WEBVTT 00:01.050 --> 00:08.990 Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. How do you like old pictures? 00:09.490 --> 00:10.990 Old photos? 00:12.050 --> 00:15.520 Especially if it's a photo of you. 00:20.300 --> 00:27.568 Whenever we take a photo, we are not only looking into a camera, we 00:27.614 --> 00:30.370 are also looking into the future. 00:31.460 --> 00:38.128 So what's the point of taking photos if nobody looks at them later on 00:38.214 --> 00:39.170 in the future? 00:41.000 --> 00:44.470 But how do you recognize people and yourself? 00:46.600 --> 00:51.316 The other day I was told that there is a picture of my family and 00:51.338 --> 00:56.010 myself in If These Walls Could Talk. 00:56.700 --> 00:59.210 And I said, Is that true? 01:00.060 --> 01:02.040 And I was paging through it 01:02.110 --> 01:03.208 yeah, it is. 01:03.374 --> 01:05.710 It says that this is my family. 01:06.720 --> 01:11.192 Iris Vilson holding Rodrigo, Natalia and Fernando Scholz. 01:11.256 --> 01:19.376 I'm only holding Rodrigo, but I will say, would I do this holding the 01:19.398 --> 01:20.160 baby? 01:20.580 --> 01:25.810 And I see, well, yeah, this is the surroundings of house number eight. 01:26.260 --> 01:29.072 My lovely wife is standing there. 01:29.206 --> 01:32.950 I'm wearing a tie, say, Where are we coming from? 01:33.800 --> 01:37.300 And then I look in my face and I see the glasses and all of that. 01:37.370 --> 01:38.790 Oh, yeah, that's me. 01:39.240 --> 01:40.630 It must be me. 01:42.700 --> 01:46.036 And then the other day I saw this other photo. 01:46.068 --> 01:52.184 You cannot cannot see it, but it's a picture of the faculty of 01:52.222 --> 01:56.590 Concordia Seminary back in 1926. 01:57.760 --> 02:05.228 This is, in a sense, what I call the assurance of hope, because these 02:05.314 --> 02:11.760 people are standing and sitting in front of a wall and there's a sign 02:11.830 --> 02:14.800 that says Luther Tower. 02:15.140 --> 02:19.250 Well, there was no Luther Tower back in 1926. 02:20.520 --> 02:23.350 But how do I know who these people are? 02:24.280 --> 02:29.540 Well, they're all wearing more or less the same shoes. 02:30.040 --> 02:31.460 No red shoes. 02:36.220 --> 02:39.240 They are well dressed. 02:40.300 --> 02:46.584 But then I look in the faces and I've seen them. 02:46.702 --> 02:49.700 There's no indication who is on the picture. 02:49.780 --> 02:53.530 I know a few people because I've seen them in pictures before. 02:54.620 --> 02:58.910 And I see Ludwig Fuerbringer, sitting there. 03:00.810 --> 03:03.210 He was the professor of hermeneutics. 03:03.370 --> 03:09.870 And as I look at his face, I say, no problems of hermeneutics in his 03:09.940 --> 03:14.526 mind, on his mind. Dr. 03:14.628 --> 03:20.218 Pieper is sitting there, a serenity, a tranquility. 03:20.314 --> 03:24.240 I say, Is this the face of a seminary president? 03:25.290 --> 03:26.454 But it is. 03:26.652 --> 03:31.800 So you look for signs to identify people. 03:33.210 --> 03:39.334 And I would submit to you that in this text of First Thessalonians, 03:39.382 --> 03:46.793 chapter two, which is the third in a series on First Thessalonians, we 03:46.832 --> 03:54.910 are given a picture of ourselves, a picture of the church. 03:55.730 --> 03:59.470 But we may ask, is this a picture of us? 03:59.620 --> 04:02.590 Is this a picture of the church? 04:04.230 --> 04:09.714 Well, Paul is not saying it with just so many words that this is the 04:09.752 --> 04:10.221 church. 04:10.286 --> 04:13.341 He addresses his audience, his readership 04:13.486 --> 04:21.430 in terms of you, he mentions other churches in Christ Jesus. 04:23.850 --> 04:27.590 So we assume he is talking about the church. 04:28.190 --> 04:33.834 And he actually identified them as the church of the, Thessalonians in 04:33.872 --> 04:38.026 God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ at the beginning of this 04:38.048 --> 04:39.050 epistle. 