Guest preacher David Sundman preaches to us on the importance of the church, its people, and why it is so special-because we have in common Jesus Christ.
Transcript
When I came here to Portland, it was a hard decision. I was leaving a church community that I really loved. But I believe that I was following God’s will in coming here. And looking back, I can see that was true. But this church welcomed me as one of your own, and I want to thank you for that. This sermon is really, I feel like, as much for me as it is for you. I can’t imagine any other place on earth that I would rather be than right here, right now with you, as we pour over the Word of God together, as a way for me to pour out my love for you, the church. Recently I met someone here in Portland who attends another church, who told me that despite his church resuming in-person gatherings many months ago, that he was still choosing to view the church’s Sunday service through their livestream.
Now, we all understand for some people, circumstances do not allow them to attend in person. In those cases, it’s our responsibility to bring the church to them. A great example today, Esther Verbruggen bringing members of Trinity to go and see Jill and sing songs to her. A beautiful example of that. This was a young man, healthy in his 30s, no excessive risk associated with the pandemic. In fact, he admitted that the reason that he continued to watch online was convenience. This breaks my heart, because it’s this kind of attitude that reduces the church to a form of entertainment that can simply be viewed and consumed. And for anyone who falls into that trap of having that kind of attitude, they’re doomed to miss out on so much of what the church is meant to be in the life of every believer. The Bible does not allow us to have that kind of attitude.
And so I thought it would be profitable for us this morning to look at some passage that teaches us what makes this gathering of people so special. And there are many reasons that people might choose to gather together regularly to seek community. It might be their favorite sports team, or their place of employment, or the school that their children attend. For Trinity Church, maybe for folks here, it’s mid-century modern furniture aesthetic. I don’t know, a lot of people might choose to gather for that reason. But those are all temporal things. Those things might bring people together for a time, but they cannot bring us together for eternity. So what makes this gathering of people, which we call the church, different from all other gatherings that exist? Well, I hope the answer that pops into your head is that we have Jesus Christ here. We have Jesus Christ here, and that distinction is of supreme importance.
We gather together because we have been united by him. We gather to worship him, and to learn from the word of God how to live according to his teachings and to act as his representatives to a broken world, and to do it together. The church, the Capital C Church that is represented here locally at Trinity, but which extends universally to all believers from all times and all places, is made up of the only people who have fellowship with the living God. We are the only people who have fellowship with the living God, the God who created the heavens and the earth, and we have that through Jesus Christ. That is what makes this gathering so special. Salvation may begin as a personal experience between us and Jesus, but one of the outcomes of our salvation is that we are united with every other believer through Jesus, a unity
Built for Love
which we will enjoy for eternity. Yet it begins here and now, every time that we come together. The title of our sermon this morning is The Church Built for Love, and we’re going to focus primarily on how we relate to one another as the church. And my hope is that we will all be drawn into deeper affection and devotion for Jesus and his church. A couple of things I’ll mention up front, we’ll be doing this a little bit differently, we won’t be going through one particular passage, we’ll walk through a few short passages and we’ll have four points this morning, and they won’t be as punchy and alliterated as you might be used to. Just a fair warning. Let’s take a look at our first point, which is this. The church’s intimate nature is demonstrated in a variety of word pictures. The first, the church is described in Ephesians chapter two as the household of God.
The church represents a family. And what better Sunday than we get to discuss this than having baptism, which is an opportunity for us to welcome you into our eternal family, to show everyone that they are now a part of this family and that we are accountable to them and they are accountable to us. And perhaps we don’t have as strong of a sense as family as first century Jewish people did, but family was very important to them. Generation after generation would often live in the same house on the same plot of land and children could expect to grow up in close proximity to grandparents and other members of the extended family and to enjoy permanent and harmonious relationships with brothers and sisters. The family was the center from which all other aspects of community and peoplehood emanated for them. And this is the kind of closeness that we should feel with the family of God.
