Scott Brown's sermon, titled 'Christ's Love for the Church,' emphasizes the profound love Jesus Christ has for his church and the transformative power of becoming a part of it. The sermon explores 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, illustrating how individuals are washed, justified, and sanctified in the name of Jesus, marking their conversion as pivotal in their spiritual journey. Brown challenges the congregation to love the church as Christ does, focusing on its divine nature and its role as a community of converted sinners. He discusses various metaphors for the church, such as a household, a body, and a temple, highlighting its function as a place of worship and spiritual growth. The sermon addresses societal issues, particularly the legislative challenges against conversion therapy, affirming the church's mission to foster conversion despite external opposition. Through these teachings, Brown encourages believers to reevaluate their relationship with the church, urging them to fully embrace their roles within this God-ordained institution.

Open your Bibles to the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey Word of God. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9 through 11. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor sodomites nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God. Let's pray. Father, we're so delighted to read these words which make it so clear that you set captives free. What a blessing.

What a love to contemplate today. Amen. Please be seated. Amen. Please be seated.

So today we're beginning a series on the church and I want to begin the series by bringing some kind of laser beam attention on the love of Jesus Christ for the church. We all became Christians because we wanted to become like Christ and less like ourselves. And what we see here in the things that I hope to cover today is Christ's great love for the church. And also I want to ask, do you love the church the way that Christ loves the church? And of course he loved the church in so many ways beyond our capabilities.

He died for the sins of the church. We do not do that. We cannot do that. But we learn from Christ for how to love the church in a similar way that he loved the church. And so, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, I thought was a good place to start this series.

It really demonstrates what happens to people when they become members of the Church of Jesus Christ. And they are washed and they are justified and they're sanctified. What a wonderful thing. Now, but at the same time, my prayer for this time, for these weeks, I probably have four or five months worth of sermon texts to cover, but we won't cover that many. We're taking a brief break, probably a couple of months, I would guess, I'm not sure how long this will be.

From Revelation, We'll pick up Revelation chapter 20, which we see the glorious consummation of God's love for the church. But until then, we'll be dealing with these things. I hope that all of us, including myself, will do a serious reevaluation for how we relate with the church, this local church, and that every single person here, every person who grew up in this church, that every person that has a family would look at the church with fresh eyes and ask, do I love the church of Jesus Christ the way that he loves the church? I'm really asking this congregation to do a reevaluation. And so, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11 is a beautiful picture, very vivid picture of how wonderful the church is to the Lord.

Because it's a place where people are set free. Like look at verse 11, in the name of the Lord Jesus by the spirit of our God. And so my prayer for the series is that it would be a very practical result and that you know as you come and experience the local church, that as you hear the preaching, as you walk into the meetings for the worship of God, here's what I really pray, you will have more awe of God, more thankfulness for what he's done to put you in a local church and that you would be, when you're here, you would be still and focused and undistractable from the worship of God, that you would be so hungry for the worship of God that you wanted to hear every word of the service from the very first utterances of the song leader to the very last prayer that you would be on the edge of your seat that your heart would be broken wide open to receive the gifts of God that he has in the worship of God at his church and you'd walk in here different but some of you walk in here like you've just walked into Walmart.

But you're not walking into Walmart when you walk into the worship of God. The worship of God is such a diminished thing in our culture today, even in Christian culture. And so I pray that God would give us a sense of awe a sense of focus and that we would we would say like David Didn't want in Psalm 122. I was glad when they said unto me that we would say this is the house of God this is the pillar and ground of the truth. That's what we're doing here in this place.

But not casually. So I pray that as we move through these sermons, that you would see the church more precious, the people more precious, the singing more precious, the preaching more precious, the fellowship more precious than ever. It would be such a treasured thing because you will have understood more clearly how much Jesus Christ loves his church. You know, what would it mean in your life if you were more moved by what happens in the church? What would it mean in your life if you were more diligent to love the people in this church?

