What the Church Is and is NOT

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The scripture for our meditation for tonight is taken from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 11 through 22.

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But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross thereby killing the hostility.

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And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near for through him we both have access in one spirit to the

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Father so then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are now fellow citizens with the

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Saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the

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Apostles and the prophets Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord in him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the

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Spirit this is the word of the Lord in the name of Jesus I remember very vividly the funeral for Burt Egan member of the community out here in Oslo and Alvaredo it was a very cold winter day in fact the ice was really really tough that particular day and one of the things

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I did not expect that I ran into was that Burt Egan as well -placed in the community as he was when he died everybody in the community

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I don't think anybody was left at home everybody showed up of course the pastor decided he was going to show up like 15 minutes before the funeral because we had already worked this all out with the funeral home and I had nowhere to park

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I ended up parking like five blocks away walking on the ice

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I should've brought my skates but what was fascinating to me was vividly seeing and kind of starkly seeing the community that lives out here they were all there to say their farewells and their goodbyes and I think it's amazing to me as somebody who grew up in Southern California that I never was part of a community like that or like the one that exists out here and so I think it's wonderful that in some way

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I get to serve some of the people of that community and you notice I say some because unfortunately

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I do not have the privilege of serving all of the members of that community and so as we embark on our study of what the church is let me remind you what is in our small catechism on the third article of the creed it says this

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I believe in the Holy Spirit the Holy Christian Church here's the phrase we're going to kind of zoom in on today the communion of Saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting but there's our phrase the communion of the

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Saints and Luther's explanation he asks of course in his German brogue was ist das what does this mean he says

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I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him but the

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Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel enlightened me with his gifts sanctified and kept me in the true faith now in the same way he calls he gathers he enlightens and he sanctifies the whole

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Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith and in this

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Christian Church he daily and richly forgives all of my sins and the sins of all believers and on the last day he will raise me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ and then of course we get these wonderful words this is most certainly true and so you begin to get this idea that communion of the that there's something a little bit different about the church because it's not the same community as the community that lives in Oslo or Alvaredo Warren or even radium way out there near the borders of the very earth itself instead we learned that members of that community out there also are members of a different community a community that Christ has gathered and he is the one who gathers us and so many people they oftentimes think you know what is the church and the first thing they point to is the building take a look at this building isn't it beautiful isn't it gorgeous decked out for the holiday season and we got the steeple of course our lights off in our steeple but you know you just it's warm and cozy and everything but see that this isn't the church the pews aren't the church the altar isn't the church y 'all are the church and one of the things that it's so amazing to me is the privilege that I have to preach the gospel and to minister word and sacrament to people who live thousands of miles away who gather in homes this past Sunday Aletheia Lutheran Church of Percival Virginia they had an

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LCMS pastor who we've been working with with our Aletheia project come he drove an hour and he provided he did the divine service in the home of one of our

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Aletheia families and they had set up chairs and they all had hymnals and it was beautiful to see that they had created an altar for the occasion complete with pyramids complete with pyramids and a cross and an advent wreath and candle and it was just absolutely stunning and amazing to think about the fact that a church was meeting in their home but see their home isn't the church it's just the place where the church this past Sunday met and they met to hear of the forgiveness of their sins to feast on the

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Word of God and to feast on the body and blood of Jesus Christ broken and shed for them for the forgiveness of their sins to be again pointed back to their baptisms where they were united with Christ and see that baptismal font is a very active font here because that font is the place where Christ continues to grow this different community this community of faith and so quoting then the great theologian and pastor of the

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LCMS C .F .W. Walther he actually wrote a book on the church and he had he wrote some theses regarding what the church is

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Walther writes he says the church and the proper sense of the word is the congregation of the saints that is the entirety of all those who are called out of the lost and condemned human race by the

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Holy Spirit through the word truly they believe in Christ and by faith are sanctified and incorporated in Christ and so you hear the word there he said called out ecclesia ecclesia the

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Greek word you can translate it as congregation or community or assembly but if you break the word into its little component parts ecclesia literally means the called out ones and that's what

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Christ has done for us in his word and in the baptismal font he has called us out from the world forgiven us sanctified us sealed us with his

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Holy Spirit and now feeds us with his means of grace and so with that consider then what

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Ephesians chapter one and we actually do a little bit of a study on some of the texts in the book of Ephesians as they so clearly bear this out

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Paul writes in Ephesians one starting at verse 16 Paul says I do not cease to give thanks for you and this is a plural you y 'all we gotta get a plural you in English that's better than y 'all what's the

