1 00:00:00,130 --> 00:00:02,152 This is everything. 2 00:00:02,152 --> 00:00:08,577 God made flesh, dying, rising, and gathering us to him. 3 00:00:08,577 --> 00:00:15,583 There are infinite infinities of wonder woven in this story. 4 00:00:15,583 --> 00:00:17,384 This is what we believe. 5 00:00:17,384 --> 00:00:19,645 This is who we are. 6 00:00:20,086 --> 00:00:26,191 And the creed calls us to confess it over and over and over again. 7 00:00:26,451 --> 00:00:30,061 The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church. 8 00:00:30,061 --> 00:00:39,035 May the Spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. 9 00:00:40,837 --> 00:00:51,723 We looked last week at the way that in the Psalms, God calls his people to confess together who he is and what he's done. 10 00:00:51,723 --> 00:00:58,671 The Psalms are written for us to read together, written for us to sing together, and at a number of points, the Psalms. 11 00:00:58,671 --> 00:01:02,173 Call us to confess together who God is. 12 00:01:02,173 --> 00:01:11,619 So it is apparently a good thing in God's mind that God's people should speak together truth about him. 13 00:01:11,820 --> 00:01:15,982 It's not just enough to think truth about him by myself over here. 14 00:01:16,323 --> 00:01:26,169 God wants us, and I say that on the authority of the Psalms, God wants us to speak together who he is and what he's done. 15 00:01:26,731 --> 00:01:27,591 So 16 00:01:27,672 --> 00:01:39,847 That moves us into this week as we're going to press further into this idea of the public confession of our faith and how that forms us as a people, unites us as a people, and 17 00:01:39,847 --> 00:01:42,028 keeps us as a people. 18 00:01:42,028 --> 00:01:47,330 And we're going to specifically this morning begin looking at the Nicene Creed. 19 00:01:47,371 --> 00:01:54,424 The Nicene Creed, this is a creed that was put together by the church back in the year 325. 20 00:01:54,424 --> 00:01:55,274 So it's 21 00:01:55,508 --> 00:02:00,091 1700 years old, 1701 years old. 22 00:02:00,112 --> 00:02:08,539 Now, we'll get into that in a moment, but let me just clear the ground a little bit here at the beginning, because you might think, well, wait a second, wait a second. 23 00:02:08,539 --> 00:02:16,985 If we have the Bible, if we have God's words, why do we need a creed that people put together? 24 00:02:17,005 --> 00:02:24,461 You know, maybe you've heard the phrase, no creed but the Bible for me, no creed but Christ for me. 25 00:02:24,844 --> 00:02:30,445 And those sayings are right to emphasize the weightiness of God's word, right? 26 00:02:30,445 --> 00:02:34,987 God's word is inspired, it's important, it's real, it's heavy. 27 00:02:34,987 --> 00:02:37,807 They're those kind of sayings, there's no creed but Christ. 28 00:02:37,807 --> 00:02:38,567 Well, that's right. 29 00:02:38,567 --> 00:02:43,429 I mean, Christ is everything to us, He's all that we believe. 30 00:02:43,469 --> 00:02:48,110 But if we just go around and say that, I don't need a creed, I just believe the Bible. 31 00:02:48,110 --> 00:02:53,209 What I mean, what I end up mean meaning, is I just believe. 32 00:02:53,209 --> 00:02:55,330 My interpretation of the Bible. 33 00:02:55,330 --> 00:02:58,672 I just believe what makes sense to me about the Bible. 34 00:02:58,672 --> 00:03:02,043 I just believe what makes sense to me about Jesus. 35 00:03:02,043 --> 00:03:06,575 And that gets us into a dangerous situation. 36 00:03:06,796 --> 00:03:15,960 Because Mormons read the Bible and believe in Jesus to some degree, their own interpretation. 37 00:03:16,100 --> 00:03:18,861 Muslims read the Bible. 38 00:03:19,097 --> 00:03:20,037 And believe in Jesus. 39 00:03:20,037 --> 00:03:26,003 You talk to Muslim, yeah, they'll I, you know, uh the New Testament, the specific books, the gospels, Jesus. 40 00:03:26,003 --> 00:03:28,204 Yeah, I believe those things. 41 00:03:28,965 --> 00:03:34,289 Some Christian churches or churches that would claim to be Christian that deny the Trinity. 42 00:03:34,349 --> 00:03:37,472 Well, they read the Bible and they believe in Jesus. 43 00:03:37,472 --> 00:03:40,334 There's many, many interpretations. 44 00:03:40,835 --> 00:03:45,929 Are we just gonna say, well, anyone who claims, I believe this, are just gonna give them a pass? 45 00:03:45,929 --> 00:03:47,400 well, then you know, you're good. 46 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:47,781 No. 47 00:03:47,781 --> 00:03:49,802 There's a way to interpret this. 48 00:03:49,982 --> 00:03:50,922 Whose is it? 49 00:03:50,922 --> 00:03:51,962 Mine? 50 00:03:51,983 --> 00:03:53,243 Your pastor's? 51 00:03:53,243 --> 00:03:54,343 Yours? 52 00:03:54,404 --> 00:03:59,236 Where how do we interpret the inspired words of God? 53 00:03:59,236 --> 00:04:01,947 That's where creeds come in. 54 00:04:01,947 --> 00:04:03,467 That's what creeds are. 55 00:04:03,507 --> 00:04:15,344 They give the true, time-tested interpretation, the apostolic interpretation of God's word. 56 00:04:15,344 --> 00:04:21,059 They supply the correct lenses through which we're to read scripture. 57 00:04:21,059 --> 00:04:28,164 You can you can come to this book and pull out all kinds of crazy things if you have different kinds of lenses on. 58 00:04:28,164 --> 00:04:38,491 If you've got the eschatological lenses on, if you've got the demonic warfare lenses on, if you've got the spiritual divine counsel lenses on, you can come on all kinds of things. 59 00:04:38,732 --> 00:04:45,313 But there's a lens that the church has always used as she comes to scripture, and that lens 60 00:04:45,313 --> 00:04:51,026 Is codified in the creeds, but specifically here, the Nicene Creed. 61 00:04:51,026 --> 00:04:53,236 That's the one we're going to look at this morning. 62 00:04:53,236 --> 00:04:55,377 Now you can think of this as like a fence. 