I call display metaphors in which we are shown to be what we are to be in this world, displaying the glory of God and then on into eternity, a display of God's splendor. That's a lot to do, isn't it? And it's going to be rich and it's going to be exciting. So let's dig in.

And let's look at the first of these metaphors. And that is the national metaphors. And the simplest of all is that we are a people. We are the people of God. This is the broadest, most comprehensive word for the church, a people, the people of God.

A people is a grouping of humanity, united by some commonality, common language, culture, world view history. In recent times, missiologists, like US Center for World Missions and others have looked at people groups. They talk about unreached people groups and they're trying to find commonalities among people so that the Gospel can perhaps read more rapidly in a large group of people. The Church is a people across all of these national cultures because We have things in common. We share some things that unite us, most especially faith in Jesus Christ.

We worship Christ as God, and Christ as our Savior. We also share a pattern of doctrine and of lifestyle. Our thoughts are conformed to scripture, and our lifestyles conform to the holiness of Christ. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit uniting us and making us one. We see the world the same way.

We are united by a vision of history, where we're going. We're looking ahead to Judgment Day and the new heaven and the new earth. These thoughts unite us even though we might not be able to communicate them to each other because we speak a different language. Or we're wearing different clothes or we're from different nations, geographical regions, but we are one people and we're united. Now, throughout the Bible, the church has identified with this kind of language.

The first time to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3, the Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I'm concerned about their suffering. So I've come down to rescue them. And then you know that Moses and Aaron spoke to Pharaoh. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go so that they may worship me in the desert.

The deep yearning of God stated again and again throughout the prophets. I will take you as my own people, Exodus 6-7, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. It's the yearning of God. Leviticus 26 11 and 12, I'll put my dwelling place among you and I will not abhor you.

I will walk among you and be your God and you will be my people. And we see it throughout the prophets. Ezekiel 36 and verse 28, you will live in the land I gave your forefathers, and you will be my people, and I will be your God. Now, in the New Testament, Gentile believers in Christ are called a people now, the people of God. 1 Peter 2 says, once you are not a people, but now you are the people of God.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. And again in Romans 9.25, he says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people, and I will call her my loved one, who is not my loved one. And the consummation of all of this is in heaven. And Revelation 21 and verse 3, as we already heard, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them and be their God.

So we are first and foremost a people. Second under this heading, we are a chosen race. A chosen race. 1 Peter 2, 9, you are a chosen race, it says there. The key issue in the expression chosen race then is the election of God.

A people chosen from among the vast turbulent sea of humanity. God set his affection on the church and chose her out from the rest. Deuteronomy 7 6, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all of the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people. The Bible reveals that God is sovereign in choosing his church.

And he does not choose them based on any merit he sees in them, not based on foreseen faith, not based on any good works that they will do, but simply because of himself, because he set his love on them. They are his chosen people, a chosen race. We are thirdly a called out assembly and Joel Beekie yesterday talked a lot about this word ekklesia. The Greek word for the church is ekklesia, and it's related to the Greek words, which when you put it together means we are the called out ones. We are called out and called out to assemble.

He mentioned that the Hebrew word kahal meant assembly. And so you see in Deuteronomy 4-10, remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, assemble the people before me to hear my words, so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land, and may teach them to their children. And so the ekklesia, the church, is the called out group that's called out to assemble. It's interesting how in the New Testament, the Old Testament assembly is called the church. The ekklesia, it's interesting.

In the KJV, in Acts 738, in Stephen's speech, he says this, this is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai. Now most of the modern translations just say assembly there. But it is the word ekklesia in Stephen is speaking of the Old Testament assembly, the church of the Old Testament. We are literally the called out ones. Well, in order to understand that, we have to understand called out from what and to what?

We are called out from the world, and we are called to assemble with each other before God. That's what the church is. So we are called out from the world. In 2nd Corinthians 6, 16 and 17 God has said, I will live with them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate says the Lord." So we are called out from the world and called to be separate from the world.