And it only happens when we take part in a local church community, when we can engage with other believers within a geographic region. And Jesus also understood that entering his eternal family might mean separation from biological families. Yet he taught that everyone who has left houses or brothers or sister or father or mother or wife or children or lands for his sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. Maybe you don’t even have any family to speak of. Jesus wants to make you a part of his eternal family. For a first century Jewish people following Jesus might have meant complete rejection by their family, but it is encouraging to know that in Christ we have become a part of a much larger family that we will enjoy fellowship with for all of eternity. And just as in a healthy family, the older should be teaching the younger.
There should exist within the church intergenerational relationships between the older men and the younger men and the older women and the younger women in these kinds of relationships should be shot out by us all. And if you don’t have that kind of relationship with someone within the church who is like a spiritual father or mother to you, I invite you to seek that out. Next the church is described in Ephesians chapter five as the bride of Christ. Marriage is the most sacred of human relationships and this picture reveals Jesus to be the faithful groom who gave up his life for his bride, the church. When Jesus returns, there will only be one marriage in heaven. In Matthew chapter 22 verse 30, Jesus says that we will not be married or given in marriage after we are resurrected. This is why marriage is until death do us part, but there will still be a marriage in
heaven and it is between Christ and his church. Men, for those of you who are married, I want you to think about the day of your wedding. I can remember mine just nine months ago. Rachel and I didn’t do a first look before the ceremony and so the first time that I saw her all dressed in her wedding gown was as she was walking up in the middle of the ceremony and just as I’m doing now as I think about it, what happened is that I simply couldn’t control myself and tears started to flow from my eyes. It’s what happens to many men during that moment that they simply can’t control themselves because we’re overwhelmed with our love for our bride. And if this is the kind of love that we have for our bride, how much more so does Jesus love his church? And if Jesus loves his church, not only should we respond to him with love, but we also must
love his church, especially in this time where we see so much deconstruction and antagonism towards his church, we must stand for the church and love his church. Just this week, I was getting my hair cut and this is one of my favorite ways to evangelize is to go to different barber shops and you have kind of a captive audience when someone’s cutting your hair. I guess you don’t want to be too harsh because then they might not give you a good job. But I was talking to this man here at a local barber shop and I started by telling him a bit of my testimony and he admitted that he had grown up going to church. In fact, he lived in Sacramento where I grew up and went to a church that I remembered. But he said that although he still believes in God and loves God, but he has a problem
with the church and his people. That’s why he didn’t go to church, he just had his own relationship with God. And I told him that I was going to be preaching the sermon, he said, wow, that’s a pretty big coincidence. I told him what always comes to my mind, which is that it’s still Christ’s church. Despite all of our flaws and all of our shortcomings that we all have, the way that we hurt each other, it is still Christ’s church. We still must love his church. In fact, Jesus didn’t come for us when we were like a pure virgin bride on their wedding day. Jesus comes for us when we’re at our worst. When we have run off and chased after the idols of this world and gone off and done our own thing, that’s where he comes for us to redeem us and to wash us white as snow
by the blood that he shed on the cross. Next, the church is described as the temple of God and a royal priesthood in 1 Peter 2. This description points us back to the Old Testament and the dwelling place of God, which began with the tabernacle in the wilderness and later the temple, which was designed by David and constructed by Solomon, which was built to be the place where the presence of God could dwell in the midst of his people. And the office of priesthood was established so that they could act as representatives between God and the people through the ceremonies that were conducted there. If we went to Jerusalem during those ancient times, the first thing that we would see is the temple. It stood out above all other structures there, and it was meant to be the place where God and heaven overlapped with humanity and earth.
It was a place of incredible beauty and holiness. There’s a scene that stands out to me in 2 Chronicles when the temple was being completed and the whole assembly of Israel came to see it, and they offered sacrifices and brought the Ark of the Covenant inside, and the clouds started to fill the temple. And it stopped the priests in their tracks because they knew it was the presence of God. And then Solomon engages in this long prayer, and listen to what happens after this prayer. This is from chapter 7, verses 1 through 3, which I’m going to read. As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple, and the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house.