What would it mean in your life if you were more diligent to love the people in this church? What would it mean in your life if you cared more about the preaching, cared more about the singing? What would it mean in your life if you actually cared more about the little children in this church. You know, Jesus said, let the little children come to me or the old people in this church and everybody, the people in the church, because to love the church is to love the people in the church. And of course the things that the church does.

And, you know, many of you are aware, I am part of a ministry called Church and Family Life. Hey, here's the deal. We want to be the people who have helped believers experience more joy in their local church life than ever. And I wrote a book about it a couple years ago called The Family Church. You know, I've realized I've spent the better two thirds of all the years of my life encouraging people to make the local church the center of their life.

If you go back and hear a sermon of mine from 1980 or 1990 or 2000 or 2020, you'll still hear that same theme. It's never stopped. It's such an urgent matter that the people of God treat the church of God in a way that's consistent with the love of Jesus for the church. And so we're gonna spend our time describing the marks of a church and how Christ's love is shown to the church by the worship that he draws the people into that his Love is shown by the preaching God loves his people through the preaching He loves his people through the singing He loves his people through the the fellowship of the church membership of the church the discipline of the church Through the work of the church through the evangelism of the church and So we're gonna walk through all these categories over the coming season here. There's no institution more important than the Church of Jesus Christ.

It's the only God-ordained institution. God created the church. It doesn't operate by human laws. It's not human, It's divine. And there's only one enduring institution in the world.

And by the way, it's not big tech. God and his church will prevail forever and ever. Oh yes, you're going to see these big tech companies drop. They always do. They always go through cycles.

There will be others that will pop up and they'll drop. The church never fails though. So what we see in 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11 is that the church is a community of converted sinners. That's what the true church is. They are converted, they're changed, they're forever changed.

Something snaps and they just can't keep on the way they did. And so I pray that these sermons will help increase your love for the church and particularly to have Christ's love for the church. And that's what we're here to do, isn't it? We're here to learn from Jesus Christ. We learned how to live on our own, now we need to learn from Jesus Christ.

And that's, you know, one of the most tender, compelling verses in the whole Bible is when Jesus said, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Learn from me. Learn from me about my love for the church. He says for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

So put on the mind of Christ. The Apostle Paul to the Philippian Church, he says, let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Put the mind of Christ toward the church into the way that you think about the church. You can't get a right way of thinking from Christian culture out of your own heart. You can't get it from Christian culture.

And you're not gonna get it from the world, but you can get it from Jesus Christ. So, you know, there are people who have the name of Christian, but they do not love the church. They do not love a local church. Here's my conclusion. They don't love Jesus.

They can't. If You love Jesus, you'll love the things that he loves. And you'll want the things that he's prescribed. You will hunger for the fellowship. You will hunger for the preaching.

You will hunger for the ordinances. You will hunger for the discipline of the church. You will hunger for the word of God. If you don't have that, you need to ask who you really are. But there's no better place to go than to Christ.

In Ephesians five, we learn that he gave himself up for the church, Christ loved the church, and he gave himself up for the church. Christ loved the church, and he gave himself up for her. And he gave himself up, and he sanctified, and he cleanses her with the washing of water by the Word. Do you give yourself up for the church? Do you love your church like that?

There's so many ways that Christ loved the church. I have a list of probably 60 different ways that Christ loved the church. I'm sure over these weeks, you'll hear me say every one of them. I just wanna say a few this morning. But he gave himself for her.

And then he set himself for her purification. And then he's also, he's present with his church. He loves his church to the degree that he's present. He says, I will never leave you or forsake you. Hebrews 13, five and six.

He loves the church so much that he sent prophets throughout all the ages. He always sent messengers. He says, I sent to them by my servants the prophets rising up early and sending them, but neither would they heed, says the Lord. Jeremiah 29, 19. He loves the church to such a degree that he sends help.

