I want to read a little bit from Acts 2 to begin this teaching on what we could call life in the body of Christ, covenant life. This comes at the end of Peter's sermon. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on the church. The first great mark of the coming of the Holy Spirit was these conversions. Many conversions. 3,000 souls added to the church. And the second fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit was not only that initial work of regeneration, but the immediate forming and shaping of a body, gathering together of a body, the body of Christ. And we read of that, and with many other words, he, this is Peter, testified and exhorted them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation. Those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. This is the picture of the early church and the work of the Spirit in the early church. And we're going to study this as a template in the coming weeks for what life as a Christian looks like. It is easy for a church to drift. I want to talk about two things in introduction here. Let's start one step back, American culture and society and then our technological culture. American culture and society, architecture even, has slowly moved to militate against meeting other people. And maybe that's not intentional. When I was growing up, I used to go to Rotterdam and stay with my grandparents for a week or two, sometimes when my parents went somewhere else in Europe. And what I would do with my grandfather, not uncommonly, is we would get the groceries. And very different than here, we would walk out the front door, bag under my grandfather's arm, and we would walk down the street, and we would walk to the grocer, and he only sold vegetables. And then we would walk to the baker, and then we would walk to the butcher, and then we would take all of that home, and they would only buy groceries, interestingly, for a couple of days, maybe a couple of days, and then they would go out and walk and do that again. And in every place, as we walked, we would pass neighbors, and we would meet them and greet them, and they'll line up, to buy something with more people that you would know. And by the time you were done, you had interacted with all sorts of people. And you had a sense of connection to other people. This, our age, our technological age, I mean, what we have done is we have fenced in our backyards. We drive around in cars. We have large freezers, we buy in bulk, we buy in these massive stores where you don't know anybody and everybody's going across town to their different favorite place. Nothing wrong with this, this isn't a moral problem. Just a note on how atomized we have become and sometimes because of our technologies. You sit in a car, and you have music playing, and you could be in a traffic jam with thousands of people and never really think about the fact that you were near that many people, because in essence, you might as well be 10 miles away. You might as well be all by yourself. And then you have the proliferation of headphones, which the whole world seems to wear now everywhere, surrounded by people. and cut off from people at the same time. And then you have technologies that allow you to connect with someone on the other side of the world by video. This week I was talking to the Bartosh's in Bangladesh, great technology, wonderful, helpful. But in another sense, a lot of people will go home from that job and they'll sit in front of a screen and they'll never see another human being. And they could do this for weeks or months on end. And we, strangely, with all the different ways we have to connect with people, don't ever have to see people. And actually, this problem goes deeper, especially when we get into the wrong uses of technology, and has made it very easy for people to be simply self-centered consumers only having to rub shoulders with or be in contact with, if you do, people that you want to when you feel like it, and in essence, you could cut off the entire world for your whole life. And strangely, a lot of people are. If you were to knock on doors here, there's a tremendous amount of lonely people who, even if they don't have the internet, the TV already did it, you just go home and you sit in front of this screen. We are atomized and actually divided in many ways by this technology, and we live in an individualistic age. The church can fall prey to this in a profound way, and this individuality, it's about me and what I want to get, and the isolation that we live in, which is strangely, you know, Facebook promises you 500 friends, but you don't really know anybody, and no one really knows you. And the church has slowly, I think, reflected the world in this, in that the simple ideas of sharing God's good gifts together, face-to-face fellowship, the core of that is public worship, is slowly being eroded away. One of the principal signs, I think, that troubled me during COVID was how quick millions of Christians were to exchange that little camera up there for in-person worship. It's not that it's not a tool that we use, we used it before COVID for people that were shut in, that's not a problem. But because of the milieu of our culture, people were willing to say it was the same thing, that there was no difference. And that should give you a deep sense of how far we've come in terms of our understanding of what true fellowship is, and what covenant life is, what public worship is, and really what it means to be a human being created in the image of God. God