And when all the people of Israel saw the fire come down in the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed down in their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped him, gave thanks to the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Imagine being there and seeing that. That is the image of the temple that readers knew when this was first written. But that temple was eventually destroyed and rebuilt and destroyed again, but like so much of the Old Testament, it was just a picture of what was to come. And nearly a thousand years after the first temple was built, Jesus came and said he was going to build a new kind of temple. First referring to himself, stating that his body was the temple of God, and wherever he went, there also was the presence of God, heaven and earth colliding. And when he died on the cross, the curtain in the temple tore in two, which separated the most holy place where the presence of God was from the people. It tore in two, symbolizing that the separation between God and man was removed. And now scripture teaches us that we are that temple.
Like living stones, we have been built into a place where God is pleased to dwell. And we are a royal priesthood serving under Jesus as our eternal high priest, offering a different kind of sacrifice, our very lives as an act of worship to him. And we can do this not because of our heritage or merit, but because of the grace of our Lord Jesus, who has made us holy, just as he is holy. Where the church goes, the presence of God goes with it. The presence of God goes with it.
Christ’s Authority
Finally, the church is described as the body of Christ. We’re going to spend a little bit more time on this picture as we move on to our second point, which is this. God designed his church, a love-driven community under Christ’s headship. Ephesians chapter 1, verses 22 and 23 say this, and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. If Christ is not the head, then it is not the church. It is not the church. It’s important because if Christ is not there, then it is not the church, which is why it can be confusing if someone comes to your door with a name tag that says, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When we have discernment and we investigate what other people believe, and we find out that they don’t believe in the Jesus of the Bible, then they are not the church. If Jesus is not there, then it is not the church. If he is not the head, then it is not the church. Jesus is the animator of the body, the one who guides and directs it and gives it life, and also the one who should be the most prominent among us, just as the head is of the body. We sing songs about him. We pray in his name. We discuss him and worship him to give him the prominence among us that he deserves. Verse 22 teaches us that the father has placed the son in a position of victorious preeminence over all things. In ancient times, conquerors put their feet on the necks of their enemies
in a token of subjection to them, which includes for Jesus, all satanic and demonic powers that currently exist in our world in opposition to him. The victory has already been won. And in these verses, Paul is communicating the power of Christ. It says that all things are under him because he is the highest authority. Authority is a measure of power. In our world, there are different levels of authority. Think about for children. Their teacher has some authority over them, and then the principal has more authority than them, and their parents have an even higher authority. And then above their parents, there are elected officials going up to the president who has the highest authority in our land.
And Christ’s authority is above all of them, and not by a little bit. There is no other power like Christ. Christ holds all of the universe together by his power. And it includes everything in this universe and in the spiritual realm. There’s no other authorities that exist in our world unless Christ allows them to. He knows who the governor is. He knows who the president is. It’s no surprise to him. If he so desires, he could pluck them from the position at any instant. And we can have confidence that there is nothing outside of his control and submit to authorities out of reverence for Christ, who is truly the Lord of our lives. And of course, this includes the church. Jesus is the senior pastor of Trinity Church. Jesus is the senior pastor of Trinity Church. The pastors, as well as all of us, are here to serve him and do his will.
And the way Jesus entered into this position of authority is quite remarkable. Skeptics say that if he did exist, then he was just some kind of well-spoken vagabond. Yet his impact in the world is undeniable, even though he had none of the markers that we would expect from a powerful person. He was born in a tiny and irrelevant town in the Roman Empire, raised in a small village, had to walk from place to place, didn’t travel far from the place he was born, no social media platform, no podcast audience, no political office, never ruled an earthly nation, never led an army, didn’t own a home, or much more than the clothes on his back. He was rejected by the religious, hunted by the powerful, brutally beaten, publicly humiliated, suffering an unfair trial, and finally executed in the most horrific way possible. And he changed the world forever.
That’s because we know that he was much more than just a vagabond. He is the eternal son of God who came to redeem his people. And it was through his humble obedience to the father, offering himself for his people, the church, because of his great love for us, that caused the father to exalt the son to the highest position of authority over all things, to whom every knee will bow, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord.
So everything that we now do is centrally focused on Christ, growing in knowledge of him and the ability to become more like him, filling all people in this world with all things that have to do with Christ. This is what makes us different because the life of Jesus is here. And just as the fullness of God is found in Jesus, the glory of Jesus should now be on display in his church.