He sends another helper in John 14, 13. He says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. I will send another helper. I'll send another helper just like me the Holy Spirit He loves the church to such a degree that he comes to comfort the church you know, this is something that we face whenever we gather and that I'm aware of whenever we gather, that you always have people who are not comforted, they're fearful, and I always pray that God would comfort the brokenhearted and the fearful.

But Jesus Christ loves the church so much, he just recognizes who we are. He says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many dwelling places. He was poor, yet making many rich.

He loves the church to such a degree that he would enter into a kind of human poverty with a human body. He says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. He loves the church so much that he carries his church like a father carries his son through the wilderness. We learn about that in Deuteronomy chapter 1. And in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord carried you as a man carried his son.

He loves the church to the degree that he prays for the church. He says, I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, the Lord Jesus Christ prays for his church. The Bible tells us that he prays incessantly. You're never outside of prayer coverage by Jesus.

Never, not for a second in your life. You never go into a dark zone, ever, if you're a Christian. He's praying for you. He's upholding you. He loves his people so much, he draws them with loving kindness, with cords of love.

In Jeremiah 31, I have loved you with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness. I have drawn you That's probably what drew you to the Lord is you saw his loving kindness toward you and his love, you just couldn't get over it. He nourishes and he cherishes, he holds, He holds the church together and holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God, that's Colossians 2.18. The Lord Jesus knits together the people in his church and holds them together and he nourishes them together in the church in Colossians 3 he hides her in God he hides her in this enclave, this pavilion of his holiness. He protects his church.

He came to serve the church in Matthew 20. He came that the church, that they might have life more abundantly John 10 10 He created something for the church to do and that is By the way that they live to declare to the powers and the principalities that Jesus Christ is King and he is such a good King. In Ephesians 3, 10, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God may be known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Put on the mind of Christ for the church. I could go on and on, but he gave himself up for her.

Is that your heart? He builds his church. Is that your heart? He identifies with this church. Is that your heart?

He has zeal for the church. In fact, he said, he said, zeal for your house has eaten me up. So how are you doing? You know, of course, we all recognize that we have so far to go to have the heart of Christ for anything, but that's what we want, and that's what I want for this church here, that we would have the heart of Christ for the church. But also how to conduct ourselves in the church.

We're gonna be talking about that over this season here. In 1 Timothy, the apostle writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3, 14 and he says, these things I write to you so that you might know how to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God and the pillar and ground of the truth. I want you to have a very clear roadmap on how to conduct yourself in the local church. And I want to ask you whether you're conducting yourself in this local church the way that God has called you to. Because he has actually made commands for his church.

And they're all good. They're all for love. They're all for blessing every single one of them. And you know, Christ loves his church by the way he builds his church. He loves his church through the preaching of the church, through the singing of the church, through the prayers of the church.

You know, when the men were praying, he was loving his church through those prayers. Through the fellowship of the church. When we take the Lord's Supper, he's loving his church through these ordinances. Through the baptisms and the evangelism and the discipline and the hospitality, Christ is loving his church through all those means. And he engages all of us in those means.

The church isn't just an experience where you listen to a talking head and go do what you want to do. The church is a body, it's an organism where all the members are supplying to one another. And this first mark of the church is that the church is a holy and righteous community of converted sinners who've been changed by the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the church is composed of people who've changed. That's why Paul says in first Corinthians six, nine to eleven, such were some of you. You're not that way now.

You've changed. You know, this whole idea of the gay Christian, that's just absolutely satanic. There's no such thing. But the church is the place where people have changed and it involves conversion, which is why Jesus said unless you are converted and become like children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. The church is the place of converted sinners, And this is the first mark of the church and it's the first work of the church.

And so that's why I wanted to start here. It's turning away from sin. It includes a change of mind. And you change your mind about everything, including the church. That's why the apostle told the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 517, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things are become new." And you know what this was like. Your life was like a wilderness and it's become more of a garden. Your life was a wasteland and now there's fruit there's fruitfulness. You had filthy garments and the Lord Jesus clothed you in his robes of righteousness. And so the conversion is the first mark of the church.