gave you a body with all your senses in order that you would receive his revelation and commune with him, but also with other people. And there's something good about that face-to-face fellowship and communion. Without it, you'll wither away. And with it, particularly enabled by the Holy Spirit, there will be encouragement and life. Christians of all people should be resisting these cultural trends, not only the, maybe the, I would talk about the technology, it's not, I'm not, it can be used for very good purposes. We can talk about that all day long. It's not the technology that's essentially the problem. It's that it offers us temptations to withdraw and cut ourselves off and not serve one another and be profoundly self-centered instead of obeying what I would call the friendship and hospitality commands of the Bible. It also In our age, a conception of Christianity is profoundly wrong, is that it's just about me and Jesus, and it's a private matter, and it doesn't impinge on anybody else. That coming into a relationship with Christ, it's just a secret internal change to my life that really is just about me and Christ himself. And no sense that that relationship brings you into a broader relationship. My personal relationship with God is what people like to talk about. Divorced from any connection to the church. The early church was marked by a very different pattern. There's a famous quote from one of the church fathers, Tertullian. And usually, it's quoted as this, see how these Christians love one another. The quote is bigger than that. One of the things that astounded the early Roman pagans, who didn't have all the technology I just talked about, but without the spirit of God, had the profoundly self-centered impulse only to live for me, they were shocked by a difference that they saw in the Christian community, in the church, And the whole quote is this, Tertullian says, they say, he's talking about the pagan Romans that are looking into these new Christian churches. Look, they say, how the Christians love one another. For, as Tertullian said, they were shocked, for they themselves always hated one another. And then, and how they are ready to die for one another. And then as Tertullian says, they were shocked, for they themselves were always ready to kill one another. The early church, this idea of a fellowship and a communion that marked by love, and a love to the degree that these Christians were willing to die for other Christians. And that wasn't theoretical language, that's in the early church, the persecutions, that was real, dying. That wasn't just making a meal and opening your home and the pain of having to do extra work for people. It was actually dying for the sake of Christ. And the Roman, the pagan Romans were shocked by this. And this was part of the witness of the church to the gospel. And what did Jesus say? By this shall all men know that you are my disciples by your love for one another. Now, here's a question at the beginning. If you had no friendships or hospitality in a church, How would the world ever know that you were Christians? If you had no friendships in Christ's church and there was no hospitality or sharing of life going on, how would the words of Christ be true of our church? By this shall all men know that you are my disciples by your love for one another. In the early church, Acts chapter two, that was tangible. It was house to house, breaking of bread, sharing with those who had in need, painful, sacrificial, intentional engagement with the lives of other people, breaking down those natural barriers of selfishness and the other ones that we've erected in our communities, maybe because that we're used to because of technology, and living a different kind of Christian life. Okay, so that's a little bit of introduction. The church, I think the American church especially, with our wealth, technology, and individualistic impulses has reflected the world. We have a church that is radically focused on the felt needs of the individual. and philosophies of popular psychology, the encouragement of self-esteem, self-actualization, personal wholeness, and fulfillment instead of sacrificial service. These are the negatives that surround us. If you're looking at your outline here, these are the negatives, and you could call them individualistic age, an age of isolation, and an age of worldliness, and I would sum it up in those things. Individualistic age, an isolated age, and ultimately a worldliness that has crept into the church, and a low view of the body of Christ and what it means to be a Christian. We're gonna have to do battle against the flesh here in this class. We're gonna have to combat self-centered tendencies which are so deeply ingrained in us by our own sin nature and reinforced and cultivated by the world in which we live. This class is going to ask you to do war with the flesh and ultimately, I'll just say at the beginning, it's going to ask you to change the way you live. Not to change the way you think only. Change the way you think and then ultimately the way you live. There'll be a call for repentance. Number two, we must return to a more biblical view of our place and role in what we call the covenant community. Happens to be the name of our church, Covenant Community Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but Covenant Community Church. And wouldn't you be reminded of something positively? God saves individually, By the work of the Holy Spirit as he applies the redemption purchased by Christ to individuals, but none of us are ever saved alone, we are saved into the body of Christ. God saves and his salvation is to build a church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And you are never ever to think of yourself as a Christian without thinking of yourself as a member of Christ's church. 