And as his body, we are not only united in this unique way with him, but also with each other. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12. For just as the body is one and has many members in all of the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. All followers of Jesus constitute the single body of which Christ is the head, which is a great analogy because it conveys this idea of an organic unity that is animated by the head, not like a corporation where the employees may have no direct relationship with the leaders or with other employees. As members of his body, we have an integral relationship with him and with each other, just as organs and limbs work together in a human body.
Anyone who has studied the human body can testify to its incredible complexity. In fact, there’s a term that’s known as irreducible complexity, which is a term used to describe the characteristic of certain complex systems, which need all of their individual parts in order to function. The human body is irreducibly complex. You can’t just start pulling organs out of someone’s body and expect them to function. You can’t just start pulling organs out of someone’s body and expect everything else to work properly. Even organs which were once thought to be useless or vestigial are constantly found to serve some kind of important purpose, most notably the appendix, which was long thought to be a useless organ and is now known by scientists to be very useful in fighting off infections and helping us to recover from illnesses more quickly. Aside from being a big problem of Darwinian evolution,
which says that all species evolved incrementally over time, piece by piece, it also shows us how invaluable of a role each person plays in the proper functioning of this body. No one should feel less valuable to the church based on their gifting or role within the body. He has ensured that everyone is necessary in the mission of his church, that every follower of Jesus has a part to play a unique gifting that they can offer in service of him and his church. I know sometimes there’s a danger for us to think that the person up here on stage speaking is the most important person among us, and that’s simply not the case. And if a church builds itself around the personality or ability of a single person, then what happens if that person falls and the church falls with it? The church must be empowered to participate together.
Everything that we do individually is empowered by the same Holy Spirit, which distributes gifts like teaching and evangelism, as well as administration, hospitality, acts of mercy and generosity. And they’re all given to us by God according to his will, not ours. We don’t choose the part we play. We simply play the role that we’re assigned and every role is essential. In fact, this section of 1 Corinthians 12 teaches that those who serve in less upfront or glamorous kinds of ways should be treated with greater honor.
Paul wrote this section because it was clear that some who may appear to flaunt supposedly more spectacular gifts or a higher social status may turn out to be less indispensable than the faithful, humble, hard praying, dedicated serving members whose importance may sometimes be overlooked. In fact, if you know someone here who is like that, I can think of a number of them. I invite you after the service today or throughout the week to show them above and beyond your gratitude for them, for the way that they serve here in this church. If you approach the basketball player and ask them what position they play, they will know immediately what to tell you. They won’t have to think about it. Each player on the court is essential. Each player on the court is essential. Even if they function differently, the point guard is gifted in different ways in a center,
but the team can only function well if they both touch the ball at some point and contribute in unique ways. Similarly, I should be able to approach anyone here and ask them, what is your spiritual gift? How are you serving within the church? And I would hope that you would have an answer.
If Trinity successfully brings the message of Jesus out into the community and cares for the orphans and widows of our community, the whole church shares in the congratulations. We don’t say to a victorious marathon runner, congratulations to your legs. The whole body, the whole person gets congratulated. And if you’re struggling to figure out what part you play, I like to use the three A’s. The first A is affinity. What do you really enjoy doing? What are the things that come naturally in your life? The things you have an affinity for. The second A is ability. What do you really feel like you’re good at? What are those things that are your no big deal skills? The things that if someone asks you to do them, you’d love to do it. And finally, the third A is affirmation. What do people around you within this community
tell you about yourself? What do they affirm in you? The gifts that you have. Affinity, ability, and affirmation. Jesus intentionally unites people who normally would not mix. Look in verse 13, how Jesus has destroyed all of the hierarchies that we would typically use to identify ourselves in the world, like ethnicity and economic standing. Those are not the primary distinctions that God wants us to consider in our relationships here within the church. But rather, we are to think of ourselves as all being united through Christ, through the same Holy Spirit. We share this link between us as separate members of the body, but just like every single cell of a human body shares the same DNA, which guides it and directs it. We have the same Holy Spirit, which empowers each believer for service to the church. And there’s not only a benefit for the rest of the body
when we are present to exercise our gifts, but there’s also a benefit for the individual. For anyone who thinks they can function as a Christian without being a part of a local church community, it’s like saying I can survive on bread and water. And I don’t mean the bread of life in the living water that Jesus offers, but literal bread and water, which if you try to survive on, you would experience incredible deprivation to your body.