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King James Version I forget but here's the idea says I did not cease to give thanks for y 'all remembering y 'all in my prayers that the

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God of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of all glory that he may give to you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened so that you may know what is the hope to which he is called you that are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the

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Saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe and there's the idea and so you'll note that of the greater community from around here there are those who believe who've been called out and separated into a different community a community where we are forgiven and now we are to love each other and so Paul continues he says according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the age that is to come and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church which is his body now not every human being is part of the body of Christ only those who believe and so we have been called to be part of the church the body of Christ which according to Paul is the fullness of him who fills all in all

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John Christos the great preacher from the city of Constantinople which is now in modern day

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Turkey Istanbul used to preach in the building that they now call the Hagia Sophia right it's a mosque now but the great

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John Christos preaching a sermon in that building when it was still a Christian Cathedral he said when you flee to the church you do not flee to a place and what a stunning thing for him to say because considering where he preached this from I mean we can still walk into the

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Hagia Sophia today and granted you know all of its Christian greatness has been papered over by the

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Muslims but still you can get glimpses of its former glory and so here

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John Christos preaching in this magnificent edifice one of the first mega churches of the world if you would he says when you flee to the church you don't flee to a place and you'll know there is no church in the

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Hagia Sophia today it's not a church it's a mosque you see but it was never the church it was never really a church it was just the place where the church met and that's his point he says this but when you flee to the church you flee to her with your heart for the essence of the church does not consist in wall and masonry but in faith and in virtue she is called a mountain because of her firmness she's called a virgin because of her sanctity she's called a queen because of her glory a king's daughter because of her relation with God a mother having given birth because of the great number of children she conceived after she had been childless for a long time not to speak of the uncountable other names that Holy Scripture gives to her in addition beautiful picture if you think about it

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Paul then in Ephesians 2 goes a little further with this idea of the fact that we the human beings who believe in Jesus Christ that we are now citizens in fact

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Paul writes in Ephesians 2 and we heard it in our reading earlier then you you all of y 'all you are no longer strangers you are alien and the aliens but you are now fellow citizens with all the

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Saints and you are members of the household of God which is built on the foundation of the

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Apostles and the prophets and Jesus Christ being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is now being joined together and grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the

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Spirit and 1st Corinthians 3 16 and 17 it says this Paul writes do you not know that y 'all there it is again the plural you y 'all are

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God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in and it's plural y 'all the

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God Spirit dwells in you so if anyone destroy God's temple God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and you y 'all y 'all are that temple this building isn't that temple you are that temple and then we learn this from a text that is so despised today so out of sync with so much of the communities around us you see you gotta understand this when people do not believe that Jesus is the

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Messiah they do not believe that he's the Christ that he's bled and died for their sins that they're hostile to God and they're hostile to what his word reveals and so here's a text that is just seems so out of vogue in the modern -day feminists would literally probably throw an egg in your face if you quoted it to him but listen to what it says regarding our relationship to Christ Ephesians 5 22 wives submit to your own husbands as to the

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Lord and by the way I counted it up there are six letters in submit not four okay yeah many people think that's a four letter word it's not we are to embrace it wives submit to your own husbands as to the

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Lord for the husband is the head of the wife and here's the comparison even as Christ is the head of the church his body and is himself its

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Savior so now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands and so you'll note then that in our community

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Christ is the head we cannot do theology or doctrine or what we are to believe teach and confess by our decisions our consensus we are not the rulers of this community this is a community attached to the kingdom of Christ and in that kingdom

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Christ is king he is above all rule and authority and his church his community submits to him and see so much of what's gone wrong in the church today is that the bride of Christ has rebelled against her husband and has decided to call the shots will call that the ultimate sinful form of feminism if you would when the church rises up against Jesus and so we learn from this text that informs us how we are to relate to each other within our own marriages that we as the church at the community of faith we are to submit to Christ now regarding this idea then of what the church is this communion of the

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Saints I love what Luther wrote in the large catechism it's quite helpful for us and I'll read some snippets from it

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Luther says so if you asked or you are asked what do you mean by the words

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I believe in the Holy Spirit he says you can answer this way I believe that the

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Holy Spirit makes me holy as his name implies this is a good way to talk about the

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Holy Spirit right so then he says well how does he do this by what means well here's the answer through the

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Christian Church through the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting so in the first place he has a unique community in the world

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Christ does the Holy Spirit does and see it this community is the mother that begets and bears every

