WEBVTT
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. How do you like old pictures?
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Old photos?
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Especially if it's a photo of you.
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Whenever we take a photo, we are not only looking into a camera, we
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are also looking into the future.
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So what's the point of taking photos if nobody looks at them later on
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in the future?
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But how do you recognize people and yourself?
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The other day I was told that there is a picture of my family and
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myself in If These Walls Could Talk.
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And I said, Is that true?
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And I was paging through it
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yeah, it is.
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It says that this is my family.
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Iris Vilson holding Rodrigo, Natalia and Fernando Scholz.
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I'm only holding Rodrigo, but I will say, would I do this holding the
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baby?
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And I see, well, yeah, this is the surroundings of house number eight.
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My lovely wife is standing there.
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I'm wearing a tie, say, Where are we coming from?
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And then I look in my face and I see the glasses and all of that.
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Oh, yeah, that's me.
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It must be me.
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And then the other day I saw this other photo.
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You cannot cannot see it, but it's a picture of the faculty of
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Concordia Seminary back in 1926.
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This is, in a sense, what I call the assurance of hope, because these
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people are standing and sitting in front of a wall and there's a sign
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that says Luther Tower.
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Well, there was no Luther Tower back in 1926.
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But how do I know who these people are?
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Well, they're all wearing more or less the same shoes.
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No red shoes.
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They are well dressed.
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But then I look in the faces and I've seen them.
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There's no indication who is on the picture.
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I know a few people because I've seen them in pictures before.
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And I see Ludwig Fuerbringer, sitting there.
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He was the professor of hermeneutics.
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And as I look at his face, I say, no problems of hermeneutics in his
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mind, on his mind. Dr.
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Pieper is sitting there, a serenity, a tranquility.
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I say, Is this the face of a seminary president?
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But it is.
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So you look for signs to identify people.
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And I would submit to you that in this text of First Thessalonians,
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chapter two, which is the third in a series on First Thessalonians, we
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are given a picture of ourselves, a picture of the church.
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But we may ask, is this a picture of us?
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Is this a picture of the church?
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Well, Paul is not saying it with just so many words that this is the
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church.
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He addresses his audience, his readership
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in terms of you, he mentions other churches in Christ Jesus.
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So we assume he is talking about the church.
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And he actually identified them as the church of the, Thessalonians in
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God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ at the beginning of this
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epistle.
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So it is the family of God.
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We assume this because he uses words like a nursing mother.
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He talks about himself as a father.
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He addresses them as brothers.
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He speaks about himself as an orphaned child.
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So this is the family of God assembled, probably still in the house of
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Jason in Thessalonica.
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So how do you recognize the church
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In this text? We have to look for signs for marks.
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Marks of the church.
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And when we hear this phrase, marks of the church, this rings a bell.
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Oh, yeah.
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Dear old Martin,
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Martin Luther.
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We will be remembering and commemorating his heavenly birth on this
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coming Saturday.
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And he has a familiar and well known writing on The Councils and
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The church of 1539.
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And I would like to lay this description of the church as a grid on
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this text to see if it matches or not.
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If we can recognize the church in this text in the light of what
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Luther has to say.
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Luther mentions seven or more signs of the church.
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He talks about the
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Word of God.
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He has baptism.
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The Lord Supper.
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Absolution, ministry, worship
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but these marks are all kind of one.
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There is one
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that's the key.
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The main mark of the church.
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It's sort of the pinnacle.
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All the other marks are hanging on this one mark.
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It's the word of God because baptism is the word and the water.
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Supper.
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The supper is the visible word.
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Absolution is the word spoken to me.
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The Ministry.
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Well, those are the servants of the Word.
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And worship is the setting where all of this takes place.
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So if we check the text, what does the text say?
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It says, when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us,
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you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the
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word of God, which is at work in you
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believers. Notice
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it's the word you heard from us as the word of God
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it's the word that is at work.
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Luther writes this Christian holy people is to be known by this, the
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word of God.
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It's the High chief holy possession from which the Christian people
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take the name Holy.
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For God's word is holy and sanctifies everything it touches.
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We speak, however, of the external word orally preaching by men like
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you and me.
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And then he says, wherever you hear or see this word preached,
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believed, confessed and acted on, there must be a Christian holy
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people, even though it is small in numbers.
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Notice that Luther emphasizes the external word orally preached.
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So it's the word that's proclaimed and it as
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it's the word that's active in action.
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So if we see this picture as a mirror of ourselves for today, where do
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we see this primary mark in our midst?
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Where is it?
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We could be looking for printed Bibles.
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Well, there are plenty of them over there, pews, but none up here.
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So is this sign to be seen in this place?
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Well, Paul and Luther were not selling printed Bibles.
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The word is the word that is preached, believed, confessed and acted
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on.
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So it's not so much a physical copy of the Bible, but it's the word
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that's preached in our singing, in our confessing, in our preaching,
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in everything that goes on in this place. When we sang
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I Know My Faith is Founded on Jesus Christ, my God and Lord, and this
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my faith confessing and moved
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I stand on his sure word.
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That was a preaching of the word.
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Let me go back to the picture here of the church.
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In First Thessalonians chapter two, there is a second mark of the
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church which we normally would not identify as a mark of the church.
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The text says, for you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of
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God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea for you suffered.
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Is this a sign of the church?
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Well, we had seven.
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No, we had six.
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I didn't mention the last one.
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Luther has a 7th sign.
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Actually, he has more than seven, but he has a 7th sign, which is
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this.
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He says 7th.
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The Holy Christian church is outwardly known by the possession of the
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holy cross, the cross in the sanctuary?
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No, Luther explains, the church must endure hardships and persecution.
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Now, this is not our experience.
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This is so strange
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we do not recognize this is a sign of the church.