04:40.610 --> 04:44.142 So it is the family of God. 04:44.276 --> 04:50.110 We assume this because he uses words like a nursing mother. 04:50.450 --> 04:53.486 He talks about himself as a father. 04:53.678 --> 04:55.890 He addresses them as brothers. 04:56.390 --> 05:00.900 He speaks about himself as an orphaned child. 05:01.909 --> 05:09.222 So this is the family of God assembled, probably still in the house of 05:09.276 --> 05:11.909 Jason in Thessalonica. 05:14.500 --> 05:17.852 So how do you recognize the church 05:17.916 --> 05:23.380 In this text? We have to look for signs for marks. 05:24.760 --> 05:26.608 Marks of the church. 05:26.784 --> 05:33.960 And when we hear this phrase, marks of the church, this rings a bell. 05:34.380 --> 05:35.370 Oh, yeah. 05:35.820 --> 05:38.100 Dear old Martin, 05:38.260 --> 05:39.720 Martin Luther. 05:40.780 --> 05:47.304 We will be remembering and commemorating his heavenly birth on this 05:47.342 --> 05:48.760 coming Saturday. 05:49.820 --> 05:55.980 And he has a familiar and well known writing on The Councils and 05:56.100 --> 05:59.230 The church of 1539. 06:01.050 --> 06:05.294 And I would like to lay this description of the church as a grid on 06:05.332 --> 06:09.440 this text to see if it matches or not. 06:10.370 --> 06:15.694 If we can recognize the church in this text in the light of what 06:15.732 --> 06:17.200 Luther has to say. 06:19.490 --> 06:23.770 Luther mentions seven or more signs of the church. 06:23.850 --> 06:24.994 He talks about the 06:25.002 --> 06:25.960 Word of God. 06:26.490 --> 06:28.962 He has baptism. 06:29.106 --> 06:30.418 The Lord Supper. 06:30.514 --> 06:33.909 Absolution, ministry, worship 06:35.610 --> 06:39.100 but these marks are all kind of one. 06:39.790 --> 06:40.634 There is one 06:40.672 --> 06:41.674 that's the key. 06:41.792 --> 06:44.230 The main mark of the church. 06:44.310 --> 06:46.330 It's sort of the pinnacle. 06:46.670 --> 06:50.800 All the other marks are hanging on this one mark. 06:52.130 --> 06:57.280 It's the word of God because baptism is the word and the water. 06:58.290 --> 06:58.874 Supper. 06:58.922 --> 07:01.360 The supper is the visible word. 07:02.050 --> 07:04.980 Absolution is the word spoken to me. 07:05.590 --> 07:06.734 The Ministry. 07:06.861 --> 07:09.380 Well, those are the servants of the Word. 07:10.550 --> 07:14.340 And worship is the setting where all of this takes place. 07:16.330 --> 07:21.080 So if we check the text, what does the text say? 07:21.850 --> 07:32.220 It says, when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, 07:32.830 --> 07:39.306 you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the 07:39.328 --> 07:43.566 word of God, which is at work in you 07:43.748 --> 07:48.861 believers. Notice 07:49.006 --> 07:55.554 it's the word you heard from us as the word of God 07:55.672 --> 07:58.680 it's the word that is at work. 07:59.290 --> 08:07.994 Luther writes this Christian holy people is to be known by this, the 08:08.032 --> 08:09.082 word of God. 08:09.216 --> 08:13.930 It's the High chief holy possession from which the Christian people 08:14.000 --> 08:15.878 take the name Holy. 08:16.054 --> 08:20.830 For God's word is holy and sanctifies everything it touches. 08:21.409 --> 08:28.590 We speak, however, of the external word orally preaching by men like 08:28.659 --> 08:30.014 you and me. 08:30.212 --> 08:36.494 And then he says, wherever you hear or see this word preached, 08:36.542 --> 08:43.261 believed, confessed and acted on, there must be a Christian holy 08:43.326 --> 08:47.380 people, even though it is small in numbers. 08:53.120 --> 08:59.360 Notice that Luther emphasizes the external word orally preached. 09:02.650 --> 09:06.782 So it's the word that's proclaimed and it as 09:06.916 --> 09:11.310 it's the word that's active in action. 09:11.890 --> 09:20.286 So if we see this picture as a mirror of ourselves for today, where do 09:20.308 --> 09:24.350 we see this primary mark in our midst? 