Systematic Theology (part 11)

What is man is what I got to ask last time. So I thought it kind of a neat coincidence that this time

I'm going to get to ask a similar fundamental question to embark on yet another big systematic theology category

What is the church? What is the church? And what better place to start than asking?

What does the Bible say? What does the Bible name or call the church? That's where we're going to start Scriptural names or words for the church and I know the church exists in the

New Testament So I'm going to start there. I'm going to start with the New Testament kind of a weird foreshadowing loaded statement there

I'm just saying that because Burkhoff decided to start his Thing with church in the

Old Testament Yeah So we'll get to that But in the

New Testament words or names for the church Ekkalēsia is almost always the

Greek word which we translate church And that literally means assembly or assembled or the called out

So it's a generic word assembly that on its own sort of just begs the question

Asking us to fill in its meaning by context assembly assembly of what fill in the blank assembly of and The New Testament default fill -in -the -blank meaning is always assembly of believers in Christ It's the word used by Jesus prior to Pentecost in Matthew 16 18 and 18 17

It's used one time to designate a big group of churches in Acts 9 31 But it also sometimes refers to the whole body of believers across the whole world and through all of time

The other word is soon. I go gay Which we just say synagogue

It seems a little strange to me that Burkhoff threw this out along Ekkalēsia be with equal mention because it's

Really only he's always talking about the first century Jewish gatherings the synagogues

But we have to admit that there is one place though And I think only one place where the word soon

I go gay seems to be pointing to a church gathering and that's James 2 2 Where it's talking about people discriminating in partiality against poor believers coming in It says there for if there comes unto your assembly soon

I'll go gay a man with a gold ring in Goodly apparel and there comes in also a poor man in vile raiment and then the partiality thing

But really interesting to me was that our

English word church Is not even derived from a classy at all, but rather Korea coasts and You can kind of see how it evolved into church kuric

Kirk soften the K sounds church and it means belonging to the

Lord and According to Burkhoff. It was first used to describe the church buildings being an object or structure which belongs to the

Lord But then this label gradually quote transferred to the church itself the spiritual building of God unquote to refer to believers

And it makes sense with the first century there being a lot of house churches that don't have a church building

And it's a logical transference, right? Because don't we also? Belong to the

Lord if we have the right view of God and ourselves that he owns us That he bought us off the slave block of sin and we've been redeemed by his blood

Pastor Mike just said that about 1st Corinthians 6 at the end of last Sunday's sermon. We've been bought with a price so interestingly, the only places that Greek word

Korea coast shows up is 1st Corinthians 1120 talking about the supper

Belonging to the Lord the Lord's Supper and in Revelation 1 10 talking about the day

Belonging to the Lord the Lord's Day So the entire New Testament the very

Greek word which gives us our English word church It's never referring to the church the building or the people very interesting

So then we have other designations or names body of Christ Use both of the church universal but also singular congregation

The Bride of Christ which surprisingly Burkhoff missed that one The temple temple of the

Holy Spirit temple of God also spiritual house in first Peter 2 5

Jerusalem The Jerusalem that's above a new Jerusalem heavenly Jerusalem Emphasizing that place where God dwelt from the

Old Testament and then applying that to us Who he dwells inside of in the New Testament and then pillar and ground of the truth only in 1st

Timothy 3 15 they're talking about the church as a general guardian or defender or supporter of the truth against deceptive attacks, so we'll pause there any thoughts or Questions or comments on New Testament names words any thoughts

Wow All right, so now we get to the fun part

Old Testament words These are Hebrew words translated assembly or congregation

Cahil and Ada and Like I said before Burkhoff started his discussion about names of the church with the

Old Testament words that mean assembly So they're kind of like Old Testament equivalents for the

Greek word Ecclesia But I found it a little strange Burkhoff started with the Old Testament like right out of the gates

I wanted to ask wait a second Louie does the church even exist in the

Old Testament and Burkhoff sort of just assumes that right in the beginning and then 16 pages later he finally gets to explaining it and Trying to justify and prove his point about that But before I tell you about what

Burkhoff thinks or before I tell you what I think, what do you think? Does the church exist in the

Old Testament and if so? In what sense or what way does the church exist in the

Old Testament as compared to the New Testament? Come on. Somebody's got to have some thoughts on this one John So you're saying the remnant in the

Old Testament we can count that as the church Okay, good question though, were they meeting together as the remnant anybody or thoughts?

