Lutheranism 101 - Part 27 - The Third Article II

As many of you know I am taking these few days to do planning for most of the year. So I am camping out at Starbucks drinking coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon. In some ways I am amazed at the progress that I have made and in other ways I am frustrated. What seems like a good idea one minute doesn't look as good later on. I think I am beginning to finally firm up some stuff though. I am in outline form at least in September already. I think I will stop there and start putting some meat on that outline. In the process I have not forgotten about Lutheranism 101 so we are back to the Third Article of the Apostle's Creed. Let's look at the Church or the communion of Saints.

There is only one church but it is both visible and invisible. That doesn't make a lot of sense at first but there is some solid logic behind it. The visible church is the church that we can see. That is all the people who belong to a church or show up at church on any given Sunday or really anyone that says they are a Christian. They are visible, we can see them, we can count them. The real church though is invisible. We say it's invisible because we cannot see faith. This church consists of all the people who actually believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. So we say that the visible church contains the invisible church. What I mean by that is that not everyone in the visible church is part of the invisible church. There are many people who attend church but do not believe. They are there for a variety of reasons but not because they are actually Christians. Only God can see the invisible church.

So really the church is the people of God gathered together. That is the real meaning of Church. Now we also use the word church to indicate other things like a denomination, a local congregation or a house of worship. But the core meaning is the people of God.

The next question is how do you know what local visible church to attend? Well hopefully the answer isn't the one that is closest to you. When you are looking for a church you want to find one that believes that the Bible is literally the Word of God and that it is inspired and inerrant. If a church doesn't believe that, stay away from it. When the Word of God is compromised then everything else will be as well. Also you should look at how they view the sacraments. Scripture makes clear that God's grace is given in both baptism and the Lord's Supper. So you should ask questions about what they think about the word of God and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. You should also listen very carefully to their doctrine and what they say about forgiveness and eternal life. Scripture tells us that we are justified by faith alone. If they tell you that there is something you have to do as well to go heaven run out the front door and keep on running.
As far as worship styles and ways of worship those are personal preferences that you will have to decide for yourself. The important thing is that the word of God is taught correctly.

The church is very important to God, in fact the Bible tells us that we are the body of Christ and that Christ is our head. God also refers to the church as his bride. So God loves the church. God also has given the church a mission or a job. That job is spread the good news that Jesus Christ has earned forgiveness for everyone through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.

Here are Scripture verses for you: Ephesians 2:19-22; 2 Timothy 2:19; Acts 2:41, 47; Romans 12:4-5; Ephesians 4:3-6; Ephesians 5:25-27; Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 1:10; Galatians 1:8; 2 Timothy 4:3; Acts 1:8

Pastor Fred