63 00:04:55,698 --> 00:05:03,651 You've got a yard, you paid, you know, you got there is there is your property out there, but if there's no fence around it, it's like, well, where does my property end and the 64 00:05:03,651 --> 00:05:04,671 neighbors begin? 65 00:05:04,671 --> 00:05:06,782 a little fuzzy, and the kids are out there playing. 66 00:05:06,782 --> 00:05:08,423 And it's like, are they in the yard? 67 00:05:08,423 --> 00:05:10,164 I mean, I think they're in the what if they're right here? 68 00:05:10,164 --> 00:05:11,224 Are they still in the yard? 69 00:05:11,224 --> 00:05:12,093 I don't know. 70 00:05:12,093 --> 00:05:13,193 I guess. 71 00:05:13,700 --> 00:05:15,891 A fence says, This is the yard. 72 00:05:15,891 --> 00:05:17,532 The yard is in here. 73 00:05:17,532 --> 00:05:19,712 Outside of this, it's not the yard anymore. 74 00:05:19,712 --> 00:05:21,333 It's somebody else's yard. 75 00:05:21,333 --> 00:05:23,534 In here, it's our yard. 76 00:05:23,534 --> 00:05:25,905 And in the fence, you can do all kinds of things. 77 00:05:25,905 --> 00:05:29,776 You can play kickball, you can play four square, you can bounce on a trampoline. 78 00:05:29,776 --> 00:05:34,498 There's lots of things to do in the yard, but they're all in the yard. 79 00:05:34,758 --> 00:05:42,585 Similarly, what a creed does, what the Nicene Creed does, is to create a theological yard and to say, 80 00:05:42,585 --> 00:05:44,746 This is the yard of our faith. 81 00:05:44,746 --> 00:05:46,417 And you can do all kinds of things in here. 82 00:05:46,417 --> 00:05:48,698 There's different interpretations in here. 83 00:05:48,698 --> 00:05:50,309 There's different emphases in here. 84 00:05:50,309 --> 00:05:53,691 There's di there's room for different visions of the end times. 85 00:05:53,691 --> 00:05:57,293 There's room for different understandings of the working of the Spirit. 86 00:05:57,293 --> 00:06:00,915 There's room for understandings of, you know, how do you baptize? 87 00:06:00,915 --> 00:06:10,180 You know, like you know, submi submersion or sprinkling or pouring or like there's room for different interpretations, but they're all in the yard. 88 00:06:10,621 --> 00:06:11,717 And then 89 00:06:11,717 --> 00:06:14,819 The creed is very clear, but that's outside of the yard. 90 00:06:15,459 --> 00:06:17,180 A Mormon view, we won't get into it now. 91 00:06:17,180 --> 00:06:18,961 It's outside of the yard. 92 00:06:19,021 --> 00:06:20,822 Other views, they're outside of the yard. 93 00:06:20,822 --> 00:06:31,148 So a creed helps you say, do your interpretation, come to scripture, think, understand, study, yes, but study in the yard. 94 00:06:31,269 --> 00:06:35,291 Check your interpretation, check your understanding, check what you think. 95 00:06:35,291 --> 00:06:37,032 yeah, this must be what that means. 96 00:06:37,152 --> 00:06:38,683 Are you still in the yard? 97 00:06:38,683 --> 00:06:45,679 So that's what the creed does, is it kind of sets up this yard that the church has always acknowledged as this is this is our place. 98 00:06:45,679 --> 00:06:50,222 This is where we do our thinking, this is where we do our living and our believing. 99 00:06:50,723 --> 00:06:53,185 So that's why creeds are important, generally speaking. 100 00:06:53,185 --> 00:06:55,407 I just, you know, that's a whirlwind tour. 101 00:06:55,407 --> 00:06:56,978 Why the Nicene Creed? 102 00:06:56,978 --> 00:07:02,993 Well, it is the earliest universal creed that the church has. 103 00:07:02,993 --> 00:07:07,917 Early, early on in the church's history, like the 40s and the 50s AD. 104 00:07:08,955 --> 00:07:12,867 There were creeds, but they were based on particular, you know, local churches. 105 00:07:12,867 --> 00:07:16,772 They had developed these creeds mainly when someone is going to be baptized. 106 00:07:16,772 --> 00:07:21,875 You gave them a creed, something to say, to show, I believe this stuff. 107 00:07:21,956 --> 00:07:27,741 So they were, they were localized ones, and they were all generally the same, but they were all in different little places. 108 00:07:27,741 --> 00:07:37,689 But as heretical teaching, heretical interpretation of scripture increased, specifically people saying Jesus is a creature, Jesus was made. 109 00:07:37,787 --> 00:07:39,168 Jesus is not fully God. 110 00:07:39,168 --> 00:07:47,025 As these kind of teachings were increasing, the church realized we have to clarify what we've always said. 111 00:07:47,266 --> 00:07:50,148 It's not that the Nicene Creed invented the Trinity. 112 00:07:50,148 --> 00:07:52,329 You'll get people saying that sometimes. 113 00:07:52,390 --> 00:08:05,291 No, it's that at Nicaea, 325 AD, the leaders of the churches came together and they clarified what they had always taught, what the apostles had taught them. 114 00:08:05,435 --> 00:08:16,693 So the Nicene Creed is this early crystallization, clarification of the teaching that the church has always had, of the teaching that was given by Christ to the apostles, by the 115 00:08:16,693 --> 00:08:22,677 apostles to the church, clarified at 325 in Nicaea. 116 00:08:22,997 --> 00:08:23,878 And it has served. 117 00:08:23,878 --> 00:08:25,319 It's not inspired. 118 00:08:25,319 --> 00:08:28,301 It's not inspired the same way John 3 16 is inspired. 119 00:08:28,301 --> 00:08:29,281 It's not. 120 00:08:29,342 --> 00:08:34,309 But it has stood the test of time to be a uh 121 00:08:34,309 --> 00:08:40,571 Unifying and keeping and preserving force in the history of the church from the beginning. 122 00:08:40,571 --> 00:08:41,851 Think about this. 123 00:08:41,971 --> 00:08:55,915 Every teacher, thinker, preacher, pastor, missionary, layperson who claims to be a Christian, who is a Christian that you've ever known, has agreed with this creed. 124 00:08:56,095 --> 00:09:02,257 Every true Christian, from 325 on, and we don't know a whole lot before 325, they've agreed with this. 125 00:09:02,257 --> 00:09:02,567 St. 126 00:09:02,567 --> 00:09:03,587 Augustine 127 00:09:04,005 --> 00:09:11,379 Um Martin Luther, John Calvin, ah Charles Spurgeon, C.S. 128 00:09:11,379 --> 00:09:12,049 Lewis. 