The issue of Christ calling us out of the world to be his people is huge. We're called out of Satan's dark kingdom, much as Lazarus was called out from the tomb, amen? Jesus said to Lazarus, come out! And He gave him life and he came out from death. And so we were rescued from Satan's dark kingdom.

And we were transferred into the kingdom of the beloved Son. We were called out. And we are called to assemble with other believers in the presence of God. Psalm 22, which begins so beautifully, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Which Jesus quotes from the cross and there's so many pictures and descriptions of the crucifixion.

They have pierced my hands and my feet. These are the sufferings of Christ described so plainly. The Psalm breaks into two parts. I think 1 Peter gives us the two part outline of Psalm 22 and he says that the prophet spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. And that's the two-part outline of Psalm 22.

The sufferings of Christ, and then the glories that would follow. And the glory section begins in Psalm 22 verse 25, in which it says, From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly. Before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. So Jesus then stands in the midst of this great assembly, the church, and proclaims the greatness of God the Father. And we were called out from the world to that great assembly.

We are the called out ones. Fourthly, under this heading, we are a holy nation. In that way, we are identified by God's name. Again, 1 Peter 2.9, you are a chosen people, a holy nation. The word holy then means separated unto God for his personal use.

1 Corinthians 1, 2, it says, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy. Then the church is a group of saints. We are the saints, the holy ones. Common word saints means holy ones. For myself, I was raised in Eastern Massachusetts as an Irish Catholic kid.

I was an altar boy. And I went to St. Jeremiah's church and St. Anselm's church. And so we learned a different meaning of the word saints.

When I came to faith in Christ, I was surprised to find that saints are just all the believers. Book of Ephesians says to the saints in Ephesus, that is the clear use of the word. And so we are the saints, the faithful in Christ Jesus. And the Roman Catholic Church establishes, I think, an unbiblical hierarchy of holiness, and to be a saint you have to be voted in by the cardinals of the church, and then they identify you as a saint. That whole thing is wrong.

The saints are the believers in Jesus Christ. You are the saints, and what that means is you are called to be holy. You are the holy ones. Psalm 149 and verse 1, praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song is praised in the assembly of the saints.

And so we are the assembly of the saints. We are called to be a holy nation, called out from the wicked world to be characterized by holiness. As it says in 1 Peter 1, Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, be holy, because I am holy." And so we are to be free from all sin, all wickedness and evil, free from lusts, free from idolatry, from covetousness, free from gossip and slander, from worldliness. We are His holy people for His own precious possession. But we're a holy nation.

And so a nation, you think of it as a political entity. And I think what that means is that our true citizenship, dear friends, is in heaven, Amen? We are citizens of a heavenly nation. Paul writes to the Philippians, who perhaps were tempted to be proud of their status as a Roman colony, and the members of that city were Roman citizens, as Paul was also a Roman citizen. And you know, it crops up occasionally in Paul's life and ministry when they're stretching him out to beat him.

It came in handy then, didn't it? Is it lawful for you to beat a Roman citizen who hasn't even been tried yet? So it's like Paul didn't relish the idea of getting beaten one more time for Jesus. He already bore in his body the marks of Christ. So he was a citizen of Rome and wasn't ashamed to call himself that, but he says in Philippians 3.20, our citizenship is in heaven.

And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies and make them like his heavenly body. So we are a holy nation. We're also a kingdom. We're called a kingdom under this heading. Exodus 19, 5, and 6, although the whole earth is mine, says God to Israel, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

So the church is crafted by Christ to be a kingdom with one king, Almighty God, ruling over all things. So a kingdom again, a unified political entity, functioning with commerce, with military power, a unified culture and focus. And the central desire of a healthy kingdom is one thing and that is to please the King. Make the King happy, do the King's commands, make the King look glorious, protect the King, whatever the King wants. Now I think it's an awesome thing.

