I'm

. In his high priestly prayer, Jesus prayed that his disciples would all be one, just as he and the

father are one. Today on Truth for Life, we'll examine the purpose and uniqueness of Christian unity and learn why it's based on the truth we know and not the way we feel.

Alistair Begg is continuing our study in John 17.

We're routinely aware of the statement, you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family.

And usually that's an expression of the challenges that are represented, the privileges

of being part of a family.

Not everyone in a family always gets along as they

might, and they are still part of the family. And sometimes the head of the family needs to

say, I don't think you're actually behaving like a family at all. I want you to increasingly

become like the family that you are.

And I suppose if we wanted to cue the music, we could sing.

We are family.

I got all my sisters with me, and that would sort of set the tone for us,

at least for three of us. So I want us to ponder these things this morning.

The visible church, the visible church, which is universal, is the church that has come

into being because of the gospel. And it describes those who throughout the world are the professors of that same gospel.

And as members of that church, they are the forerunners, if you like, of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

And as the family, they have the privilege and the responsibility

of bearing testimony to the one who has adopted them. We recognize, too, that there is also

an invisible dimension to the church. The invisible aspect of it is such that people throughout the world that we have never met

are also included in that family, and that has been true again, ever since the time of the

...