129 00:09:12,049 --> 00:09:14,751 I'm skipping a lot, just pull pull someone out. 130 00:09:14,751 --> 00:09:18,573 These people from all these all different places, they agreed with this. 131 00:09:18,573 --> 00:09:19,413 They believed this. 132 00:09:19,413 --> 00:09:20,814 They said, Yeah, that's what we believe. 133 00:09:20,814 --> 00:09:22,035 That's what we teach. 134 00:09:22,035 --> 00:09:27,438 That's what we that's what we confess to be the case. 135 00:09:27,438 --> 00:09:29,119 So it's worth our attention. 136 00:09:29,119 --> 00:09:29,849 That's my point. 137 00:09:29,849 --> 00:09:32,130 It's worth our attention to look at this together. 138 00:09:32,130 --> 00:09:33,881 And that's what we're going to do today. 139 00:09:33,947 --> 00:09:36,519 And tomorrow or and next Sunday. 140 00:09:36,519 --> 00:09:46,327 Now let me read for you a text that serves kind of as the core of what we are going to be looking at this morning. 141 00:09:46,327 --> 00:09:53,413 This text comes from First Corinthians chapter eight, starting in ver just verse six. 142 00:09:53,413 --> 00:10:03,079 Paul writes this For us, Christian, for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom 143 00:10:03,079 --> 00:10:16,093 Are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we exist. 144 00:10:16,093 --> 00:10:25,795 So there's kind of a seed creed, and you'll see in a moment when I read the creed that it's developing on this idea right here that comes from the apostles. 145 00:10:25,795 --> 00:10:32,766 Let me pray for us, then we'll look at this together and we'll begin breaking it down piece by piece as we go through it this morning. 146 00:10:32,766 --> 00:10:33,571 Yeah. 147 00:10:35,701 --> 00:10:42,463 So again, Father, the only reason we can have creeds is because you are unchanging. 148 00:10:42,463 --> 00:10:43,643 You are yourself. 149 00:10:43,643 --> 00:10:46,764 You are who you have revealed yourself to be in Scripture. 150 00:10:46,764 --> 00:10:50,465 You are who you have revealed yourself to be in Christ. 151 00:10:50,465 --> 00:10:53,826 You are a speaking, revealing God. 152 00:10:53,826 --> 00:11:02,779 And so, Father, help our words to speak of and rightfully reveal you, rightfully bear witness to you. 153 00:11:02,877 --> 00:11:08,489 And and we trust that is the case, that by your grace, this creed that we're going to consider has done that. 154 00:11:08,489 --> 00:11:22,532 But we pray, Lord, that this morning your spirit would be at work to cause the reality, the truth, the the the absolute truth of Jesus Christ to shine forth this morning and be 155 00:11:22,532 --> 00:11:32,223 received this morning by King Street Church, that we would be sharpened and clarified and strengthened and built up in these things. 156 00:11:32,223 --> 00:11:38,318 Together, that we'd all be able to say, Together, we believe this. 157 00:11:38,458 --> 00:11:46,064 Lord, help this to be so as we look this morning and do whatever good work you see fit to do. 158 00:11:46,225 --> 00:11:51,789 In all of us now, we open ourselves to you and are ready for you to glorify your name. 159 00:11:51,789 --> 00:11:53,291 We pray it in Jesus' name. 160 00:11:53,291 --> 00:11:54,271 Amen. 161 00:11:55,312 --> 00:11:56,974 Well, we're going to have the creed up here. 162 00:11:56,974 --> 00:11:59,386 If you can put up the first part, Avery, I'm going to read this. 163 00:11:59,386 --> 00:12:01,447 You don't have to read it, you just listen. 164 00:12:01,509 --> 00:12:07,232 I'll read for you this creed, and then we will break it down and look at specific parts of it. 165 00:12:07,232 --> 00:12:12,075 And the version that we have here is the old version, as we'll talk about next week. 166 00:12:12,075 --> 00:12:13,176 There's been a few tweaks. 167 00:12:13,176 --> 00:12:13,996 I'll get into that. 168 00:12:13,996 --> 00:12:17,358 This is what it would have looked like when it was formulated. 169 00:12:17,358 --> 00:12:21,900 So let me read it for you, and then I'll break down parts of it this morning. 170 00:12:22,021 --> 00:12:30,415 I believe in one God, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. 171 00:12:31,133 --> 00:12:46,354 And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not created, of one essence with 172 00:12:46,354 --> 00:12:59,503 the Father, through whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man. 173 00:13:02,003 --> 00:13:10,455 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried, and he rose on the third day according to the scriptures. 174 00:13:11,756 --> 00:13:19,898 He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. 175 00:13:19,898 --> 00:13:23,319 His kingdom shall have no end. 176 00:13:24,080 --> 00:13:29,333 And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the creator of life, who proceeds from the Father. 177 00:13:29,333 --> 00:13:35,635 Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets. 178 00:13:36,595 --> 00:13:40,096 And in one holy Catholic, just pause. 179 00:13:40,096 --> 00:13:41,456 That means universal. 180 00:13:41,456 --> 00:13:43,017 That means universal. 181 00:13:43,017 --> 00:13:45,878 One holy Catholic and apostolic church. 182 00:13:45,878 --> 00:13:49,078 I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. 183 00:13:49,078 --> 00:13:53,820 I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. 184 00:13:53,820 --> 00:13:55,040 Amen. 185 00:13:55,040 --> 00:13:58,881 So these words, originally written, of course, in 186 00:13:59,641 --> 00:14:09,189 Um in Greek, these words were composed in 325 and then edited a little bit later in 381 A.D. 187 00:14:09,189 --> 00:14:15,034 But these are ancient words that the church has held fast to from her beginning. 188 00:14:15,034 --> 00:14:18,897 And so we're going to consider them a little bit together this morning. 