There is spiritual deprivation that will invariably occur for anyone who does not experience connection with other believers. It is so important to have a group of Christians for whom you can say, I belong to these people and they belong to me. And if you’re just visiting today, whether it’s Trinity or another fellowship, I want you to be a part of a local fellowship where you are committed.
Whichever church it is, it should be somewhere where you live in close geographic proximity. If we like a pastor from some other state, we like to listen to their sermons, that’s great. We can listen to them and benefit from them. But it cannot replace being a part of a local church community where you can live and do life with other believers who you can care for and who can care for you.
Love Reigns Supreme
At the end of chapter 12, starting in verse 27, Paul writes, now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. He goes on to say, I will show you a still more excellent way. Just before he transitions into chapter 13. And Paul says this as a transition because despite our tendency to make distinctions among us, based on what we do within the church, which he’s been describing at length in chapter 12 about the different gifts that people have and how we should treat those. He says in verse 31, I will show you a still more excellent way. And that is the way of love. This is what the body of Christ is built for. It’s built for love for one another. So we move on to our third point, which is this. Our love for each other must reign supreme among us.
1 Corinthians chapter 13.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. So now faith, hope, and love abide. These three, but the greatest of these is love
— 1 Corinthians 13
,13 (ESV)
.
Now likely we’ve all heard these verses before at a wedding, but this section was not written specifically to describe the love that we have for our spouse. Certainly these things still apply, but it was written more specifically to describe the way that we love others within the church.
That is what we should be thinking when we hear these verses. Rather than thinking about how we can measure ourselves based on what we do here, we think about how we can love each other within the church and what kind of a love that is. And in Greek, there are four words that are translated as one word, love, in English. So we lose the flavor of each word which is expressed. Each of them is a different kind of love, and the word that is translated as love in this section is agape, which is always the kind of love that’s used to describe God’s love, which is an other-centered sacrificial love that acts for the well-being of the other. It’s a love that can love the unlovable and the undeserving. It’s a love that continues to love even when it is rejected. It’s a love that is always seeking to give
without expectation of anything in return. Agape love has less to do with emotion and more to do with self-denial for the sake of the other. It causes us to say to ourselves, if I love you, how am I going to think about you? What will be my motivation? What’s in my heart when I consider you and how I can say or do the thing which is going to produce the greatest benefit in your life and the lives of others around us? That’s what it means to love someone, to do what is best for them. So as the body, this is our focus. It includes providing for both physical and spiritual needs of one another. Our goal for our church family is that no one has to suffer alone.
No one has to have any need that we cannot reach out and extend that love to them as it’s appropriate. That’s the beauty of being able to pray for each other in the pastoral prayer. We know what’s going on in one another’s lives. We can come alongside each other and offer love and compassion. During my time here, I have seen people here at Trinity deal with all kinds of serious challenges. Job loss, addiction, serious illnesses, moving to new cities,
and no one has to go through it alone. But let us not get complacent about loving each other. If we do that well here at Trinity, then let us do so more and more. In verse eight, Paul emphasizes that love is eternal. It will still be our motivator even after Christ returns and we enjoy a sin-free new heaven and new earth. Think about this. We won’t need the words of prophets anymore at that point, but we will continue to experience our love for each other for all of eternity. And so we know the design and we know what drives us. Now let’s look at what the outcome is as we move on to our final point. Our love mutually benefits others within the body, mutually benefits others within the body, distinguishing Christians as a unique community. Ephesians chapter four, verse 15 and 16. Speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Growing Together
When we all participate in engaging in genuine love for each other, we all benefit from it. And one of the ways that we benefit is that we become more like Christ. We grow into him as we mature in the faith and our character and our conduct starts to resemble more and more the savior who has united us. And this happens as we are transformed by the word of God. Speaking the truth of God’s word to each other. And that’s the one of the most loving things that we can possibly do for each other. Speak the word of God to each other.