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I always remember Fred Craddock when he wrote on the Book of
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Revelation, he wrote, martyrdom is so clearly the paradigm of the
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Christian life in the Book of Revelation that the reader stands
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immobilized
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either in awe of the white robed saints or in feelings of
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guilt for still being alive.
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But is the cross just persecution and martyrdom?
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Not so, if we follow Luther.
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Luther will say that church must endure all kinds of temptation and
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evil.
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This is how he explains the cross.
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It must be inwardly sad, timid, terrified, outwardly poor, despised,
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sick, weak.
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Thus it becomes like its head Christ. Now, outwardly poor
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that does not apply to us.
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But inwardly sad, timid, terrified.
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If the parusia is delayed for ten or 50 years, what will our church
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look like?
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Is this the picture of the LCMS in the coming years?
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Inwardly sad, timid, terrified.
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So if this is the cross, we probably can relate to this.
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I have a third part.
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Yeah, this is sort of a traditional preaching with a theme in three
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parts.
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And I'm sort of following also the advice of the sainted professor
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Schmelder.
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He said, you can hardly improve on the outline of the Holy Spirit in
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the text itself.
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So Paul writes at the end of the text here in chapter two, about a
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great desire to see them face to face.
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And in at the end, he says, for you are our glory and joy.
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What sign is this?
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Is this a sign of the church?
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Well, I had Luther's seven marks or signs
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so there are no signs left.
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Well, not so fast, Luther
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at the end of his writing, he says, beside these seven chief things,
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there are other outward signs whereby the holy christian church is
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known, namely those whereby the Holy Ghost makes us holy according to
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the second table of Moses. If that's possible to be made holy
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according to the second table of Moses.
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So the first seven signs were signs related to the first table.
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Especially the second and the third.
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Well, the first, second and third commandments.
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So what sign is this?
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Luther has a list of things related to this, to the second table of
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the commandments.
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But I would would suggest that this text is talking about fellowship.
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Fellowship as a mark of the church.
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Paul talks about an intense longing he bemoans the fact that he has
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been orphaned from them.
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He cannot be with them.
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He has a desire to be in fellowship with his church.
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This is a pastor talking about his church, is a brother that's glad
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and proud of his brothers and sisters.
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This is Christian fellowship and friendship.
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This is a mark of the church
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I would suggest.
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Now, there are different types of church fellowship.
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There is altar and pulpit fellowship.
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The fact that I'm standing here is a proof positive that there is a
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thing called pulpit fellowship.
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There is also what I call collection plate fellowship.
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This is when one church helps the other.
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It's not just financial support.
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It's also a confession of faith.
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A confession of a fellowship in the faith.
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It's a confession of a common gospel.
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So we coming from the third world or from the Global South or from
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Africa and South America, as in my case, we know exactly what it
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means.
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Paul talks about this in Second Corinthians.
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He tells the Corinthians that if they help the church in Jerusalem,
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they will be making a confession of faith.
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And nowadays we have this in the reversed order.
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It's no longer the churches in the diaspora helping the mother church,
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but the mother church helping the churches in the diaspora.
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And that's a confession of faith going back and forth.
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So there is this collection plate fellowship.
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But this here in First Thessalonians Two is fellowship in a pure sense,
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fellowship and friendship in Christ.
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But there is also fellowship in another dimension.
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Here, I would say it's fellowship in an eschatological sense.
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Eschatological fellowship.
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I don't know if you have ever thought about this, but here Paul is
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saying that the church
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is his crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming. And in
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Second Corinthians, he says, on that day, our Lord Jesus will boast.
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On the day of our Lord Jesus, you will boast of us and we will boast
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of you.
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Don't know about you, but I sometimes picture many times I picture
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myself standing alone before the judgment seat of Christ.
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Well, I'll be standing there, but not alone.
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So look around.
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We will be in the midst of our brothers and sisters.
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We will be jumping for joy, hugging, proud of each other.
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And we are doing this in an anticipatory or proletic fashion right
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now.
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So if I can say something personal, I would say this is a sure sign of
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the presence of the church at this place.
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We have been so well accepted and so welcomed in your midst.
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So there is fellowship.
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Yes, this is the sign of the church.
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We're doing this in an anticipatory fashion.
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But Luther lowers the level of my enthusiasm.
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He sort of puts brakes on my enthusiasm about fellowship and all of
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that when he writes that, well, these marks cannot be considered to be
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as certain as the others because the heathen have practiced these
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words and sometimes appear holier than the Christians.
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Well, it may happen that people are more friendly to you when you go
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to a ball game, when they're checking your ticket, or if you go maybe
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to a place like YMCA or the golf club.
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And the people at the church, they are sort of stiff, they are sort of
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serious, they don't reach you
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well, this may happen.
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The heathen, well, they can be more friendly than the Christians.
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So this is not a sure sign according to Luther.
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And he's right, because we cannot define the church on a horizontal
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level, we have to define it in a vertical sense according to the marks
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of the first table.
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So remember the pictures I mentioned at the beginning.
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If you looked at the shoes, you will not identify the person.
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If you look at the
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surroundings, you will not identify yourself.
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But if you look right into the face, you will see, well, that's me,
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that's Dr. Fuerbringer.
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That's Dr.
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Pieper.
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So the face is a sure sign.
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So if you hear and see the word of God preached, believed, confessed
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and acted on, you may be certain that there is a, true ecclesia
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sancta, catholica, a Christian, holy people.
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If there is a word spoken, proclaimed, confessed, spoken to us and to
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the Gentiles, a word so that we may be saved, as the text has it.
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So be assured that this is yes, this is a sure sign of God's church.
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And so it is.
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And so be it.
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Amen.
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Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our
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hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting.
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Amen.