Yeah. Okay. How did they belong to God though?

Chosen in what way to be his in what way?

But even oh Do you want to say something? Okay, right, but again called out for what?

Yeah, and I think your your comment connects with John's right that there's a remnant that are truly saved by faith and Shouldn't we at least be able to count them as the church?

Maybe I don't know Brian Yeah, so like the idea of a replacement theology,

I think it's called where the church replaces Israel alright, so A lot of people

I'll just say quickly a lot of people think like, oh, well the church started at Pentecost, right? But I think we have to say that it had probably existed before that because Jesus uses the word church

Before we even get to Pentecost in Matthew 16 and 18 like I mentioned They're talking about the church discipline process and tell it to the church, right?

So when burka finally 16 pages later gets down to explaining his viewpoint that the church exists in the

Old Testament He gives a list of a bunch of points which I've listed out in your outline

Number one pious households The church was quote best represented in the pious households where the fathers served as priests unquote

Calling on the name of the Lord. He claims the reference in Genesis 4 26 as some sort of public community of calling on The Lord and therefore he says this reference is equivalent to the church being in the

Old Testament Number three the patriarchs when we get to Abraham Burkhaff seems to almost equate genealogical lineage and separation unto

God and the sign of circumcision as Being God's people in the same sense as those who are in the church set apart spiritually

He writes quote up until the time of Moses the families of the patriarchs were the real repositories of the true faith in which the fear of Jehovah and the service of the

Lord was kept alive and Then forth he gets to Moses and Burkhaff even goes more extreme and more explicit in his language and word choices with Moses He writes quote after the

Exodus the people of Israel were not only organized into a nation But were also constituted the

Church of God The whole nation Constituted the church and the church was limited to the one nation of Israel though foreigners could enter it by being incorporated into the nation the worship of God was regulated down to the minutest of details was largely ritual and Ceremonial and was centered in one central sanctuary.

I don't like it. I Really personally struggle with these blatant assignments of Old Testament and New Testament Church Being equivalent as they're as if they're both the

Church of God. I think some of these thoughts they just blur the lines too much between these categories of God working symbolically in shadows through genealogical and national and ceremonial means and then muddying all that up together

With the categories of spiritual and eternal and individual salvation I didn't list them all out here in my notes, but I just there's got to be almost more than you could even list

In the New Testament making statements that are like trying to separate the two not make them equivalent

I think of Colossians 2 16 to 17 where it talks about all this Old Testament stuff being shadows

Of all kinds of stuff in the book of Hebrews which Mike took three years to explain to us, right? Galatians 3 7

I just read in my daily reading this morning It says only those of faith are Sons of Abraham spiritual sons of Abraham, so it's not about physical lineage.

I See the Old Testament as a very physical Typological almost like theatrical performance pointing us to the spiritual

Jesus and the New Testament and So just try to equate them. I don't know.

I'm just gonna like it and I have this other point in here. We know it's not just the nation because we see

Jesus making specific statements to trash those types of rigid national boundaries of God's spiritual will say salvation ish blessings because we don't know they're saved, but he's preaching in Nazareth and he says in Luke 4

I Tell you truly many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah but none of them was

Elijah sent to except Zarephath in the region of Sidon to a woman who was a widow and Many lepers were in Israel at the time of Elisha the

Prophet. None of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian but he Yeah, exactly.

Is it a spiritual reality or is it as Corey is saying is in a assembly realities? I'm not a I'm not part of the church unless I'm assembled what?

Yeah, I do think there's a lot of weird overlaps. Like where did the truth come from? How did people hear the truth?

How do people know the truth? It's a that's a rabbit trail. We probably don't have time to go down but Yeah, the

Romans 11 passage. Yeah Yeah, and I think that connects back to John's comments about the remnant right even in Romans 11

He talks about how you know, he's able to graft back in Jews But what the question is, what are they being grafted into are being grafted into a nation?

Maybe a spiritual nation, you know in the New Testament. We the church is called the Israel of God Right, so I guess the question is is it a national is it a ceremonial?

Is it a genealogical thing or is it a spiritual thing? I think we have to say it's a spiritual thing, right?

So you could be grafted into the spiritual lineage of the remnant right the Abraham remnant

Like I said the sons of Abraham The only true sons of Abraham are those of faith, right?