189 00:14:19,538 --> 00:14:22,440 Specifically, we're going to look at the Father and the Son. 190 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:23,931 The Father and the Son this morning. 191 00:14:23,931 --> 00:14:27,444 We're going to save looking at the Spirit and the Church for next week. 192 00:14:27,444 --> 00:14:28,521 So this morning. 193 00:14:28,521 --> 00:14:36,563 Let's dive in and consider what this creed calls us to confess about the Father and the Son and why that matters. 194 00:14:36,563 --> 00:14:38,003 Why that matters. 195 00:14:38,244 --> 00:14:40,774 Before we do that though, how does this whole thing begin? 196 00:14:40,774 --> 00:14:43,495 Remember how the whole creed begins. 197 00:14:43,495 --> 00:14:49,007 You can jump back to the very first one, maybe, Avery, while I'm preaching, if you can go back to the first slide there. 198 00:14:49,507 --> 00:14:52,428 It begins with, I believe. 199 00:14:53,008 --> 00:14:53,828 I believe. 200 00:14:53,828 --> 00:14:57,409 Before it says anything else, I believe. 201 00:14:57,843 --> 00:14:59,493 Now that matters. 202 00:14:59,493 --> 00:15:01,394 Creed means belief. 203 00:15:01,394 --> 00:15:03,335 You hear credibility. 204 00:15:03,335 --> 00:15:06,756 Somebody is credible, that means they're believable. 205 00:15:06,756 --> 00:15:10,457 If something's incredible, it's unbelievable. 206 00:15:10,457 --> 00:15:13,167 Creed, creed, that means belief. 207 00:15:13,167 --> 00:15:17,738 So this is saying, I believe this, I hold it by faith. 208 00:15:17,799 --> 00:15:26,701 And that's important because there is a difference between saying, I believe this or I have proven this. 209 00:15:26,961 --> 00:15:29,122 I have determined this. 210 00:15:29,303 --> 00:15:31,935 I know this by my own power. 211 00:15:31,935 --> 00:15:33,686 That's not what we say. 212 00:15:33,747 --> 00:15:36,789 We say, I believe this. 213 00:15:36,830 --> 00:15:37,390 I believe that. 214 00:15:37,390 --> 00:15:46,859 That's a fundamentally different way of understanding: mastering and knowing versus receiving and believing. 215 00:15:46,859 --> 00:15:49,961 Those are two completely different ways of living. 216 00:15:50,202 --> 00:15:54,365 And since the scientific revolution, humanity has tried to live. 217 00:15:54,365 --> 00:15:58,046 Mastering, believing, really, even before that, that's what going for the fruit was. 218 00:15:58,046 --> 00:16:05,288 Mastering, I know, I know, but believe says, I receive, I receive. 219 00:16:05,288 --> 00:16:08,449 So this is a fundamentally different way of living. 220 00:16:08,449 --> 00:16:22,873 What it means when we say, I believe, we're saying my understanding of myself and of this world and of God and of all things that matter, that is not grounded in something that I 221 00:16:22,873 --> 00:16:24,359 have mastered. 222 00:16:24,359 --> 00:16:29,171 And proven and put in my back pocket and can pull out anytime I want. 223 00:16:29,471 --> 00:16:36,894 That is grounded in something that I believe, something that has been revealed, and I trust it. 224 00:16:36,994 --> 00:16:38,395 I trust it. 225 00:16:38,435 --> 00:16:40,295 I trust this person. 226 00:16:40,296 --> 00:16:42,507 So remember what Hebrews tells us about faith. 227 00:16:42,507 --> 00:16:51,530 It says, faith is the conviction of things hoped for, or the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. 228 00:16:51,530 --> 00:16:52,260 Now, 229 00:16:53,471 --> 00:16:58,425 Seeing, some people say seeing is believing, but really the truth is seeing is controlling. 230 00:16:58,425 --> 00:17:01,748 If I can see something, I can get an angle on it. 231 00:17:01,748 --> 00:17:03,649 I can say, okay, I get it. 232 00:17:03,649 --> 00:17:04,710 I see what this is. 233 00:17:04,710 --> 00:17:05,701 I can control this. 234 00:17:05,701 --> 00:17:06,652 I can handle it. 235 00:17:06,652 --> 00:17:08,593 I just want to see what's coming. 236 00:17:08,593 --> 00:17:10,285 I just want to see what's going to happen. 237 00:17:10,285 --> 00:17:12,076 I want to see the situation. 238 00:17:12,076 --> 00:17:16,800 Seeing, having it in front of me, means I'm in control. 239 00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:17,881 I know where this is going. 240 00:17:17,881 --> 00:17:19,182 I know where the numbers are leading. 241 00:17:19,182 --> 00:17:20,203 I've got this. 242 00:17:20,203 --> 00:17:21,644 That's what seeing is. 243 00:17:21,644 --> 00:17:22,524 But 244 00:17:23,229 --> 00:17:30,082 And and and when we see, not only does it give us power, it puts us in the driver's seat, as it were. 245 00:17:30,082 --> 00:17:33,513 We say, okay, I see where we're going. 246 00:17:33,513 --> 00:17:34,834 And that's what we want. 247 00:17:34,834 --> 00:17:37,194 That's what our hearts want by nature. 248 00:17:37,475 --> 00:17:41,517 But faith refuses to allow us to do that. 249 00:17:41,517 --> 00:17:46,439 Faith refuses to allow us to finally control the situation. 250 00:17:46,439 --> 00:17:49,120 Faith says, no, you have to trust. 251 00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:50,860 You have to receive. 252 00:17:50,860 --> 00:17:52,911 You have to be open-handed. 253 00:17:53,405 --> 00:17:56,127 So I want, we want to know. 254 00:17:56,127 --> 00:18:04,093 As long as we are saying, I need to know, I need to prove, I need to have it here and control it. 255 00:18:04,314 --> 00:18:06,976 Faith says, I'm never going to give that to you. 256 00:18:06,976 --> 00:18:08,718 You're never going to get that. 257 00:18:08,718 --> 00:18:11,540 Because then you're God, then you're the master. 258 00:18:11,540 --> 00:18:13,001 Then you're in control. 259 00:18:13,001 --> 00:18:15,122 Faith says, open your hands. 