John there on the island of Patmos in exile for the testimony of Christ, has a vision of Christ walking through the seven golden lampstands. We'll talk about that later probably in the breakout session, but there's Jesus ministering to his church. And then after that He has another vision. He has a vision of a door standing open in heaven. And the voice that he had first heard speaking to him like a trumpet said, come up here.

What an awesome thing. And by the way, that's in the category of commands given that cannot be obeyed unless God does a supernatural work on you. How are you going to obey that? Come up here. Come up to heaven.

But God gives him the power. Once he's in the Spirit, goes through the door. And what is the first thing he sees there? A throne and someone seated on it. That is the central reality of the universe.

Everything seems to be in concentric circles around that throne, around the King, seated on his throne. The King is everything in the Kingdom, and We are the kingdom. And Jesus is the king over all of us. And so it says in Revelation 1, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom. We are made to be a kingdom and priest to serve his God and Father.

To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. We are also under this heading called to be rulers under Christ. We are going to be rulers under Christ. It's an amazing thing.

Revelation 5, 9 and 10, they sang a new song. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain. And with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God, listen, and they will reign on the earth. This is repeated in Revelation 22, 5, they will reign forever and ever.

Revelation 3 21, it says to him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne. Go back to Daniel 7, and you'll find there, in that incredible chapter, what a great chapter, we have this image of four beasts coming up out of a turbulent sea. These beasts represent wicked kingdoms one after the other. Coming up out of the turbulent sea of human history And these wicked beasts dominate and crush and rip and eat. It's the beast, it's the human secular kingdoms.

But then above it all you have this heavenly court seated. God Almighty on a throne of fire. And a river of fire flowing from that throne. And we have Jesus coming as a son of man, one like a son of man coming into the presence of the ancient of days and receiving from him power and glory. And all peoples and nations and men of every language worship the Son of Man.

At the end of that chapter it says, then the sovereignty, power, and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. That's an incredible statement. The sovereignty of the nations of the world are going to be handed over to the saints, to the people of God. His kingdom, it says, will be an everlasting kingdom. So what that means is we are rulers under Him.

His kingdom over all things, and then the Saint says rulers under Him, the people of the Most High, His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him. In that sense, it's fulfilled Jesus' title, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. And so he has made us to be a kingdom and rulers under him. So let's sum up these national metaphors. The Bible calls the church the people of God, called by his name, chosen by his sovereign grace out of all the earth to assemble before him and give him praise.

The church is an organized entity, a kingdom focused on one king, but also made up of rulers who will exercise their authority in the new heaven and the new earth under Christ's overall reign as King of Kings. So how can we apply this series of images and metaphors, this heading, how can we apply it? Well, because the church is called to be a holy nation, a people for God, we should consider well the customs of that nation. Perfect holiness. And I need to ask you, as other brothers have already done and you'll hear again, I want to simply ask, are you one of his people today?

Says once you are not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received. Have you received mercy? Have you come to the cross? Jesus Christ is the only Savior.

I don't make any assumption that because you're here at this conference you are most certainly saved. You're not going to be saved by coming to any Christian conference or even hearing any Christian talk. You are saved by one thing, faith in Jesus Christ. Look to Christ, His blood shed on the cross, and if you receive mercy at the cross you will be called one of the people of God. You'll be adopted, you'll be brought into the family of God, and you'll be a member of that nation.

I beg you, I plead with you, as Joel did last night, Don't leave this room. If you're an outsider, you're not part of the people of God, I urge you, come in through faith in Christ. But I also want to say to those of us who are already members, we are called on to be holy, amen? We are the people of God, and the customs of this nation, of this empire, of this kingdom is holiness. We are conformed to the image of Christ.

Another application here is to understand the nature of true patriotism. True patriotism then should focus first and foremost on our citizenship in heaven. We should love our country, but our first loyalty should be to our heavenly country. As it says in Hebrews 11, we're looking forward to a country where we will be members. And so God is not ashamed to be called our God.

