An Authentic Calling: Representing Christ and His Kingdom through the Church

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Sess i on 5: A Ca l l to Commun i t y

keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and re deemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. [9] Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, [10] and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 4. Obedience as a faithful member of God’s covenant community is the sign of genuine obedience to him, Deut. 7.11 (ESV) – You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

B. Principles for the people of God today

1. God’s covenant people today: the Church of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. 3.4-6 (ESV) – Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. [5] Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, [6] who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2. How do individuals obtain entrance into the body? repentance and faith , Acts 17.30-31; Rom. 10.9-10; John 5.24

3. How does the body incorporate new members into itself? Baptism

a. 1 Cor. 12.12-13 (ESV) – For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the