09:25.610 --> 09:26.840 Where is it? 09:28.250 --> 09:30.978 We could be looking for printed Bibles. 09:31.074 --> 09:36.246 Well, there are plenty of them over there, pews, but none up here. 09:36.348 --> 09:41.100 So is this sign to be seen in this place? 09:42.030 --> 09:46.810 Well, Paul and Luther were not selling printed Bibles. 09:47.870 --> 09:54.362 The word is the word that is preached, believed, confessed and acted 09:54.426 --> 09:55.040 on. 09:55.730 --> 10:01.134 So it's not so much a physical copy of the Bible, but it's the word 10:01.172 --> 10:06.446 that's preached in our singing, in our confessing, in our preaching, 10:06.558 --> 10:13.854 in everything that goes on in this place. When we sang 10:13.902 --> 10:20.262 I Know My Faith is Founded on Jesus Christ, my God and Lord, and this 10:20.316 --> 10:23.826 my faith confessing and moved 10:23.858 --> 10:26.358 I stand on his sure word. 10:26.444 --> 10:28.620 That was a preaching of the word. 10:30.590 --> 10:33.654 Let me go back to the picture here of the church. 10:33.782 --> 10:39.514 In First Thessalonians chapter two, there is a second mark of the 10:39.552 --> 10:46.906 church which we normally would not identify as a mark of the church. 10:47.098 --> 10:53.714 The text says, for you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of 10:53.752 --> 10:58.850 God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea for you suffered. 11:01.670 --> 11:04.478 Is this a sign of the church? 11:04.574 --> 11:05.938 Well, we had seven. 11:06.104 --> 11:07.974 No, we had six. 11:08.172 --> 11:10.566 I didn't mention the last one. 11:10.748 --> 11:13.030 Luther has a 7th sign. 11:13.100 --> 11:17.302 Actually, he has more than seven, but he has a 7th sign, which is 11:17.356 --> 11:17.670 this. 11:17.740 --> 11:19.366 He says 7th. 11:19.478 --> 11:25.114 The Holy Christian church is outwardly known by the possession of the 11:25.152 --> 11:29.050 holy cross, the cross in the sanctuary? 11:29.470 --> 11:37.150 No, Luther explains, the church must endure hardships and persecution. 11:38.530 --> 11:40.560 Now, this is not our experience. 11:41.410 --> 11:42.842 This is so strange 11:42.906 --> 11:46.190 we do not recognize this is a sign of the church. 11:46.690 --> 11:50.430 I always remember Fred Craddock when he wrote on the Book of 11:50.500 --> 11:55.486 Revelation, he wrote, martyrdom is so clearly the paradigm of the 11:55.508 --> 11:59.521 Christian life in the Book of Revelation that the reader stands 11:59.586 --> 11:59.970 immobilized 12:00.000 --> 12:06.430 either in awe of the white robed saints or in feelings of 12:06.500 --> 12:09.470 guilt for still being alive. 12:11.250 --> 12:16.590 But is the cross just persecution and martyrdom? 12:17.730 --> 12:21.470 Not so, if we follow Luther. 12:22.210 --> 12:29.670 Luther will say that church must endure all kinds of temptation and 12:29.740 --> 12:30.338 evil. 12:30.434 --> 12:32.710 This is how he explains the cross. 12:33.690 --> 12:42.102 It must be inwardly sad, timid, terrified, outwardly poor, despised, 12:42.246 --> 12:43.782 sick, weak. 12:43.926 --> 12:51.950 Thus it becomes like its head Christ. Now, outwardly poor 12:52.770 --> 12:54.880 that does not apply to us. 12:55.810 --> 13:02.030 But inwardly sad, timid, terrified. 13:03.650 --> 13:11.486 If the parusia is delayed for ten or 50 years, what will our church 13:11.598 --> 13:12.580 look like? 13:14.150 --> 13:19.480 Is this the picture of the LCMS in the coming years? 13:20.170 --> 13:25.030 Inwardly sad, timid, terrified. 13:26.170 --> 13:31.100 So if this is the cross, we probably can relate to this. 13:33.230 --> 13:34.780 I have a third part. 13:35.790 --> 13:39.162 Yeah, this is sort of a traditional preaching with a theme in three 13:39.216 --> 13:40.018 parts. 13:40.214 --> 13:44.906 And I'm sort of following also the advice of the sainted professor 13:44.938 --> 13:45.466 Schmelder. 13:45.498 --> 13:50.686 He said, you can hardly improve on the outline of the Holy Spirit in 13:50.708 --> 13:51.920 the text itself. 