And we should cherish the idea of sharing unity with people from all over the world as one new man, and one new people, the people of God. And we should be called out from the world and be holy and separate from the world and yet in the world to do God's work. And since the church is in assembly we should assemble ourselves together, amen? We should be with the saints on Sunday morning. In Hebrews 10, 24, it says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as some are in the habit of doing.

The word habit, ethos, they make it an ethic, they make it a regular pattern of not assembling with the people of God. For whatever reasons I tell you it's sin. It's disobedience to God. We need to assemble together with the people of God. And let's look forward to the day when the saints will reign on the earth under the lordship of Christ.

Amen. I mean when you see the chaos of the worldly kingdoms and governments and empires, aren't you yearning for the day when Jesus will reign over all things? And we, His people, reign under Him. So much for that first heading. Let's look at the second heading, and that is religious metaphors.

Religious metaphors. 1 Peter 2, 4, and 5 gives us a rich sense of these. We touched on a little bit last night in Joel's message, but it says there, as you come to him the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. This amazing passage pictures the church in three ways, as a priesthood, as a temple, and offering sacrifices. So we are first and foremost a priesthood.

We already saw this in Revelation 1, but listen to it again. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests. Some say a kingdom of priests is a good translation there. To serve his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever, Amen. Then as priests we are offering to God spiritual sacrifices acceptable God through Jesus Christ.

This sacrificial language clearly taken from the Old Covenant animal sacrificial system, which has now been fulfilled and is abolished in Christ. God will never again accept the blood of animals as a right offering from his people. It's been fulfilled and superseded by Christ, but that doesn't mean we're done with the priesthood. Now the church has a priestly ministry of offering up sacrifices to God. We are priests praying for people.

Jesus said, my house is to be a house of prayer for all nations. We are offering up the prayers as priests for all peoples. We are also a living sacrifice. The central image of the central sacrifice that the church offers to God is ourselves. The Church is a sacrifice.

We're not just to offer up sacrifice. We are a sacrifice. As it says in Romans 12 and verse 1, Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercies, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. This is what worship is.

And so as priests, the first thing we offer to God is ourselves in service to Jesus. However, beyond that, there are many other sacrifices that we can offer, sacrificial languages all over the New Testament. We offer up worship as the fruit of lips, the sacrifice of praise in Hebrews 13 and verse 15. Paul called the money that the Philippian church gave to him to support him in his life and in his ministry an acceptable sacrifice, a fragrant offering pleasing to God. So money that you give for the Lord's work is a sacrifice.

Paul used priestly language to speak of his evangelistic efforts among the Gentiles. In Romans 15 and verse 16, he was a minister, he calls himself a minister of Christ Jesus, to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. So there are many different offerings that we can offer, but we are ourselves, first and foremost, a sacrifice. Prayers are also essential to our spiritual ministry as priests unto God. We have a constant prayer ministry depicted as a rising up of incense before the Lord, a rising up of incense that God just collects in his heavenly temple.

Revelation 8 3 & 4, another angel who had a golden censer came and stood at the altar and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense together with the prayers of the saints went up before God from the angel's hand." And under this heading we're also a holy temple. Peter calls the church, as we heard last night, to be living stones built into a spiritual house. This is temple language. Paul picks up on that as well in several places, Ephesians 2, 21 and 22, it says, In him the whole building is joined together, and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. And again in 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17, it says, Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple, and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple. By the way, did you hear that dread warning in the midst of that? If anyone will destroy God's temple, God will destroy him.

Anyone destroys God's church, you've made yourself an enemy of God. But isn't it beautiful how sometimes God, instead of destroying his enemies, just converts them? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's said earlier, Saul went about destroying the church. Isn't it beautiful how sometimes destroyers of the church are rescued from that and brought over to be allies of the church, even members of it?