260 00:18:15,303 --> 00:18:19,466 Now knowing, controlling says, I need to know. 261 00:18:19,767 --> 00:18:23,067 But faith says, I trust you. 262 00:18:23,281 --> 00:18:24,561 I trust you. 263 00:18:24,702 --> 00:18:28,023 And that what the creed is saying is your whole life is that. 264 00:18:28,023 --> 00:18:32,204 Your whole life is I trust you, not I need to know. 265 00:18:32,245 --> 00:18:37,267 Because it's not I know by my own power, it's I believe. 266 00:18:37,387 --> 00:18:38,627 I believe. 267 00:18:38,627 --> 00:18:40,088 I receive. 268 00:18:40,088 --> 00:18:41,769 I receive something. 269 00:18:41,769 --> 00:18:47,411 So right out of the gate, the creed tells us we confess together we're not in control. 270 00:18:47,411 --> 00:18:48,991 We don't rule. 271 00:18:49,232 --> 00:18:52,583 We don't know in the sense of our hands are on the levers. 272 00:18:52,583 --> 00:18:55,636 Of our own life, and we can do this ourselves. 273 00:18:55,636 --> 00:18:57,617 Rather, we believe. 274 00:18:57,677 --> 00:18:58,698 We believe. 275 00:18:58,698 --> 00:19:05,283 We receive all of reality, not as a knowledge that we attain, but from a person that we trust. 276 00:19:05,283 --> 00:19:06,744 That's what this creed begins with. 277 00:19:06,744 --> 00:19:08,625 It says, hey, that's where it starts. 278 00:19:08,626 --> 00:19:10,187 You don't start where everybody else starts. 279 00:19:10,187 --> 00:19:12,469 You start by believing a person. 280 00:19:12,469 --> 00:19:13,750 I believe. 281 00:19:14,030 --> 00:19:15,431 What do we believe? 282 00:19:15,492 --> 00:19:19,074 What do we believe from this posture of humility, not control? 283 00:19:19,074 --> 00:19:20,595 What do we believe? 284 00:19:21,036 --> 00:19:22,767 I believe in one God. 285 00:19:22,857 --> 00:19:29,561 Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. 286 00:19:29,561 --> 00:19:32,262 So look at the I believe in one God. 287 00:19:32,343 --> 00:19:33,483 One God. 288 00:19:33,483 --> 00:19:35,674 You might say, well, that is very basic. 289 00:19:35,674 --> 00:19:43,148 Yeah, that is very basic, but it's also radical in its implications if we take it seriously. 290 00:19:43,289 --> 00:19:45,370 I believe in one God. 291 00:19:45,830 --> 00:19:50,833 Perhaps the most simple way to feel the way this changes things for us is. 292 00:19:50,833 --> 00:20:03,700 is if there's one God, what this means is that ultimately the peace of unity is true, and the chaos of opposition is not true. 293 00:20:03,700 --> 00:20:05,201 That's the passing thing. 294 00:20:05,201 --> 00:20:06,502 That's the surface thing. 295 00:20:06,502 --> 00:20:11,824 If there's only one God, then y peace is the deepest thing. 296 00:20:11,824 --> 00:20:19,188 And the all the against each other and fighting and back and forth, this is the is the surface thing. 297 00:20:20,413 --> 00:20:23,915 Stuff that sp you know is just going to melt away as the mist. 298 00:20:23,915 --> 00:20:27,597 But the reality is stability if there's one God. 299 00:20:27,597 --> 00:20:30,699 There's not a pantheon, there's not warring gods. 300 00:20:30,699 --> 00:20:32,340 We are not dualists. 301 00:20:32,340 --> 00:20:33,741 This is important to get. 302 00:20:33,741 --> 00:20:41,846 We're not duelists, which means a duelist says there's a supreme good and a supreme bad, and they're just going at it. 303 00:20:41,846 --> 00:20:45,448 Yin yang, balance, you know, karma, balance. 304 00:20:45,448 --> 00:20:48,079 There's a good and bad, and they're against each other. 305 00:20:48,487 --> 00:20:58,080 And in kind of a popular way of thinking, even Christians can think, you know, it's kind of like God and Satan are in this like wrestling match over the world. 306 00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:00,181 God and Satan going back and forth. 307 00:21:00,181 --> 00:21:04,362 And there is no going back and forth between God and Satan. 308 00:21:04,482 --> 00:21:08,243 God says, you don't exist anymore, and Satan doesn't exist anymore. 309 00:21:08,243 --> 00:21:11,144 There's no back and forth, big fight. 310 00:21:11,144 --> 00:21:13,354 Yeah, no, there's no such thing as that. 311 00:21:13,354 --> 00:21:15,645 Now, on a created level, 312 00:21:15,849 --> 00:21:17,150 There is this dualism. 313 00:21:17,150 --> 00:21:18,570 There is evil and good. 314 00:21:18,570 --> 00:21:19,781 There is back and forth. 315 00:21:19,781 --> 00:21:22,472 There is light and dark in our own souls. 316 00:21:22,472 --> 00:21:24,413 So on a created level, yes. 317 00:21:24,413 --> 00:21:34,408 But ultimately, there's one God, one God, and his will is what is determinative, one sovereign. 318 00:21:34,408 --> 00:21:40,871 Let me read for you quickly a passage from Psalm 115 that says this. 319 00:21:41,969 --> 00:21:46,893 The nations are scoffing at Israel because they don't have an idol, they don't have a visible God. 320 00:21:46,954 --> 00:21:49,836 Why should the nation say, Where is their God? 321 00:21:49,836 --> 00:21:52,799 Our God is in the heavens. 322 00:21:52,799 --> 00:21:56,661 He does all that he pleases. 323 00:21:56,742 --> 00:22:00,145 Our God is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases. 324 00:22:00,145 --> 00:22:10,413 There is one will that finally determines where everything is going in the end, which means it peace, harmony, peace. 325 00:22:11,189 --> 00:22:18,654 unity is the final is the final reality, which gives comfort to us, stability to us, because we're changeable. 326 00:22:18,654 --> 00:22:19,916 We're changeable. 327 00:22:19,916 --> 00:22:24,820 But the the the creed says ultimately there is a person who rules over all. 328 00:22:24,820 --> 00:22:32,145 I believe in the humility of faith in one God over all things. 329 00:22:32,706 --> 00:22:34,067 Who is that one God? 330 00:22:34,067 --> 00:22:36,369 Father Almighty. 331 00:22:36,369 --> 00:22:37,273 So this gets 332 00:22:37,273 --> 00:22:43,136 More, it's not just one God, one Almighty distant power out there on some mountain somewhere. 333 00:22:43,136 --> 00:22:50,879 This one God is fundamentally and essentially Father. 