The world does not appreciate converted centers. The world is actually waging war against the converted because they, by being converted, began to hate the things they used to love, the things of the world. And that's why you saw in the news a couple of weeks ago that the Canadian government just passed a law that criminalizes evangelism that calls for conversion. The law went into effect on January 8th and there was no debate and it was unanimously handed down. And so in Canada, it's illegal to quote scripture to confront sin.

It makes preaching, which is the goal of conversion, illegal, that makes personal counseling, which calls for repentance, illegal. And it's Bill C-4. And It says, it demands you to embrace that what the Bible says about sexuality is myth. And what is illegal, I'll quote from the bill. Causing another person to undergo conversion therapy, promoting or advertising conversion therapy.

Wow, we advertise conversion therapy all the time. We preach the gospel to ourselves and everyone else. And the bill really criminalizes calling the church to repentance. You know, in Galatians 6, we are told that if anyone is caught in a trespass, then we should restore them, not let them be. It criminalizes that.

I'll read the bill. Whereas conversion therapy causes harm to society because among other things it is based on and propagates myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, including the myth that heterosexuality, cisgender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. And so then the bill defines conversion therapy in these words, a practice, treatment, or service designed to change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual, change a person's gender identity to cisgender gender to change a person's gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth To repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior, repress a person's non cisgender gender identity, or repress or reduce a person's gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth. And here's the penalty from the bill. Everyone who knowingly causes another person to undergo conversion therapy, including providing conversion therapy to that other person, is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not more than five years.

Similarly, the bill says, everyone who knowingly promotes, advertises conversion therapy is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment. So that's Bill C-4. Well, unfortunately, Christians will always disobey that bill, that law, because Christians are the converted community and we call one another to be converted. That's what the church does. That's why we're here.

We're here for the conversion of sinners. And if you know, if you have been converted, you know how wonderful that is, to be set free from yourself. That's what we're all about, is to be set free from ourselves, to stop being like ourselves, to become like Jesus Christ, and to be forgiven of our sins. Now, you might think it's shocking that this took place in Canada, but the Conversion of minors is illegal in over 20 states in the United States. Conversion therapy for minors is illegal in New Jersey, California, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New Mexico, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nevada, Washington, Hawaii, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maine, Utah, and Virginia.

And our governor, Roy Cooper, ended up getting a law passed banding the state funding of conversion therapy along with other states as well. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Woe to them. We will never stop the conversion of centers. We will never stop glorying in our conversion that we have renounced these things because true members of Christ's true church are composed of the converted sinner.

You know, there's so many metaphors of the church that make this so clear. You have a list in your notes of these metaphors, and I'm just gonna graze over them lightly. We will return to these metaphors in more detail during this series. But the church is an assembly. It's an assembly.

It's a group of people who gather together. The word ecclesia, the word for church, which appears 114 times in the New Testament, speaks of people who gather together. That's what the people of God do. We'll talk more about this later. The people of God gather together.

That's what they do. And they are they gather together to worship God. And the church is a household. It's a household built together into a household of God. We are saints and members of the household of God, as Ephesians 2, 19, and 20 says.

The church is a building. These metaphors are really designed to help us understand what we're doing together as a church and how it is that Christ loved the church. And all these metaphors is the love of God, every one of them. But the church is a building and God wants to build his family, the church is also a body, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 makes it very clear that we the the church has many members in one body we are One body as a church. There's so much to say about that.

The church is also called a temple a temple is the place in the Bible where God makes himself known, where God comes and speaks. The church is a temple. It's the temple of the living God. It's the place where God speaks. We gather for that purpose.

The church is also a gathering of saints. Saints, yes, saints. The Roman church doesn't really understand what the Bible says about saints because in the Bible there were saints in Ephesus, saints in Corinth, saints in Colossae. Christians are saints. They're holy ones.