How beautiful is that? But we are called to be a holy temple. And so we see this religious language. The main idea of the temple is the dwelling place of God, where God displays his intimate dwelling with the people by the glory cloud that settled there. Before the Jews entered the Promised Land, God told his people that he would choose out one location of all of the tribes and put his name there, and that he would dwell with his people in close fellowship.

And in the book of Revelation, the heavenly temple is mentioned many times, but by the time of the New Jerusalem, it says there's no need for a temple in the city, because Jesus, the God-man, has become the perfect meeting place between God and his people. And so that's the consummation of the temple image. So therefore, the church as a summation now is portrayed in several key religious metaphors using the language of the Old Testament sacrificial system. The church is a temple. Church is a priesthood, a living sacrifice.

What application can we take from this heading? Well, since the Old Testament sacrificial system has ended, we have a new religious life in the new covenant, and we will have it in eternity. Let us be faithful then as priests under Christ, first and foremost, to offer up our bodies every day as a living sacrifice. Can I just ask you, brothers and sisters, did you do that already today? Did you have a time with the Lord?

Did you have a quiet time? I know it's hard in a place like this. Your schedule's a little bit different. All of your family sleeping together in the dark in one room, something like that. Did you rise up and give your body to God as a living sacrifice?

If you haven't done it, you can do it right now in your heart. Just say, God, my body is yours to command today. I want my body to be a living sacrifice for you. I want you to use my mouth, I want you to use my hands, I want you to use my mind. Everything about me is yours to command today.

I am your living sacrifice. And I want it to be holy and pleasing. And we should also, dear friends, love the church by carrying on a priestly ministry within it, using your spiritual gifts to help the church to grow into that final image, that living temple that Peter gives us such a beautiful picture of. And the prayers that we give for the church should waft up constantly. We should be praying for the church.

Don't criticize the church. Pray for it. Pray for it that it would be what God wants it to be. That The vision, the image of God with which I open my talk today would be consummated through the sovereign work of God, through the grace, through the word of God. Pray for the church.

Pray for the pastor as he unfolds the word, that it would be useful in building up the church to perfection in Christ. And we should be offering up praise and worship as a priestly sacrifice to God. Just giving glory to God as priests, wafting up that sacrifice together in corporate worship. Now the third main heading I want to look with you this morning are family metaphors. Family metaphors.

And let's start with this one, a general family metaphors, the household of God. A household of God. A household in the Greco-Roman world carried the sense of a patriarchal leader and everyone who looked to him for leadership and provision. So the members of this great man's household included his wife, children, maybe some extended family, and his servants. Several verses speak of the church generally as God's household.

Ephesians 2, 19 says, Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people, and members of God's households. Jesus gives us, I think, a very clear picture of this in Matthew 10, 24 and 25. He said, a student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It's enough for a student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the household has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household?

So don't expect to get better treatment in the world than the master of the household God, that's what he's saying. The same image is used in Hebrews chapter 3 in which it compares Jesus and Moses. And it says that Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's household, but Jesus is faithful as a son over God's household. And he says, and you are that household. Hebrews 3 and verse 6.

So we are the household of God generally. Within that, I wanna slip in secondly, that we are servants of God. The least intimate relationship in the household would have been a master and his servants. And we're gonna talk about this when we get to possession language as well, but I just want to bring this in under this heading of a household and the family metaphors. And there are far more verses than we can highlight that speak of the church as the servants of God or of Christ.

Just go to the end to see that image again, Revelation 22, 3, and 4. It says, the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And in that image, there's clearly an intimate connection between the servants of God and God himself. This is no begrudge service, but that offered willingly and with delight to a perfect master.

John 12, 26 says, whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. It is similar to the beautiful picture of willing service in the law of Moses in which a Hebrew servant is to be set free in the seventh year, but he may not want to go free as we heard in that beautiful illustration. Last night from Joel Beekie was beautiful. Deuteronomy covers this case.