So then fifth Burkoff goes to confessions and catechisms He talks about the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg catechism and the comments in those catechisms that he quotes they talk about the church being from the beginning of the world and that God chose people out of all humanity from the beginning until the end

And I just see those quotes as talking about people who are saved but not necessarily a church it's a it's a little bit of a

Jump too big of a conclusion to say Israel is the church just because there were saved people in the

Old Testament Like I have this example here if there was a modern church With a thousand people in it and only five of them were saved.

The pastors are unsaved. The elders are unsaved Is that a church? I? Don't think so.

And I would say the Nation of Israel at times was worse than that The sixth point he makes is the

Septuagint Ecclesia Burkoff uses the fact that the the

Septuagint has the word Ecclesia in the Old Testament for assembly And he says the martyr

Stephen in his big long sermon ish thing

He uses the Greek word Ecclesia when he's talking about the assembly of Israelites wandering in the wilderness

It seems like a stretch to me. It's just a general Greek word assembly You could use it the default is of believers in Christ, but it can be used to be an assembly of anything

It's like if we were going to do that rigid word equivalency logic thing

We could say oh, well, it says synagogue in James 2 2 so every place synagogue shows up has to also be a church

Which we know isn't true because Paul was evangelizing synagogues in Acts, right? So in general,

I see the New Testament going out of its way to make sharp distinctions between God's physical genealogical nation and all the ceremonial symbolisms like circumcision versus God's spiritual saved people

So I see big distinctions in the New Testament rather than equivalencies I Do think the nation of Israel makes a great typology.

It's a great type of the church That's why in in the New Testament does call us the

Israel of God Because it's a chosen people to be a nation and we're a chosen spiritual people

Yeah, so I just I don't see being able to equate them I see the church as really the fulfillment of what

Israel was theatrically ceremonially Doing in the Old Testament So yeah any thoughts on this?

I know we spent a lot of time on this part, but it's kind of a neat controversy any Last thoughts on the church in the

Old Testament Yeah, I really like that I like John's comment that the remnant in the

Old Testament is part of the church the spiritually saved of the church I just don't like the idea of saying the nation was the church as Burkhoff says

Yeah, I think that's true. I but it I don't think covenant theologians would At least the the one book

I read on it would say that the Old Testament nation was the church But there's definitely more way more continuity from Old and New Testament with covenant theology whereas Dispensationalists have a hard cutoff and they would say well the church didn't even exist until Pentecost There was no say it like a totally different plan of salvation some of them say

I think she gets four stars All right as I mentioned

I mentioned in my last talk systematic theology often takes a look at doctrines throughout church history

So wrong or right? How have religious men answered this question?

What is the church throughout church history? the main focus or emphasis of the church up until the latter part of the second century

Was that the church is a communio Sanctorum we got to get a Latin phrase in every time, right?

Which means a sanctified community those who are set apart by God as his people his possession

But then heresies kind of arose around that time which forced church leaders to try to find some way

To distinguish between those people who are part of the true church and those people who are part of the false church

Who's in who's out we got to figure this out And so that need to make in or out distinctions ended up resulting in these unfortunate following emphases

They started emphasizing one the external or organizational church Quote from the days of Cyprian down to the

Reformation The essence of the church was sought ever increasingly in its external visible

Organization unquote number two they started focusing on apostolic

Succession and who were the official bishops and overseers that came down from them and are the good bishops, you know

Submit to the bishops or forfeit your fellowship your salvation from the church Number three traditions who's following the true traditions who's got the right?

Sacraments who's doing the sacraments correctly? That's as an indicator a requirement and of course who's doing them right and what are the true sacraments was determined to find by those bishops and then universality the universal

Church And if you're going to focus on the visible What we can see universal

Church now that visible Church needs to have overseers needs to have a hierarchy needs to have

Those bishops overseeing everything The British politician

Lord Acton said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts

Absolutely, and this external focused universal overseeing system that the church turned itself into Lent itself to power and therefore corruption

So it allowed for moral corruption to kind of show up pretty early in reaction to that Various holiness sects sort of rose up in those first few centuries like Montanism and Novationism and Donatism and These sects just kind of deepened that need to make distinctions, which is the true church

Which is the false church and they had to double down, right? Eventually Augustine had this battle with the

Donatists and he viewed the church as communio sanctorum He did have that view

But then that became kind of muddied up with this Cyprian introduced view of the focus on the bishops and the hierarchy and the succession from the