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Christian through the Word of God the Holy Spirit reveals and preaches that word and by it he illumines and kindles hearts so that they may grasp and they may accept it cling to it and persevere in it and where did he does not cause the word to be preached and does not awaken understanding in the heart well then all is lost all is lost so therefore there was no

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Christian there was no Christian Church for where Christ is not preached there is no Holy Spirit to create call to gather the

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Christian Church and outside of it no one can come to the Lord Christ so the creed calls the

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Holy Christian Church a communion of Saints the word ecclesia probably then means an assembly but we however are accustomed to the term and he uses the the

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German here kirche church by which simple folks understand not a group of people but a consecrated house or a building but the house should not be called the church except for the single reason that the group of people assembles there for we who assemble select a special place and give the house its name by virtue of the assembly so the idea here is that this building is called a church not because of its architecture it's called a church because a church meets here and that's the only reason should be called a church

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I think Luther's right on this right so he says this instead should be called a

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Christian congregation or an assembly or at best most clearly of all a holy Christian people so the church is a community and Luther says we ought to say a community of Saints of holy ones that is a community composed only of Saints or still more clearly a holy community so this is the sum and the substance of this phrase

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I believe that there is on earth a little holy flock or a little community of pure Saints under one head

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Christ is called together by the Holy Spirit in one faith mind and understanding it possesses a variety of gifts yet it is united in love without sect or schism and of this community

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I also am a part and I am a member a participant in a co -partner in all the blessings that this community possesses it was brought to it by the

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Holy Spirit and incorporated into it through the fact that I have heard and still continue to hear

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God's Word and now you see why that third commandment is so important remember the

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Sabbath day to keep it holy to fear love and trust in God so we do not despise preaching and his word to despise preaching in his word is to cut yourself off from the community where the

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Holy Spirit is forgiving us sanctifying us molding us into the image of God Luther is so right on this point and so we must continue to still hear

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God's Word which then is the first step in entering it so until the last day the Holy Spirit remains with the holy community or the

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Christian people through it he gathers us using it to teach and to preach the word by it he creates and increases sanctification causing it daily to grow and to become strong in the faith and in the fruits of the

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Spirit furthermore we believe that in this Christian church we have the forgiveness of our sins which is granted through the holy sacraments the absolution as well as through all the comforting words of the entire gospel towards forgiveness is directed everything that is to be preached concerning the sacraments and in short the entire gospel and all the duties of Christianity forgiveness is needed constantly for although God's grace has been won by Christ and holiness has been brought by the

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Holy Spirit through God's word in the unity of the Christian church yet because we are encumbered with our flesh we are never without sin therefore everything in the

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Christian church is so ordered that we may daily obtain forgiveness of sins through the word and through the signs appointed to comfort and revive our consciences as long as we live although we have sinned the

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Holy Spirit sees to it that it does not harm us because we are in the Christian church where there is full forgiveness of sins

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God forgives us and then we forgive and bear with and aid one another boy

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I didn't realize it was so much to that phrase the communion of the

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Saints that's the idea so you'll note then that what we do when we gather as this community as the communion of the

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Saints as the assembly of those who have been made holy by Christ we have some peculiar things that we do and the members of the greater community where we gather may think that were a bunch of odd ducks and I guess we are because we gather to hear

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God's word to sing praise to our God in response to the great gifts that he has given us in Christ we baptize our infants we feast on the body and blood of Christ and that crazy pastor that they have have you heard what he says he says to the people who come and show up I forgive you all of your sins what a strange group of people they are and indeed we are we've been made strange by Christ right and so the idea then is is that if we're first going to understand what the church is we have to understand what scripture tells us we are and then when we do that we can see how out of step we might become with the community or the world around us and Jesus told us to expect that and so we realize then that always as Christians we are dual citizens we are citizens of the

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United States we're local residents of rural Minnesota but we are also citizens of the kingdom of God and that citizenship and that community and that assembly is the one that informs everything that we do when we come together from outside of the world you can see here's the fun part when you think of it when we confess in the creed

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I believe in the communion of the Saints that is an article of faith and then when you disappear and you leave this building you're like leaven that goes out into the bread leavening the loaf with the leaven of Christ but see then we can't see it anymore you see where I stand

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I can get glimpses of this church for just just a few minutes but then in just a minute we're all going to get in our cars and drive away and whoosh we disappear like a dream and that's the idea and we disappear into the larger community always remembering that we are a separate community set apart wholly because of Christ and what he has done for us and because of the work that the

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Holy Spirit has done on us here in this assembly in this church and in the church that mysteriously meets throughout the world in the name of Jesus Amen if you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest Oslo Minnesota 56744 and again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th