334 00:22:51,339 --> 00:22:56,602 One God, Father Almighty, which is amazing. 335 00:22:56,602 --> 00:23:04,487 We're confessing together that the one God who rules over my life and my family and your family. 336 00:23:04,487 --> 00:23:17,422 And all things, all nations, this one God is not finally and ultimately king, though of course he's a king, emperor, ruler, warrior, all those things are absolutely true. 337 00:23:17,422 --> 00:23:20,694 But he fundamentally says he is father. 338 00:23:20,694 --> 00:23:23,084 He's father. 339 00:23:23,165 --> 00:23:32,969 Now that word can be distorted because we all have human fathers who do a better or worse job at being a father. 340 00:23:32,969 --> 00:23:34,225 You can think of the 341 00:23:34,225 --> 00:23:39,109 A mountain with this clear, fresh spring at the top. 342 00:23:39,109 --> 00:23:41,631 Water, f clean water pouring out. 343 00:23:41,631 --> 00:23:47,675 And then as it runs down the side of the mountain, it collects dirt and grime and stones. 344 00:23:47,675 --> 00:23:50,977 And some streams are here and they're fairly clear. 345 00:23:50,977 --> 00:23:56,981 Some streams come down this side and they're all muddy and they've got even poison dirt in them. 346 00:23:57,322 --> 00:23:59,433 But they're all flowing from that central stream. 347 00:23:59,433 --> 00:24:01,843 That's what fatherhood is like here on earth. 348 00:24:01,843 --> 00:24:05,495 Some fathers are a fairly clear picture of the reality. 349 00:24:05,495 --> 00:24:09,616 Some fathers are a polluted picture of the reality. 350 00:24:09,616 --> 00:24:14,238 But the reality ought not be colored by these streams. 351 00:24:14,398 --> 00:24:29,334 The reality is the wellspring, the clean, clear reality of fatherhood, the warmth, the strength, the care, the wisdom, the covering that comes to mind when fatherhood is 352 00:24:29,334 --> 00:24:29,815 mentioned. 353 00:24:29,815 --> 00:24:31,209 This is not just these are not just. 354 00:24:31,209 --> 00:24:34,251 Human feelings projected on God. 355 00:24:34,251 --> 00:24:40,615 These are truths about God that are expressed to varying degrees in human fathers. 356 00:24:40,896 --> 00:24:44,818 God says, I am Father. 357 00:24:45,339 --> 00:24:55,686 Fatherhood, therefore, true, clean, pure, fresh from the mountain spring, fatherhood is at the center of reality. 358 00:24:55,686 --> 00:24:59,809 It's at the center of reality, which is to say, when we confess this, love. 359 00:25:00,426 --> 00:25:08,060 Covering strength, personal care, stability is at the center of reality. 360 00:25:08,060 --> 00:25:12,103 Relational stability is at the center of reality. 361 00:25:12,103 --> 00:25:14,163 God is father. 362 00:25:14,304 --> 00:25:19,026 But if he's a father, then he must have offspring. 363 00:25:19,026 --> 00:25:20,037 He must have a child. 364 00:25:20,037 --> 00:25:22,378 You're a father because of a child. 365 00:25:22,378 --> 00:25:23,209 Whose father is he? 366 00:25:23,209 --> 00:25:25,970 Well, our father, yes, absolutely. 367 00:25:25,970 --> 00:25:27,401 We call him father. 368 00:25:27,401 --> 00:25:30,932 But we only call him Father because we're united to Christ. 369 00:25:31,333 --> 00:25:34,454 And Christ is his son. 370 00:25:34,454 --> 00:25:36,375 Jesus Christ is his son. 371 00:25:36,375 --> 00:25:42,477 If God is eternally Father, then he must eternally have a Son who is Jesus. 372 00:25:42,477 --> 00:25:44,238 And we get folded into that. 373 00:25:44,238 --> 00:25:45,649 So that leads us to this next thing. 374 00:25:45,649 --> 00:25:51,841 We confess we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and then in the Son. 375 00:25:51,841 --> 00:25:54,891 And I'll read it from here because it's longer. 376 00:25:54,891 --> 00:25:55,831 And 377 00:25:56,017 --> 00:26:08,852 In one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, I've got it here, 378 00:26:08,852 --> 00:26:10,250 so just listen to me reading it. 379 00:26:10,250 --> 00:26:13,904 Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father. 380 00:26:13,904 --> 00:26:17,456 Through him all things were made. 381 00:26:17,836 --> 00:26:25,555 Now, that sounds like, okay, the deep waters of theology, that's that's the theological depths there, but let's just 382 00:26:25,555 --> 00:26:28,937 Take it a piece at a time and see what's going on here, what's being confessed. 383 00:26:28,937 --> 00:26:35,340 It's the longest section in the creed because Jesus is the center of our faith. 384 00:26:35,601 --> 00:26:41,503 Everything we know about God comes through this man, comes through the God man, Jesus Christ. 385 00:26:41,784 --> 00:26:44,766 And the creed calls us to confess about him. 386 00:26:44,766 --> 00:26:48,478 We have we believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ. 387 00:26:48,478 --> 00:26:51,009 That's straight from that passage I read in 1 Corinthians. 388 00:26:51,009 --> 00:26:55,017 For us, there's one God, Father, and one Lord. 389 00:26:55,017 --> 00:26:56,347 Jesus Christ. 390 00:26:56,628 --> 00:26:59,189 What does it mean when we say there's one Lord? 391 00:26:59,189 --> 00:27:01,490 Well, Lord means master. 392 00:27:02,071 --> 00:27:03,752 Now, this is radical. 393 00:27:03,752 --> 00:27:09,295 We are, we're, we're, we are uh people who live in a democracy, right? 394 00:27:09,295 --> 00:27:10,536 We are free. 395 00:27:10,536 --> 00:27:12,457 We just celebrated the 4th of July. 396 00:27:12,457 --> 00:27:14,338 Freedom, we're free. 397 00:27:14,358 --> 00:27:16,099 In a sense, yes. 398 00:27:16,259 --> 00:27:20,321 But we, if you're a Christian, you have a master. 399 00:27:20,682 --> 00:27:23,525 And a master doesn't just mean a uh 400 00:27:23,525 --> 00:27:29,818 A psychiatrist who helps me out sometimes, or a nice old grandpa who gives me advice that I can take or leave. 401 00:27:29,818 --> 00:27:32,459 A master means a master. 402 00:27:32,579 --> 00:27:36,040 There is someone who commands our wills. 