God wants his children, God looks on his children like as if they're saints. Isn't that amazing? He does. The church is a holy nation, 1 Peter 2, 9 through 10. A nation has laws, a nation has a culture, and a look and a feel.

You can go to different nations and you can see the looks and the feels of those different nations. The church is a flock. In Acts 20, the elders of the church are urged therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock because savage wolves will come in. The church is a vineyard, it's God's vineyard. He is the vine and we are the branches.

The church is a manifestation of the kingdom of God. God's kingdom comes near. When you make Jesus king, God's kingdom has come near. And the church is a kingdom of priests who offer sacrifices to God. First Peter 2, 9.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. A royal priesthood. You know, as priests, we make intercession for the saints. And there's much to say about that. We're also a structure, the church is like a structure, like a building that's made with living stones.

We are living stones being built up into a spiritual house. Living stones. You know, how you relate with the other stones is really important. Sometimes it can get kind of abrasive scratching up against other stones. God designed it that way, but he's building, he's building us, he's building us through the abrasions.

The church is also a family. The Lord Jesus said, whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. When you come into the church, you get a big old family. You know, a big family with all kinds of people and all kinds of tradesmen and all kinds of skills and all kinds of personalities. And everybody gets fathers and mothers.

Everybody. Isn't that good? There are no truly fatherless people in the Church of Jesus. That's so wonderful. The Church is a pillar and ground of the truth.

That's what we do. We preach the truth. The Church, finally, is a bride. In Revelation 19, we find what the bride is always doing. She's making herself ready.

And so we're engaged in a project here at this church, at Hope Baptist Church. And the mission that we're on is that we're building something, are you ardently and urgently involved in building something here? Are you engaged that way? Are you part of the building and building? That building.

And we're doing something very specific. We're not doing what we want to do. We're doing what Christ wants us to do in his building. And we're building a household, we're building a body, we're building a temple, we're building an assembly, we're building a holy nation, a flock, a vineyard, we're building the manifestation of the kingdom of God, we're building priests, we're like living stones, we're building a family, we're building a pillar, we're building a bride, that's what we're doing here. Are you into that, is that what you're doing here?

And I'm not saying this to condemn this church. I'm so thankful for this church. And all I would just say is excel still more. Do it more. You know, get off the dime and move to higher ground for this church.

You know, the temple, the body is meant to have a certain look and feel, and you all contribute to that. All of you do. So we're doing something here. We're doing a project and you know some of you have been at it more than a decade here in this local church. Some of you only a few years, Some of you only a few years, some of you only a few months, but all of us have the same calling in a local church.

And we're playing a role for others. This is not our own. And in this project, the first mark of the project is conversion. The church always has to make sure that the converted are her members. And that's really what 1st Corinthians 6, 9 through 11 is all about.

Getting back to that text, the church is only composed of the righteous. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do you not know? Some people don't know that. They don't understand the church.

The church is an organism of people who have been converted and they have, and they used to be fornicators, They used to be idolaters, they used to be adulterers, they used to be homosexuals, they used to be sodomites, they used to be thieves and covetous and drunkards and revilers and extortioners. But not anymore, they've inherited the kingdom of God. It's very interesting it says do not be deceived. Some are deceived about salvation. Some prayed a sinner's prayer and their lives never changed.

They were deceived about salvation. And frankly there are many pastors in our land, they think the same way. And their churches are full of unbelievers. Now, What are these things that have been turned away from? Fornicators, this is the word pornea.

It's a broad term that includes all kinds of sexual relations outside of marriage, including things like pornography. Idolaters, this could include idols of the heart being obsessed with the creature, wasting your life on silly things, that's idolatry. Nor adulterers, this is violating the marriage relationship, the marriage covenant, that can happen virtually as well as physically. Nor homosexuals, this is the word for soft or effeminate, it's the one who submits in the homosexual relationship. Or sodomites, this is the broad term of the unnatural use of the man or the woman.