If your servant says to you, I do not want to leave you because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, then take an all and push it through his earlobe into the door and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your maidservant. So in heaven the church will be a household of servants eager to do the will of the master Jesus Christ. By the way this is a very significant answer to a perplexing question. Why doesn't the New Testament clearly abolish slavery?

Why aren't there clear commands abolishing servant or masters set your slaves free? It's an interesting question I can't get into it all but we're gonna you see at the end of the book in Revelation 22, it says, His servants will serve Him. And so I can imagine even in heaven, The Apostle Paul calling himself a bond slave of Christ. It's just one of the aspects of our relationship with Jesus. And it seems to me that there is one Master, one King, one Head over all, and we are all his servants, amen?

And the angels are servants too. It's just that he redeems it from all of the wickedness of human sin. And we serve him in joy and delight. But let's get to the real intimacy, shall we? We're not merely servants in the house.

We are sons and daughters of the living God, amen? We are adopted children in the family of God. Oh, how sweet is this? J.I. Packer said, you can sum up the gospel, you can sum up the New Testament in three words.

Adoption through propitiation. Isn't that powerful? Think about that. Adoption through propitiation. Propitiation, the shedding of the blood of Jesus on the cross to avert the wrath of God.

And by means of that, we are adopted. We have the power, the right to become children of God. Incredible. And so it says in Romans 8, 15 and 16, You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

And again, 1 John 3, 1 and 2. Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, now we are God's children and what we will be has not yet been made known but we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is." This is an immense privilege. You can't measure this.

It's astonishing. Wouldn't it have been grace enough to just make us servants, set off on the side, but instead he brought us right in and adopted us as his sons and daughters. How beautiful is that. John 1 12 and 13, To all who received him, to those who believed in the name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And thus the church is a vast family.

As was said yesterday, you, dear friends, are not an only child. You may feel like it from time to time, like Elijah in that cave. All alone, Lord, I'm the only one you've saved. Not at all. We are members of a vast family.

Brothers and sisters, most of whom you haven't even met yet. Oh, and how rich is our fellowship going to be in heaven when you meet some precious saint from the 13th century who did certain types of ministry that you didn't even know about. You're going to spend eternity meeting these people and living with them. Jesus said in Matthew 12, who is my mother and who are my brothers? Pointing to his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

Thus, within the church, relationships are often spoken of in family terms. We call other church members brother or sister. We recognize mentors or older members as fathers or mothers. Paul talked about the mother of Rufus, who's been a mother to me too. Paul calls Timothy his true son in the faith, that kind of thing.

And so a subset of this is the singular sense that The whole church collectively is the firstborn son of God. And so this language is used in Exodus 4, 22 and 23. Then say to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord says, Israel is my firstborn son. And I told you, let my son go so that he may worship me. He picks up on this language in Deuteronomy 131.

There you saw how the Lord your God carried you as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place. What a beautiful picture that is. Think of yourself as a child of God when you're at your weakest, and God picks you up and carries you on his shoulders all the way until you reach the place he wants you to go. Revelation 21 and verse 7 says, The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. And you ladies, don't be offended by that gender language.

We men have to be the bride of Christ, so you ladies can be the son in Revelation 21. This gives us a sense of the intimacy the Son of God has with his own Father. Matthew 3.17, a voice from heaven said, This is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased. And Jesus is our pattern as our elder brother, and we are conformed to his image so that he could be the firstborn among many brothers. And as we've already seen and probably the most powerful image and metaphor for the church is the bride of Christ.

I began my talk with it. I'm going to end this time with it now, the picture of the bride of Christ. This is the most intimate of all of the family metaphors. In fact, so vital is this image, Paul says that in a mysterious way, all marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. Ephesians 5, 31 and 32.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery. But I'm talking about Christ and the church. The image came first and foremost, I think, in the Old Testament with the relationship between God and Israel. It says in Jeremiah 2, 2 and 3, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem.