Apostles and Augustine also held that view and So the first century view and Augustine's view of the communio sanctorum focus of what the church is pretty much got disregarded and lied dormant for in the entire

Middle Ages and So in this way Augustine quote prepared the way for the

Roman Catholic identification of the church and the kingdom of God on earth and Before studying this

I had no idea a that it started that early or be that Augustine was kind of this pivotal director of everything in that way

So to take us from that time period all the way up to the Reformation, I'm just going to hit you with three Burkoff quotes quote number one

Hugo of st. Victor speaks of the church and the state as the two powers instituted by God for the government of the people

Both are monarchical in constitution But the church is the higher power because she ministers to the salvation of men

While the state only provides for their temporal welfare Quote number two

Step by step the doctrine of the papacy came to development until at last the

Pope became virtually an absolute monarch quote number three

This identification of the visible and organized Church with the kingdom of God had far -reaching

Consequences it required that everything be brought under the control of the church the home and the school

Science and art commerce and industry and so on It involved the idea that all the blessings of salvation come to man only through the ordinances of the church particularly through the sacrament it led to gradual secularization of the church since the church began to pay more attention to politics than to the salvation of sinners and the

Pope's finally claimed Dominion also over secular rulers the

Reformation The Reformation comes in and seeks to correct all this mess all kinds of aspects of this gradual

Derailment of the church which had been going on going downhill for over a thousand years

They return to this communio sanctorum focus and of course a wholesale return to the foundation of God's Word sola scriptura and of course all the other solas and then from there until now

Burkhoff only really touches briefly on that and With a compromising impact of rationalism where we end up with the common quote modern liberal conception of the church as a mere social center a human institution rather than a planting of God Okay thoughts on church history any comments any things that were interesting in there

John well, we're gonna actually talk much more about visible versus invisible in a bit, but I Guess the question is sure they both exist.

Which one are we going to emphasize? I mean other thoughts on church history stuff

Steve I don't think that Burkhoff puts a time on it or that I would put a time on it

But there's like a gradual descent I think According to Burkhoff there's a gradual descent from Cyprian to Augustine and then goes completely

Gradually downhill from there until the Reformation so When do you go below zero?

I don't know with that curve. I mean

I read it. I read another book I think it was the Matthew 1618 controversy or something, but It definitely seemed to be really off the rails around a thousand like really bad

That probably just made it even more political right yeah, and I don't know when's when's

Augustine and Constantine is which one's first Yeah, so if Augustine teed up the golf ball

Constantine drove it right all right So let's go a little deeper beyond just the names and labels to really ask.

What is the church? What's its nature? What's its essence? What's its character and? So Burkhoff does this many -sided character of the church compare and contrast?

You know could we could we say the church is a coin and they have a head side and a tail side

Where do we heard that before I don't know So if you flip over your note sheet, there's a chart on the back, which

I'm going to just talk through The first one there is the idea of a militant church versus a triumphant church and embattled church versus a victorious church

So now on earth we are in a spiritual war But we look forward someday to a very different situation where we will be in heaven and there the war will be over Really cool quote from Burkhoff on this point

If the church on earth is the militant Embattled church the church in heaven is the triumphant church

There the sword is exchanged for the palm of victory The battle cries are turned into songs of triumph and the cross is replaced by the crown

The strife is over the battle is won and the Saints reign with Christ forever and ever in These two stages of her existence the church reflects both the humiliation and exaltation of her heavenly

Lord Then we look at visible versus invisible as was just brought up The first one is very similar to the

Embattled victorious contrast now on earth. We see the church we can see churches gathering people gathering people being saved but What's the church look like in heaven?

Can we see it now? No, we can't it's a future invisible reality. We also see invisible and visible contrast in even our own

Sanctification, what is primary? What is secondary? What comes first? What comes second?

So what's primary is the fact that we're saved on the inside justified

Regenerated by faith. It's all invisible But out of that from the inside out comes the visible our sanctification good works and Then the visible invisible contrast for the church itself visibly

We see An organizational church we see practical but imperfect embodiments.

We see baptisms We see professions and that includes a certain body of people But then there's an invisible ideal church spiritual church that are all the saved only

And Berkoff has a great quote that kind of points this out.

It's like there's two like a Venn diagram They they overlap, but there's stuff hanging out on the side.