13:52.870 --> 14:00.482 So Paul writes at the end of the text here in chapter two, about a 14:00.536 --> 14:05.540 great desire to see them face to face. 14:06.710 --> 14:11.830 And in at the end, he says, for you are our glory and joy. 14:12.810 --> 14:14.470 What sign is this? 14:14.540 --> 14:18.069 Is this a sign of the church? 14:18.730 --> 14:22.330 Well, I had Luther's seven marks or signs 14:23.069 --> 14:25.194 so there are no signs left. 14:25.312 --> 14:28.838 Well, not so fast, Luther 14:28.934 --> 14:34.560 at the end of his writing, he says, beside these seven chief things, 14:35.090 --> 14:39.614 there are other outward signs whereby the holy christian church is 14:39.652 --> 14:46.206 known, namely those whereby the Holy Ghost makes us holy according to 14:46.228 --> 14:51.882 the second table of Moses. If that's possible to be made holy 14:51.946 --> 14:54.754 according to the second table of Moses. 14:54.922 --> 14:59.569 So the first seven signs were signs related to the first table. 15:00.650 --> 15:02.430 Especially the second and the third. 15:02.500 --> 15:04.990 Well, the first, second and third commandments. 15:06.610 --> 15:09.326 So what sign is this? 15:09.428 --> 15:14.446 Luther has a list of things related to this, to the second table of 15:14.468 --> 15:15.630 the commandments. 15:15.970 --> 15:22.670 But I would would suggest that this text is talking about fellowship. 15:23.890 --> 15:27.910 Fellowship as a mark of the church. 15:28.970 --> 15:35.126 Paul talks about an intense longing he bemoans the fact that he has 15:35.148 --> 15:37.160 been orphaned from them. 15:37.470 --> 15:39.082 He cannot be with them. 15:39.136 --> 15:44.410 He has a desire to be in fellowship with his church. 15:44.830 --> 15:51.306 This is a pastor talking about his church, is a brother that's glad 15:51.418 --> 15:54.474 and proud of his brothers and sisters. 15:54.602 --> 15:57.194 This is Christian fellowship and friendship. 15:57.322 --> 15:59.354 This is a mark of the church 15:59.482 --> 16:00.750 I would suggest. 16:01.730 --> 16:05.250 Now, there are different types of church fellowship. 16:07.990 --> 16:12.446 There is altar and pulpit fellowship. 16:12.558 --> 16:16.278 The fact that I'm standing here is a proof positive that there is a 16:16.284 --> 16:19.270 thing called pulpit fellowship. 16:19.690 --> 16:24.946 There is also what I call collection plate fellowship. 16:25.138 --> 16:28.138 This is when one church helps the other. 16:28.304 --> 16:31.018 It's not just financial support. 16:31.104 --> 16:33.478 It's also a confession of faith. 16:33.574 --> 16:36.890 A confession of a fellowship in the faith. 16:37.390 --> 16:40.910 It's a confession of a common gospel. 16:41.490 --> 16:47.550 So we coming from the third world or from the Global South or from 16:47.620 --> 16:52.394 Africa and South America, as in my case, we know exactly what it 16:52.452 --> 16:53.060 means. 16:53.510 --> 16:56.382 Paul talks about this in Second Corinthians. 16:56.526 --> 17:01.390 He tells the Corinthians that if they help the church in Jerusalem, 17:01.470 --> 17:04.130 they will be making a confession of faith. 17:05.510 --> 17:08.662 And nowadays we have this in the reversed order. 17:08.715 --> 17:12.465 It's no longer the churches in the diaspora helping the mother church, 17:12.498 --> 17:16.081 but the mother church helping the churches in the diaspora. 17:16.226 --> 17:19.958 And that's a confession of faith going back and forth. 17:20.054 --> 17:23.750 So there is this collection plate fellowship. 17:23.910 --> 17:30.198 But this here in First Thessalonians Two is fellowship in a pure sense, 17:30.384 --> 17:33.760 fellowship and friendship in Christ. 17:36.370 --> 17:40.650 But there is also fellowship in another dimension. 17:40.730 --> 17:46.110 Here, I would say it's fellowship in an eschatological sense. 17:46.260 --> 17:49.150 Eschatological fellowship. 