I remember well the devotion of your youth. How as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown, Israel was holy to the Lord. You just feel the pain in God's voice. The image is used when Israel strays into idolatry of spiritual adultery against her husband, God. And then redemption is spoken of in marriage language in Isaiah 62 and verse 5.

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. Ezekiel 16 and verse 8, Scott alluded to this. Later I passed by and when I looked at you "'and saw that you were old enough for love, "'I spread the corner of my garment over you "'and covered your nakedness. "'I gave you my solemn oath "'and entered into a covenant with you, ' declares the Sovereign Lord, "'and you became mine.'" And So here's this beautiful picture of God marrying Israel and this tragic picture of Israel wandering into spiritual adultery through idolatry. And God is jealous over Israel's affections.

You have the whole book of Hosea depicting that jealousy. In the New Testament, the language of the church is the bride of Christ, and Christ himself as the bridegroom was first uttered by John the Baptist in John 3 and verse 29. The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine and it is now complete.

Jesus himself compares himself to a bridegroom on the issue of fasting. He says that the bride can't mourn in the presence of the bridegroom. And in his parables, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. And so the consummation of the relationship between Christ and the church lies in the perfection of our future union with Christ. After the resurrection of the body, when we are in every way conformed to Christ, we will be with Him for all eternity.

And so it says, Revelation 19 and verse 7, Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory, for the wedding of the Lamb has come and the bride has made herself ready. Then the angel said to me, Write, blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. And he added, these are the true words of God. So in summation, the family metaphors for the church, they're rich and powerful from a household centered around the will of the master, to the master-servant relationship, to the loving security of adoption as sons and daughters of the living God, to the perfect love and intimacy of marriage in which the Church is the bride of Christ. These images, I think, of the church are the most awesome and powerful in the Bible.

So what application can we take? Well, first and foremost, see yourselves as members of a vast family, an interconnection of relationships. And find in the local church a satisfying relationship with the family of God. Find the brothers and sisters there and be a brother or a sister to them. Love your brothers and sisters deeply from the heart.

Deeply yearn for their progress in the faith. Serve them with tenderness and humility. Rejoice with them when they rejoice. Mourn with them when they mourn. And stand in awe of the future perfection of the bride of Christ.

Just get a picture for it in Revelation 21, just how beautiful you and I are going to be. Clothed with radiant holiness, shining, beautiful, perfect in every way. And realize that our union, somewhat like the marital union that we have now in a mysterious way, in a holy way, our union with God will be as perfect as the union between the Father and the Son. Look forward to that and treat fellow church members of the opposite sex with absolute purity, it says, as a sister in Christ. So there's that family language used to urge men to be holy in the church sexually.

Love the church with the kind of passion that Jesus has for his bride. Don't be indifferent to the church, but love the church as Christ loves his bride. Joshua Harris wrote a book, very recently called Stop Dating the Church, in which he picks up on the concept of the church as the bride and says we must make a similar commitment to the local church, similar even to a marriage commitment. It's different, of course, because to leave because God calls you another geographical region, that's not like a divorce. But there is a covenant connection we make with a local church.

And we stop messing around. We find a church and we commit ourselves to it and as long as the Word of God is being preached there and church discipline is going on and the right offering of the ordinance is going on. We commit ourselves to that church and labor that it be everything God wants it to be. Close with me if you would in prayer. Father, we thank you for these three just grand, overarching images of the church that we've seen this morning.

The image of the church in national terms as a people of God, a holy nation, a people for his own glory chosen out to assemble together. The religious images of the animal sacrificial system that we are a priesthood and we are a temple and we are offering a sacrifice of ourselves and many other sacrifices as well and we are a family together in family images in the household of God we are servants of the master We are brothers and sisters together with Jesus as the elder brother. We are the bride of Christ. One with him as the father and the son are one. Oh Lord, I pray that these images would move us to love the church and to love one another and be faithful in our service to her, We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

On the subject of conforming the church and the family to the Word of God. And for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website ncfic.org. C-f-i-c dot o-r-g.