He says quote. It's possible that some who belong to the invisible Church May never become members of the visible organization

On the other hand there may be unregenerated children and adults who while professing Christ have no true faith in him are only part of the church as an external institution and these as Long as they're in that condition and do not and will not they do not and will not belong to the invisible

Church So a sad reality there, you know, there's some people that are just I'm not into organized religion

But they're actually saved sitting at home Then there's people here who got baptized and said they believe in Christ, but they're not saved

He makes a key distinction that these again are not two different churches but they're really describing the same church with a little bit of different viewpoint and clarification and Then he looks at the organic versus the institutional

The organic is sort of like what all of it. Oh Steve No, I just I just say that's a possibility

He didn't say there's people at home that refuse to go to church that are saved I'm saying I think that could be possible.

I have friends that I think that are saved that refuse to go to church Well, actually

Shannon I were just talking about this on the right here. You know, what is Hebrews 10 saying when it says Don't refuse to be

To gather together, right? If you get together in small group, but you refuse to go on Sunday.

Are you disobeying that command? I don't know You're still gathering together.

You're not refusing to gather together But I still love

Jesus Yeah, and there's you know what Vadim said to maybe there's other countries like maybe there's a

Muslim that got saved and he can't find the church, right You're a spiral of ignorance of oh,

I thought I didn't know that was important. I should go what? Yeah Okay, so to get back to the last entry on our church.

We have the organic versus institutional There's a priesthood of all believers. We all have gifts talents.

Everyone's kind of doing general ministry and service. That's not like official And not being like managed, right?

You're you're Evangelizing your co -worker while you're at work. That's organic ministry organic church activity and then we have the

Institutional church kind of the elders and deacons the church leadership the government the word and sacrament here on Sunday very public official

So those that contrasts All right. So then the second chart on the back of your page the attributes of the church

I'm not going to read all these boxes here, but he has three attributes of the church

He focuses on unity holiness and the universality of the church each one of these in the book

He kind of compares and contrasts Catholic Roman Catholic viewpoint on them versus the

Protestant But intertwined in that he talks about invisible and visible and I thought that was kind of a cooler distinction

So that's the way I set it up in this chart for you So with unity there's a spiritual unity and a physical unity we're all unified in Christ's we've all been justified by faith in Christ Sanctified and regenerated on the inside by the

Holy Spirit. We're unified in doctrine So there's a spiritual unity that we have that's invisible.

You can't see but then we also have this We have a visible unity. We're all gathering together

Except for those rebels staying at home, right Steve The we're all gathering for the same sermon we're all taking the same juice and crackers we're all

Together as one visible church as well Our holiness is also invisible and visible.

We have an imputed perfect righteousness of Christ deposited to our account That's invisible

We're a new creation on the inside, but we can't see that We're hoping to be in heaven.

Like I said, which we can't see But there's also if those things are real those invisible things are realities for us.

There should also be a visible holiness It should be lived out

God is sanctifying us to practically live differently if his Holy Spirit is truly in us changing us.

Are we living differently? It should be tangible. There should be something out here showing up, right? the universality of the church

There is a as we've mentioned multiple times, there's all believers on the earth are all part of the church

But who are they? How do we count them all up? We don't it's all in it's an invisible reality of a church worldwide and even

More so a church across all of humanity through all of time And then the visible universal church that is a punt

That one doesn't exist We messed that one up that obviously was a big mistake

Yeah, so some good quotes from Burkhoff there. I won't Read them, but it didn't prove productive to try that one

So attributes of the church He talks about that actually in the chapter how like but the tension they're like shouldn't we be trying to do this or should we?

I don't know it failed should we try it again? Should we emphasize it going in that direction or do it as much as we can on a local level like?

Denominations he talks a lot about that. I it's too much to really get into but yeah, there is a tension there

So is there any that he missed should we have used Rick Warren's purpose -driven church? List of five instead like what do you think?

attributes of the church Alright, so the marks of the church

Remember our church history section how they tried to mark out and make markings of who's the true church and who's not

How that kind of messed up? Let's go back. Let's do a woulda coulda shoulda What what should they have done to mark out?