17:50.690 --> 17:56.534 I don't know if you have ever thought about this, but here Paul is 17:56.572 --> 17:59.730 saying that the church 18:00.170 --> 18:11.102 is his crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming. And in 18:11.156 --> 18:17.050 Second Corinthians, he says, on that day, our Lord Jesus will boast. 18:17.210 --> 18:24.266 On the day of our Lord Jesus, you will boast of us and we will boast 18:24.378 --> 18:25.280 of you. 18:26.650 --> 18:30.802 Don't know about you, but I sometimes picture many times I picture 18:30.866 --> 18:35.880 myself standing alone before the judgment seat of Christ. 18:36.810 --> 18:39.930 Well, I'll be standing there, but not alone. 18:40.350 --> 18:41.660 So look around. 18:42.670 --> 18:47.974 We will be in the midst of our brothers and sisters. 18:48.102 --> 18:52.800 We will be jumping for joy, hugging, proud of each other. 18:53.970 --> 18:58.894 And we are doing this in an anticipatory or proletic fashion right 18:58.932 --> 18:59.520 now. 19:00.370 --> 19:07.730 So if I can say something personal, I would say this is a sure sign of 19:07.800 --> 19:10.018 the presence of the church at this place. 19:10.184 --> 19:15.990 We have been so well accepted and so welcomed in your midst. 19:16.650 --> 19:18.242 So there is fellowship. 19:18.306 --> 19:22.290 Yes, this is the sign of the church. 19:22.450 --> 19:25.990 We're doing this in an anticipatory fashion. 19:28.270 --> 19:34.570 But Luther lowers the level of my enthusiasm. 19:35.390 --> 19:40.926 He sort of puts brakes on my enthusiasm about fellowship and all of 19:40.948 --> 19:47.694 that when he writes that, well, these marks cannot be considered to be 19:47.732 --> 19:54.530 as certain as the others because the heathen have practiced these 19:54.600 --> 20:00.370 words and sometimes appear holier than the Christians. 20:01.270 --> 20:06.306 Well, it may happen that people are more friendly to you when you go 20:06.328 --> 20:10.134 to a ball game, when they're checking your ticket, or if you go maybe 20:10.172 --> 20:14.081 to a place like YMCA or the golf club. 20:14.146 --> 20:17.350 And the people at the church, they are sort of stiff, they are sort of 20:17.420 --> 20:19.378 serious, they don't reach you 20:19.564 --> 20:21.340 well, this may happen. 20:22.270 --> 20:26.598 The heathen, well, they can be more friendly than the Christians. 20:26.694 --> 20:31.389 So this is not a sure sign according to Luther. 20:31.810 --> 20:37.658 And he's right, because we cannot define the church on a horizontal 20:37.754 --> 20:43.994 level, we have to define it in a vertical sense according to the marks 20:44.042 --> 20:45.950 of the first table. 20:47.170 --> 20:52.590 So remember the pictures I mentioned at the beginning. 20:54.050 --> 20:58.566 If you looked at the shoes, you will not identify the person. 20:58.748 --> 20:59.970 If you look at the 21:00.090 --> 21:02.480 surroundings, you will not identify yourself. 21:02.930 --> 21:07.438 But if you look right into the face, you will see, well, that's me, 21:07.604 --> 21:09.546 that's Dr. Fuerbringer. 21:09.578 --> 21:10.238 That's Dr. 21:10.324 --> 21:11.230 Pieper. 21:12.450 --> 21:15.120 So the face is a sure sign. 21:16.610 --> 21:24.818 So if you hear and see the word of God preached, believed, confessed 21:24.954 --> 21:32.258 and acted on, you may be certain that there is a, true ecclesia 21:32.354 --> 21:37.240 sancta, catholica, a Christian, holy people. 21:37.710 --> 21:44.346 If there is a word spoken, proclaimed, confessed, spoken to us and to 21:44.368 --> 21:51.870 the Gentiles, a word so that we may be saved, as the text has it. 21:52.020 --> 21:59.390 So be assured that this is yes, this is a sure sign of God's church. 21:59.890 --> 22:01.280 And so it is. 22:01.970 --> 22:03.920 And so be it. 22:04.450 --> 22:05.390 Amen. 22:07.090 --> 22:10.366 Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our 22:10.388 --> 22:14.090 hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. 22:14.250 --> 22:14.914 Amen.