1 Corinthians 12, Christ is the head, we're the body, and there's many members in the body, and we all have our place, but there's an interconnectedness. You can never think of yourself as a Christian without thinking of the body of Christ. Galatians chapter four, the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all, where Christ was, God, man, at the right hand of the Father, having eclipsed the entirety of the Old Covenant, The old Jerusalem was useless and nothing. The new heavenly Jerusalem with Christ as its King is your mother, Paul says. It's the place where you were born, Psalm 87. And this church of Jesus Christ is the one into which we are placed and joined by the mighty work of the Holy Spirit. God saves. and he's building a church, he saves corporately. Individuals come to the church. Secondly, he administers his grace in that body. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is administered in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why we have things that we call the means of grace. It's probably not a phrase that maybe every one of you are familiar with, but we think about preaching of the word, We think about the Lord's Supper, which Lord willing we're gonna celebrate this morning. We think about baptism, we think about prayer, and we also think about the fellowship of the saints. And how is grace, and what is grace? It's that unmerited favor, but more than that, the power of God that places us into salvation. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is effective and powerful. It's not just a disposition of God, but it is It is more than that, it is the powerful favor of God that rests upon His people and brings us into salvation and then keeps us there and then carries us all the way to heaven. And the way that grace is dispensed is through the ministry of His church. Now, it can be dispensed also in private Bible reading and prayer and the Holy Spirit's work in the heart of someone who's in Iran who reads the Bible comes to faith in Jesus Christ and grows by reading and learning and continuing to follow Christ. But ordinarily, and our confession says this, outside of the church, ordinarily, there's no possibility of salvation. That it is Christ's ordinary way for preaching to go out, to call sinners to Christ, and by that preaching, the church is built. God administers that grace then corporately. He saves us into a body, and in that body, He gives us His grace. Preaching and worship, particularly, are the highest activities of the body life of the church. The Lord's Supper is a corporate activity in which we both humble ourselves before God on account of our sin, and we together feed on Christ. Together, not alone. Matter of fact, our confession again in 29.4 forbids private communions. and it's forbidding private communities, it's elevating the corporate nature of what it means to be in the body of Christ and at the table. It's not an individual act. Baptism, we administer publicly before the body, not privately at home. It's a visible sign not to be kept secret, but known to the world that we are marked out as belonging to Christ. And we have to return to a more biblical view of the church and our place in the church of Jesus Christ. And then fellowship within the body, let's go narrower, it's the third positive heading, sorry I have more, less room under positive than negative on your handout, but fellowship within the body helps us to think greater thoughts of God, more about Him, to spur each other on to love and good works, helps us in our obedience, it propels us forward as we help each other on that narrow road, as Jesus said, that leads to life. We, in the church of Jesus Christ, think more of Him, of God, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we should speak of Him, and we should encourage others to think of Him, and we help the weary, and we serve the needy, and we also are helped in fighting against sin. All sin tends to be some sort of proud unbelief at its root. And when we're around fellow believers, it helps us. We should remind one another that we're aiming for Christ. We are running the race, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, that we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. We're not alone. And that these are helps. You're connected to other Christians. God did not make you a Lone Ranger Christian, but a connected to the body Christian. And as we constantly intermingle with others in the church, we are enjoying the life that God made us to live in covenant with Him and other believers. And we affirm our obligations to Christ and to one another. And there's all kinds of ways that this happens. There's sometimes just low-key ways. You're a young family and you have a new child, and you wonder, what in the world do I do with this creature? And this is very soon, if you've had children, you will ask that question very soon. And you will realize that they come with their own will and their own mind. And there's a whole lot of challenges in raising children in the fear of the Lord. And what would you, if you were wise, what you would do in a church is you might find somebody who's done this before. You might start asking questions. You'd