What's the true church and what's the false church? Burkhoff gives us three number one true preaching of the word

Agreed that this is the most important mark. This is why the Reformation Was mainly just a return to Scripture Some say that even the church basing everything on the

Word of God is really the only Mark of the church and everything else flows out of that The set but he gives us two more number two the right administration of the sacraments and again

You could go all the way the Catholics took that and say you have to do them here in this building with this wafer

Right, but Burkhoff says no the right administration of the sacraments is word based

He says quote the sacraments should never be divorced from the word For they have no content of their own

But derive their content from the Word of God They should stay

Christ focused They should emphasize the spiritual reality and meaning behind the ceremony

So we don't get lost in all the externals and third faithful exercise of church discipline

Some said church discipline though is not necessary for being a church, but it is necessary for the well -being of the church

The purity of the church. So in other words, they would say it's really important Sure, but it will be really kind of an exaggeration to say well, they're not doing church discipline

So they don't even count as a church Okay, so marks of the church any thoughts on that did he miss one is there a mark he should have kept

Yeah, well, he did use the word true preaching of the word, right? so like we were we were doing the evangelism thing yesterday with Jonathan and we've hit these

Jehovah's Witnesses and so I We encountered them and there was on their little poster

There was like this word Biblica and I was like does that mean Bible and he goes? Yeah, and I'm like So what's the purpose of the

Bible? What's the whole message of the Bible? And he goes well God's kingdom and I was like, okay

All right, and so we got into it and you know They would be not true preaching of the word

But they would be preaching of the word right because they're emphasizing the kingdom rather than the king and even in the emphasis of the king

They don't emphasize the prophet or priest aspects is what I told them. So it was an interesting debate we had with them

Jonathan Yeah that that actually Jonathan is a perfect segue to my last point which is why does it matter and This again is me not

Burkoff. So if it stinks, it's my fault If we look back at our church history portion of our discussion that shows just by itself

Why it matters if we don't keep the right focus in how we answer this question What is the church then we'll emphasize all the wrong things and soon our church is promoting

Christless Christianity like Andrew said And so now I'm going to venture into a little bit of preaching to the choir

So certainly our focus for what is the church must be on the communio sanctorum for the church

But not just for the church also for you

Communio sanctorum is made up a lot of a lot of solo sanctorums We talked about the body of Christ, but as first Corinthians says the body is made up of many members

You are what make up the church You're the church Our view of the church must be the communio sanctorum

But that means our view of ourselves has to also be sanctorum. Are you solo sanctorum?

Are you sanctified? Are you set apart? Do you know that you know that you know that you've been spiritually separated unto

God? By God the Holy Spirit and are confident you're in Christ the Son of God by faith

Is that your main and primary focus when it comes to you being part of this thing we call the church

Or is it just being part of the BBC organization and social gatherings the programs and ministries serving at BBC Involved in the church ordinances making sure we're baptized and taking the

Eucharist as the Catholics would call it You went through the BBC membership class with Corey.

That's great Are you reading your Bible regularly sure all these things are great things, but they can't be our primary focus in 2nd

Corinthians 12 14 Paul says I do not seek yours your stuff

But you that's where it starts, that's what God wants. He doesn't want your membership. He doesn't want your money primarily

What God wants from you is? you all those other good activities in the communio sanctorum are mere outflows from the solo sanctorum and In the next chapter 2nd

Corinthians 13 5 Paul says examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith test yourselves

Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you're disqualified?

We're only solo sanctorum with saving faith in Christ if Christ is in us, and we are in Christ That's what sanctifies us.

That's what makes us sanctorum and nothing else and then to the degree

With which are all aspects of our lives are sanctified in that sit to that same degree

That's the degree that which we're being the church as God intends So you remember how when we discovered what that word church originally means it's actually from the

Greek word belonging to the Lord So that begs the question is he is he your

Lord is he Lord to you are you God's does God own you? Are you one who by faith let

God buy you through Christ's price of blood? Did you at one time and do you continue to let

God have your soul? If so, then God owns us and we are each solo sanctorum and each belong to the

Lord and Then as members of the body of Christ were communio sanctorum, and we're all together

Belong to the Lord kuriakos the church any thoughts before we pray in clothes and Communio yep, awesome.

All right great place to stop. Let me pray for us God. Thank you for Making us part of the church by your son

Without him we would be lost We would have no life We'd not we would not be part of your community your family

And so we just rejoice in that that we can be part of your family and be part of this thing called the church that We can belong to you

Because it's so much better to belong to you than to ourselves or to anything else and so God Thank you for the church.