A properly functioning body and the growth of the body is a measure of health, not just outward size. When the truth of God’s word is spoken in the church, then the church becomes healthier. And if the truth is not spoken, the church may seem to grow in size, but it will not be healthy and it might not be alive at all. The only way that the body of Christ can grow in good health is through the faithful proclamation of the word of God. That is why our services on Sunday mornings are saturated with the word of God. But it should also exist in our relationships with each other, in our conversations every day, in text messages, in our conversations with each other.
Think about those individuals who have had the greatest impact on your faith journey. It could be a family member or a friend or a pastor, someone who was a part of the church. And think about the way that they cared for you. Perhaps they cared for your physical needs, invited you to their home for a meal. But something they will likely all have in common is that they spoke the truth to you. And you knew that they loved you and they shared the word of God with you and they helped you to understand it. And they helped you to consider how you could live it out in your life and you grew spiritually as a result.
This is what happens when we engage in loving community as the church. We stimulate one another’s growth so that we become more mature in the faith and experience more of the fullness of the life that Christ has imparted to his people. But there’s also an outcome that is produced outside of the church. How does Christ teach that the unbelieving world will know who are his followers? It’s by our love for each other, specifically our love for one another within the family of God. As Jesus says in John 13, verse 35, by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
This is a part of how we accomplish our mission to reach lost people lost people and to share the love of Christ with them, we must first demonstrate it among ourselves. It gives validity to the words that we speak, the words on the pages of the scriptures and shows the world that we are a gathering unlike any other. And something that’s important for us to remember is that although we are all here in a church service, it does not mean that everyone here is a part of the church. I don’t just mean Trinity Church, but the capital C church, the church that belongs to Jesus Christ.
The Gospel Call
There may be people here who are joining with family members or maybe you’re here from city team and you haven’t yet decided what you believe about this Jesus Christ that you’re hearing about so much. And I want you to know that he wants to make you a part of his family, but you have a problem. The things that you’ve done have separated you from his family.
The things that you’ve done that have hurt others, have hurt people who care about you and have been an offense to God. He knows all of them. He knows everything about us. He knows the depths of our hearts, the thoughts in our minds. And one day, all of us, 10 out of 10, will have to stand before that holy God in judgment and have to give an account for how we treated other people who are made in his image. I don’t know about you, but at one point that terrified me to know that I was going to have to stand before God because I knew how wretched of a sinner that I was and continue to be and how much in need of God’s grace that I am. And that is the good news, that you can be forgiven. I don’t care what you’ve done,
how far from God you think you are. Maybe you don’t know how great of a savior that Jesus is. When he died on the cross, he said, it is finished. The debt is paid in full. That if you put your trust in him and him alone, you will be forgiven for everything that you’ve done. But not only that, he will give you the free gift of eternal life and he will make you one of his own family. He will adopt you as a son and a daughter and unite you with brothers and sisters in Christ who you will enjoy fellowship with for all of eternity. You can do that today. You can pray in your heart today and cry out to God. And he says, anyone who calls out to him will not be put to shame. Today can be the day of salvation for you.
And if you are a follower of Jesus, I invite you to consider how you can serve the church well and commit to belonging to his family. How can you commit to belonging to his family? Offering your gifts to the church.
I think this is a very important season for Trinity. And simply as a church in this area at this time, we need all hands on deck. And it pains me to not be able to be here to participate, at least not for this season. But if you are here, Trinity needs you. If you’re not sure how to offer yourself in service to the church, send a message through the email on the website. Approach one of the pastors after the service. Trinity needs you.
Let’s pray. Our Father, our God, our Savior, Jesus Christ, we thank you for your church. We thank you for your death and resurrection, to which we’re united in baptism so that we can be united with you for eternity. And united with this eternal family. I thank you for the way that this family has cared for me and Rachel. And I pray, Lord, that you would use them mightily here in this city. That you empower everyone here through the power of the Holy Spirit to use their gifts for your glory until the day you return. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.