say, pray for me. In the older, Titus chapter two, teach the younger. The men and the women interacting and passing on the heritage of the faith and what it means to live for Christ in a real, practical, tangible way. That might happen to be child rearing. How you serve your employer. What does it mean to be a Christian in the workplace? And what does it mean in our challenging age? And you talk to someone who's maybe done that for 30 years and you've done it for four. And you look to an older Christian, you say, how can I maintain my witness in the intensity and competition of business life? How did you do it? And that would take a face-to-face conversation. How about the Lord's Day? How do you keep the Lord's Day holy and use it well? Well, you hear preaching and you go to the larger catechism class, it'd be a good place to learn it. You go to the visitor's class, you hear about it there, you can learn. But very, very often, it'll be around somebody else's Sunday afternoon, a Sunday dinner table, where you see and learn, okay, how are these principles put into action by a mature Christian in a family and in a home? Now, you'll notice that every one of these examples I gave you would require you to be in close association with that other family or person. You're not going to do this without some level of communion together and conversation. What we do with our free time, how we use our Sabbath rest, how we relate to other believers in the world, how we maintain faithfulness in private Bible reading and prayer. You might have someone that you're accountable to or talk about. What do you do? How do you, in a busy life, where do you carve out your time? What Bible reading plan are you following? How do you keep this up? And again, God has given you other people either to encourage you or people who are more mature and ahead of you to teach you. This is a path that has worked for me. And this fellowship in the body of Christ is positive, important, and critical to your growth in grace. Questions there? Let me pause here. We're going to move to the confession in a moment, but you might not have any questions. Don't worry. You might. I haven't taught this class for a long time, but I always like to say this when I start a class. For me, there are no long, awkward pauses. It's only awkward for you. It's not awkward for me. I will keep asking and keep waiting, and I don't feel bad at all. So I won't wait forever, but that's okay. Let's move on, since that pause was long and awkward enough. There we go. Let's move on to a bedrock summary of biblical teaching from our Westminster Confession of Faith. Beautifully, our doctrinal statement for our church and our denomination has a whole chapter on this topic. And of the Westminster Divines met in the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s, they thought it was important enough to count this topic that we're gonna talk about as one of the 33 central doctrines of the Christian faith, the communion of the saints. And they spent their time crafting and drafting a paragraph to teach on this and to set forth the importance of this topic to the church. And so we'll go through that a little bit together to lay a foundation for the class. It is chapter 26, The Communion of the Saints. If you don't have a handout, you should be able to find it in the back of your hymnal in the Westminster Confession of Faith section. And I'm just gonna read the sections, three sections, and comment on each section. All saints that are united to Jesus Christ by their head, by his spirit, and by faith have fellowship with him in his grace, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. I'm gonna pause there. The first thing that the communion of saints is rooted in is our communion together in Christ, our head, We have to be careful here, my emphasis on the body life of the church does never undervalue or underestimate the importance of individual personal faith in Jesus Christ, repentance and faith, what we call conversion, the individual on their knees before God embracing Jesus Christ by faith. And the beginning of our communion is that we are united to Jesus Christ, our head, and we have fellowship with him in his grace, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory. Then, and being united to one another in love, and here's some important phrases, so you have Christ our head, we are the body, union with him, united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged, commanded. Scripture lays a moral obligation on you to the performance of such duties, public and private, that as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man. So we, first of all, partake in the fellowship of what each other possesses. Let me give you some texts, Ephesians 4. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Here, Paul, similar to 1 Corinthians 12, has a picture of Christ as the head and then a body with all the parts that work together. And we have communion, therefore, in each other's gifts and graces. Christ distributes the gifts and graces, okay? He made you all different. You don't have to have the other person's gifts or may not have their graces as you, or maybe you're more immature or newer in the Christian faith. However, the design of the body according to Christ is this. It's being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, which causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. And the picture is very clear of an interdependence of a variety of individuals, each to use the language of our confession with different gifts and graces, in order that we might support one another. A little side application here is this. that, like in the parable of the talents, Jesus distributes the graces. The Lord and master of the church does. Richard Baxter has this great little line that I often, often think about. I read it years ago. He said, when God gives someone else something that you don't have, what's our natural inclination? What? Well, jealousy. I want that gift, maybe, right? Baxter says, no, you rejoice because you have seen evidence of the open-handed generosity of God, who gives lavish good gifts, number one, and his wisdom, he gives them, he distributes them as he wills for his glory. And so when you see somebody with more money than you, maybe more intelligence than you, or more success in promotions than you, or a thousand other, Now, Baxter would say, you give thanks to God, because you're seeing evidence of his goodness. The reason you might not be giving thanks is because you're selfish. And you just thank the Lord when he gives gifts. And then secondly, if you understand this second principle, communion in each other's gifts and graces, he's actually equipping his church, which means he's also giving you a gift. That he's thinking of the whole body and he's distributing as he wills in a sovereign good pleasure. And then the enjoyment of communion in each other's gifts and graces means that if you have been given a gift or grace, what are you supposed to do with it? Build up the church. It's not to be hoarded, it's to be shared. And this is the way we think about the church of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 12, but to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. The Spirit's gifts are given for the common good. For the good of the whole church. 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 7. having received this distribution variously, empowered by the Spirit of God, next phrase, are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man. And that's a lot of words, but as Christ now distributes gifts, some of you probably have more of this world's goods than others. Some of you might be in need. but we're in one body. That's the outward man. You could, with a humble heart, recognizing the generosity of God, you give to another. Some of you may have a better understanding of the scriptures, walk with Christ for many, many more years. And you could take a young and unstable Christian under your wing and say, this is what Christ has taught me in the last four decades of following him. and all of this is designed by Christ to work together. There's an obligation to use what you've been given, public duties and private duties, for the good of other Christians, their spiritual good and their temporal good. So you are to be actively engaged. What do you think the highest duty is in that? Well, actually I'm gonna get to this in a moment. I'll answer their own question. Let's keep reading the confession. Saints by profession are bound, now we're gonna look at the performance of such duties, to maintain in holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God. Highest level of your mutual communion, come to church. Engage in the public worship of God. This is the highest duty that you can engage in to each other's mutual good. Your service in Christ's church begins with worship offered to Him in communion to Him, and to use Paul's language to the Ephesians and the Colossians, as you sing together Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, you make melody in your heart to the Lord, you are also what? Encouraging one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. That as you engage in the regular, weekly, public worship of God, you are actually testifying every week again like the first week you stood up before a church and said, I love Jesus Christ and I will follow him. You're saying the same thing to everybody every single week. And you are joining the great triumphant choir, chorus of the soldiers of the cross, proclaiming your love to Jesus Christ and communicating your love to your neighbor. You're also communicating the love of Christ to the world as you say among the world, Psalm 96, say among the nations the Lord reigns. And this is the highest duty of covenant communion. A holy fellowship and communion in the public worship of God begins with worship, corporate worship. And we there encourage one another to follow after Christ. Secondly, we perform other such spiritual services as tend to mutual edification. And you can pray with and for one another. You can spend time, we had a men's fellowship, we got the ladies' fellowship, we have groups of men that meet for prayer, we have ladies who text each other every week and encourage each other. There's a million ways we'll get into hospitality and opening your home, which is a huge one, I believe a biblical command. We'll get into that in the later weeks. But you recognize every week that you're not alone. And your interest is not to wait around for people, text you, or to talk to you or to reach out to you and feel sorry for yourself. It is because Christ loved me, I love these people, and I'm gonna find people to serve, and I'm gonna give, and I'm gonna open my heart and open my home and offer to pray, and I'm gonna search out and find as Christ found me, and I'm gonna perform such other spiritual services that tend to mutual edification. Third item, I'm gonna be, interested in relieving my brothers and sisters in