Thieves, kleptase, where we get our word kleptomaniac, the one who steals. This is why when somebody becomes a Christian, one of the first things they say is, who have I stolen from? I need to make restitution. Maybe you're like that. I've known some of you have been like that.

Nor covetous, wanting something that God has not given you, wanting what God has given others, always longing for something that God has not given you. It makes you an idolater. Or drunkards controlled by something other than the Holy Spirit, by substances to satisfy, to pacify, to hapify you, to rely on substances or rituals. Or not revilers, people who are given to anger, outbursts, condemning people, insulting people. Nor extortioners, these are manipulators who want to control people and get their money from them typically.

Not just money though. Extortioners aren't always after money. They're manipulators for their own glory. Now notice, somebody pointed this out in Bible study, about half the list has to do with sexual immorality. But he says, such were some of you.

These things are now in the past. You're no longer enslaved by them. The love of Jesus Christ has invaded your heart and he has kicked out the demons. And God's people are changed, they are converted. And that's why when you have legislators in the United States and Canada legislating against conversion, They have just stepped on the attempt to legislate against the power of the resurrection.

Notice what happened to these people. They were washed. First, he washed them. He sprinkled them with clean water and washed them, white as snow. And the second thing is he sanctified.

He set them apart, and then he begins to purify them. Over the years, takes years and years and years. Sanctified, that's God's long-term plan for your life. And then justified, to declare you not guilty, justified, just like the vessels in the temple that were washed and sanctified, set apart and purified. So are the living stones.

So are the people in the holy nation. They've been changed because there's salvation in no other name than Jesus Christ. You have life in his name. By the Spirit of our God, so says verse 11. Not by might, not by power, not by human manipulation, but by the Spirit of God.

We are changed. You know, this is the kindness of God. Titus 3 2, when the kindness of the love of God appeared through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. There is no way that a law in Canada or any law of the United States can stop the work of the church involved in converting. We will always do that.

If we stop doing that, we have ceased to become the church because the church's first mark and the church's first work is the conversion of the sinner and everything changes in his life unless you become like children you cannot and be converted you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You know, when you come to Jesus Christ, because of his love, he forgives your sins. Really? Really? He does.

Are you overburdened over your sins? Jesus Christ came to forgive sinners. Jesus Christ came to set captives free. Jesus Christ came to give his children a new heart. Did you need a new heart?

He gave you a new heart. He gave you a new name, and Revelation says, and a white stone. And he gives you everlasting life. And he gives you a new family. And he gives you a new way of living.

And he gives you a better way to raise your children. He gives you the right way to be a husband or a wife. He gives you exactly what you need to know for how to be a child growing up with rebellion rising up in your heart and your in your family. He gives you everything you need for life and godliness. Jesus Christ loves the church and he gave himself up for her and he gives her a new family, he gives new wine, he gives the power of the resurrection, and he gives you a new community.

And that community has the best rules of any community that's ever existed on the face of the earth. The best culture. So the first mark of the love of Jesus Christ for the church is that he makes by the power of the resurrection, a community of the converted. Isn't that exciting? What a blessing it is to be part of the church of Jesus Christ.

I pray that we will all grow in our understanding of and our love for the Church of Jesus Christ. And I pray that none of us would miss a lick of what God's doing in his church and in this local church here. So do you love the church the way that Christ loved the church? He gave himself for her. Isn't that wonderful?

So soak it in today. You are the people of God. You're the holy nation. You're the family. You're the living stones.

You're the temple of God. That's who you are together. Would you pray with me? Father, these things are, none of these things Lord we could have conceived of, but you have given us such a treasure in earth and vessels that we might experience all these things. Thank you for making us a family.

Thank you for making us a body. Thank you for making us a holy nation. Thank you for sanctifying and cleansing us by the washing of water by the word. Amen.