403 00:27:36,241 --> 00:27:39,182 There is someone who tells us what to think. 404 00:27:39,582 --> 00:27:47,365 There is someone who can give our life or take our life and be completely just in doing so. 405 00:27:47,365 --> 00:27:51,367 I am a man under a master. 406 00:27:51,527 --> 00:27:55,770 And you, Christian, if you are a Christian, you have a master. 407 00:27:56,091 --> 00:27:58,153 And we we don't have many of these. 408 00:27:58,153 --> 00:27:59,454 We have one. 409 00:27:59,454 --> 00:28:03,137 We have one Lord, Jesus Christ. 410 00:28:03,137 --> 00:28:06,880 It is a culturally radical thing to be a Christian. 411 00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,182 You're saying, I have a master. 412 00:28:09,182 --> 00:28:11,724 There is someone who can command me. 413 00:28:11,724 --> 00:28:15,767 There is someone whose word is law to me. 414 00:28:16,428 --> 00:28:20,443 And if I am obeying anyone else, like the speed limit. 415 00:28:20,443 --> 00:28:26,385 Or a teacher or my parents, we are obeying them because our master says to obey them. 416 00:28:26,665 --> 00:28:36,688 And if we're obeying someone or trusting someone or depending on someone that our master has not said trust them, then we're coming out from under the covering of our master. 417 00:28:36,688 --> 00:28:38,588 We're in rebellion against him. 418 00:28:38,588 --> 00:28:48,883 If I'm if I'm believing and bowing down to fear, if I'm trusting in what my friend says against what Scripture says, if I'm trusting in 419 00:28:48,883 --> 00:28:57,428 The numbers, the financial numbers, and they're making me scared when the Lord is saying, Trust me, I'm beginning to have another master. 420 00:28:57,449 --> 00:29:01,172 And the creed says, there's one Lord, there's one master. 421 00:29:01,172 --> 00:29:02,472 Listen to Him. 422 00:29:02,472 --> 00:29:05,434 And that's how comforting. 423 00:29:05,434 --> 00:29:08,136 Because everyone says, I'm your master. 424 00:29:08,136 --> 00:29:17,983 You know, the uh the health, the gurus, the health gurus, the financial gurus, the boss at work, the everybody who says, you need to do this, you need to do this. 425 00:29:18,151 --> 00:29:21,294 What a grace to say, I have one master. 426 00:29:21,294 --> 00:29:23,236 What does he tell me to do? 427 00:29:23,236 --> 00:29:26,278 What does obedience to him look like here? 428 00:29:26,499 --> 00:29:27,860 One master. 429 00:29:27,860 --> 00:29:29,822 The creed calls us to confess that. 430 00:29:29,822 --> 00:29:32,084 And this one master is the Christ. 431 00:29:32,084 --> 00:29:32,964 Remember what that means? 432 00:29:32,964 --> 00:29:39,190 The anointed king who's bringing to pass the rule of God in the world. 433 00:29:39,190 --> 00:29:45,135 And so, Christian, as you wake up in the morning to watch your kids or to go to work. 434 00:29:45,395 --> 00:29:56,501 Or to mow the lawn or to clean the house or do the dishes or go to an appointment or figure out that health situation, figure out that relational situation, or or just deal 435 00:29:56,501 --> 00:29:58,722 with the monotony of another day. 436 00:29:58,862 --> 00:30:06,787 Christian, you are waking up into a world where there is a Lord, a master who has a purpose for you that day. 437 00:30:06,787 --> 00:30:11,269 He hasn't just said, nothing on the agenda for Christopher today, just do whatever. 438 00:30:11,269 --> 00:30:12,309 He has a purpose. 439 00:30:12,309 --> 00:30:15,399 You have a master with a purpose. 440 00:30:15,399 --> 00:30:17,700 And a will for you. 441 00:30:17,700 --> 00:30:23,664 And our great joyful labor is to say, Lord, here's my will. 442 00:30:23,664 --> 00:30:25,145 Conform it to yours. 443 00:30:25,145 --> 00:30:28,026 You're my Lord, command me. 444 00:30:28,126 --> 00:30:30,887 You're my Lord, command me. 445 00:30:31,588 --> 00:30:36,451 There's a wonderful, uh I hope this doesn't make the sermon go too long, but I gotta share it. 446 00:30:36,451 --> 00:30:38,912 There's a wonderful part in the Lord of the Rings books. 447 00:30:38,912 --> 00:30:44,413 I don't think it's in the movies, where this king who's been gone for so long, he's restored. 448 00:30:44,413 --> 00:30:48,386 And he returns, and his people are so glad to see him back. 449 00:30:48,386 --> 00:30:51,829 He was in this despairing season of life. 450 00:30:51,849 --> 00:30:54,812 And they see him stand up again with his strength. 451 00:30:54,812 --> 00:31:01,777 And they take their swords and put them to their chest and they say, Command us, Lord, because they're so glad to have their king back. 452 00:31:01,798 --> 00:31:09,364 We have a king, and we wake up every morning, we take the sword, and we say, Command me, Lord, today. 453 00:31:09,364 --> 00:31:10,405 I'm ready. 454 00:31:10,405 --> 00:31:11,726 We have a Lord. 455 00:31:11,726 --> 00:31:13,027 We have a Lord. 456 00:31:13,567 --> 00:31:23,752 But then the creed presses further than that because this Christ, who is our Lord, is not just Master and Christ, as much as that is. 457 00:31:24,053 --> 00:31:25,474 What's it going on to say? 458 00:31:25,474 --> 00:31:42,042 The only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of the same essence as the Father, 459 00:31:42,042 --> 00:31:43,193 through whom 460 00:31:43,193 --> 00:31:44,404 All things were made. 461 00:31:44,404 --> 00:31:47,966 All this is way of carefully guarding the statement. 462 00:31:47,966 --> 00:31:53,369 This one is true man and true God. 463 00:31:53,369 --> 00:31:55,070 That's what's being confessed. 464 00:31:55,070 --> 00:31:57,611 True man and true God. 465 00:31:57,611 --> 00:32:02,744 There is nothing like this in all of human history that this would be confessed. 466 00:32:02,744 --> 00:32:12,175 The man, Jesus Christ, simultaneously and indivisibly, is man born from woman, an uncreated God. 467 00:32:12,175 --> 00:32:19,170 Eternally begotten of uncreated God, not part of creation, but the one through whom all creation comes. 