outward things. And that means I'm gonna share of the abundance of the things of this world with others. I'm gonna have a generous heart. When I balance the checkbook at the end of the month, there's gonna be some of that's going out to needy fellow Christians. Might be a diaconal offering, general diaconal offering. It might be disaster relief. I think of the church in Neon. There could be a hundred different ways we could do that, but I'm going to be looking outbound, according to their several abilities and necessities, which communion, as God offers of the opportunity, is to be extended to all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. This is our duty to every other mutual Christian. The narrowest circle is our own local church. We have a Presbyterian denomination, but we have the body of Christ around the world, many different denominations. And our impulse is that we, by the grace of God through the blood of Christ. By the powerful regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth have been brought into fellowship with Christ in this body. That means everything I now have is going to promote his kingdom, my time, my talents, and my treasure offered to God and to his people in service. Okay. A few verses on that. We are to encourage one another, perhaps this idea of spiritual encouragement, the famous one another command that relates to worship and especially these spiritual duties. Hebrews 10, 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. And you'll notice there there's plural pronouns. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, public worship, I think is in view there very clearly, the book of Hebrews is very much about worship, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and much more so as you see the day approaching, with a view towards that final day. And your interest is that you would use your life as it were so that as many people around you as possible would cross the finish line with you in glory. And you are interested to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, to stir up love and good works. It's the New American Standard or the New King James Version, same verse. Another example of this, and Thomas Goodwin has a whole book on this little passage, is from Malachi chapter 3, and here's a window into spiritual communion. I think I'm going to go on a little side here, If you don't go to the Wednesday night prayer meeting, this would be another low-hanging fruit for engagement in communion of the saints. I think about Daniel and his three friends. I often think about that as an example of an Old Testament An Old Testament example of communion of the saints. They're being threatened with their heads being cut off and they don't tell the king's dream and then interpret the dream. And Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, what do they do? They pray together. They join together. They're drawn into this communion and fellowship. They're like a magnetic force. pulls them together to pray to the God of heaven, to have mercy on them. There's this instinct that they're there in Babylon, but they're not alone. They have the Lord, and they have each other, and then they get on their knees and pray. And then you see that same instinct in the book of Acts when the church prays. And I would encourage you to use the prayer meeting as part of your communion. The idea of that spiritual fellowship and communion is also powerful in Malachi chapter three. And those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. You see that? Fear of God means that humble faith that sees God in all of his majesty, glory, and love. A commitment of all of life to God. It doesn't mean just fear like you're running away from angry bees. It means a holy awe and respect mixed with love. That's what the Old Testament fear is. And those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. Two ideas connected, inseparably connected. You come to know the Lord, you're drawn to his people and their spiritual conversation. Then look at the next phrase. The Lord listened and heard them. God bears witness in heaven to the communion of the saints. Next phrase. So a book of remembrance was written before him. God in His holy book takes notes about the communion of the saints. He's interested in it. A book of remembrance is written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name. The annals of heaven are being inscribed here by the hand of the Lord as He delights in and remembers the spiritual communion and conversation of His people. And then what does the Lord say? They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make them my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him, which, aside his gospel language, he'll give his son in order that they might be spared. Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve him. What's the cutting line, the defining line? Spiritual communion of the saints is a mark of God's grace. that draws a line between the church and the world. Malachi 3, verses 16 to 18. Okay, a few more things from the end of the confession. This communion which the saints have in Christ does not make them in any wise partakers of the substance of his Godhead or to be equal with Christ in any respect. either of which to affirm is impious and blasphemous. We talked about communion with God. Confession's making an important statement here. And I'll just treat it briefly, because we're really focused on the communion of the saints with each other in this class. But the last paragraph here deals with two errors. We don't become God. We're not pantheists. In our communion with God, we remain separate and distinct creatures. We have holy fellowship with God. but there's not a blurring of the line between the creator and the creature, between the redeemer and the redeemed, between the head of the church, Christ, and his body, that Christ alone is, well, the trium God alone is God, and we remain creatures. Jesus, our mediator, the God-man. We do not become partakers of the substance of the Godhead in our communion with God by the power of the Holy Spirit through our mediator Jesus Christ. We're not equal with Christ. But, second part, now the horizontal communion. Nor does their communion with one another as saints take away, infringe the title or property which each man has in his goods and possessions. Here's a little warning. Again, against another extreme. The radical reformers in the period of the Reformation From texts like Acts chapter 2, the Anabaptists did this often, and others believed that the Bible taught that we should be communists. That there's no right or title to your own personal property. A community of the saints means we just pool everything in one big pot, and there is no individual private property anymore. No, the confession says that's not what it is. It's very clearly God distributes the gifts, and then you in a holy obligation before God, purpose to use what he's given you in order to bless others, both spiritual and temporal gifts. You remain individually the stewards of those things, but you're being pressed and reminded that your obligation and joyful obligation as Christ gave to you, so you give to one another. and the command you shall not steal remains in effect. And that command forms the moral basis for private property and private stewardship. And the confession here is warning against using something like Acts chapter two out of the context of the rest of the scriptures. As some of the radical reformers did and they had communes and all these sorts of things which lead to cults and a breakdown of all labor. work and industry and economy. That is not the communion of the saints. That would be a perversion of the same doctrine. Instead, we have Paul saying things like this. Well, let's go to Acts. People share with the brethren in the book of Acts because they're moved by the Holy Spirit, by the grace in their hearts from the liberation they felt in coming to know Christ, their love for him and for his for his flock, and they were willing to give sacrificially, that's good, but it was a voluntary giving. Paul commands the eighth commandment, and you remember in Ephesians 4, he says, he who steals must steal no longer, but rather must labor, performing with his hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. In First Timothy, Paul says you provide for your own household. If you don't, you're worse than an unbeliever. And so there's very clear lines between personal possessions, personal gifts, and the narrow responsibilities of family and home, but then also the broader responsibility of the whole church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, that's an overview of Community of the Saints from the Confession, and I think I'm going to stop there. this week and open it up for any questions you might have. We go to, what, 1025 in this class? Something like that, so we've got a few minutes. Any questions on the idea of communion of the saints? We're going to work this out in the next weeks into friendship. and hospitality, that's gonna be a big emphasis. What was that? More a topic. When hospitality and communion of the saints has been lacking in churches that we've attended, it is very evident, and you can't necessarily put your finger on it, but you know it's not there. Even if there's a, veneer of looking like it's a hospital church. If true hospitality isn't there, it's very evident. Yeah, it is evident. It's hard. One of the reasons I'm teaching this class, I taught it five or six years ago, some of these topics here at Covenant. It's easy for a church to lose this. Very easy for a church to lose this. And that's what I meant by the veneer. Because we've been in a lot of churches, like when we were living in Greenwood, when we would attend different reformed churches, that on the surface, it looked like it was hospitality or hospitable. But once you actually started to be there for more, it was very evident that it really wasn't hospitality. But it looked like it did. It looked like it, but it really wasn't. Anyway, I would want to teach my hospitality lessons all right now. I'll try to bite my tongue. But do you believe the Bible commands that we are to have open homes? And that looks different at different life stages and for different people. Remember to show hospitality to strangers, Ephesians 13. By so doing, some have entertained angels unaware. The hospitality command will see you run through the whole New Testament. And the idea of sharing what you have. It's foreign to our age, but I want to urge you to think and pray about it. Hopefully this class will be a challenge to you all, and will rekindle that spirit of hospitality in the church. I really think that there's something beautiful about the communion of the saints expressed in those tangible ways, which is really the work of the Spirit of God, and is very counter-cultural. The longer we go in our atomized individualistic age, the more counter-cultural it becomes, and the brighter it shines in the darkness.