468 00:32:19,170 --> 00:32:33,750 Now, when I say these awesome things, and they are awesome things, but when I say them, the danger is that we will begin to feel like dogs in a divine dog show, and our eternal 469 00:32:33,750 --> 00:32:37,093 life depends on jumping through the right theological hoops. 470 00:32:37,093 --> 00:32:40,787 I've got to jump through the fully God hoop, the fully man hoop. 471 00:32:40,787 --> 00:32:42,248 The one God, three persons hoop. 472 00:32:42,248 --> 00:32:45,009 And it's like, why am I saying why does any of this matter? 473 00:32:45,009 --> 00:32:45,419 I don't know. 474 00:32:45,419 --> 00:32:46,499 I just have to say it, right? 475 00:32:46,499 --> 00:32:49,351 Because that's like, that's the hoops we have to jump through. 476 00:32:49,351 --> 00:32:51,111 That's how it can feel. 477 00:32:51,151 --> 00:32:57,804 But these things are crucial to our existence, to our living as human beings. 478 00:32:57,804 --> 00:33:00,215 It's not just, a theological hoop. 479 00:33:00,215 --> 00:33:01,415 No, no, no. 480 00:33:02,096 --> 00:33:08,038 If if there is not, if Jesus Christ is not God and man, the whole universe disintegrates to nothing. 481 00:33:08,778 --> 00:33:10,793 The created universe. 482 00:33:10,793 --> 00:33:19,046 cannot continue in existence unless it is meaningfully united to the uncreated God who is existence itself. 483 00:33:19,046 --> 00:33:27,110 And so only the God man, who has creation and God bound together perfectly, can hold reality together. 484 00:33:27,110 --> 00:33:32,452 He Christ is literally holding the universe together by existing. 485 00:33:32,452 --> 00:33:36,884 As it says in Hebrews chapter one, he upholds the universe by the word of his power. 486 00:33:36,884 --> 00:33:39,913 If he's not fully God and fully man, that dissolves. 487 00:33:39,913 --> 00:33:44,506 But that gets it, that gets into other philosophical questions. 488 00:33:44,506 --> 00:33:46,927 Two points I want to point out to you today. 489 00:33:47,048 --> 00:33:52,231 If Jesus Christ is not truly God and truly man, he cannot be our savior. 490 00:33:52,632 --> 00:34:01,698 He cannot be our savior because only by union to God, only when humans are united to God are we saved. 491 00:34:01,858 --> 00:34:09,103 So if there is no God man, humanity cannot be united to God, and there is no salvation. 492 00:34:09,193 --> 00:34:11,544 So salvation depends upon him. 493 00:34:11,684 --> 00:34:20,629 And more than this, if he's not truly man and truly God, then he cannot make known to men, to humans, who God is. 494 00:34:21,090 --> 00:34:29,594 So if we're going to be saved and united to God, if we're going to know who God is, Jesus Christ must be fully God and fully man. 495 00:34:29,594 --> 00:34:32,896 Let me just dig into that slightly for you. 496 00:34:33,216 --> 00:34:37,939 Our salvation is not just being forgiven, it's not just being made moral. 497 00:34:37,939 --> 00:34:38,941 It's not just 498 00:34:38,941 --> 00:34:40,112 going to heaven. 499 00:34:40,112 --> 00:34:55,520 What you're made for and what we're aiming at is nothing less than union with God, to be united to his life, my life woven into his life, my life part of him, the body of Christ, 500 00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:59,663 to be united to God, brought into his life. 501 00:34:59,663 --> 00:35:01,664 That is our hope. 502 00:35:01,664 --> 00:35:07,857 And unless Jesus is man who is God, he cannot descend to humans 503 00:35:07,857 --> 00:35:09,968 And unite us to God. 504 00:35:09,968 --> 00:35:13,890 Our salvation is dependent upon Him being this one. 505 00:35:13,890 --> 00:35:15,912 So it's not just a theological hoop. 506 00:35:15,912 --> 00:35:28,498 Because He's the God man, this man, we humans, can be confident my life is woven into the life of God, and I am being gathered up into the life of God. 507 00:35:28,539 --> 00:35:33,982 A human can be a hero and save you so temporally. 508 00:35:33,982 --> 00:35:37,133 Only God can unite you to God. 509 00:35:37,363 --> 00:35:46,159 Secondarily, our joy is to know God, to know him, to be brought into his life and enjoy him for who he is. 510 00:35:46,159 --> 00:35:53,973 And if Jesus is only a man or a creature, the best he can do is teach us about who God is. 511 00:35:53,994 --> 00:36:07,193 But only because he is truly God is he able in the human flesh, hanging on the cross, to open up God's heart and say, this is who I am. 512 00:36:07,537 --> 00:36:10,408 And bring us in to himself. 513 00:36:10,548 --> 00:36:20,032 Only as the God man is he able to save us, only as the God man is he able to show us who our God is. 514 00:36:20,032 --> 00:36:27,735 And so it's not just, yeah, you gotta say it right, or else some theological geek will jump on you and say you didn't say it right. 515 00:36:27,735 --> 00:36:36,669 No, my ability to hope, my ability to have joy, your ability to be confident in our eternal reward. 516 00:36:36,763 --> 00:36:39,884 Is because there is a God man. 517 00:36:40,065 --> 00:36:52,232 There is a man born truly from a woman with our nature just like us, who is fully and truly and un indivisibly God Himself. 518 00:36:52,232 --> 00:36:58,495 And this man walks on this earth and loves us and suffers with us. 519 00:36:58,495 --> 00:37:05,447 This man who is God dies on the cross for our sins, for our condemnation. 520 00:37:05,447 --> 00:37:11,939 This man is buried in our grave and raised up again and raises our nature up with him. 521 00:37:11,939 --> 00:37:17,790 And because he's risen as the God man, human beings have hope. 522 00:37:17,891 --> 00:37:20,311 So it's not just a thing we can dismiss. 523 00:37:20,311 --> 00:37:22,232 It's not just a thing we can dismiss. 524 00:37:22,232 --> 00:37:31,615 Then finally, our last point: this God man is our hope in our life because of what he does. 525 00:37:31,615 --> 00:37:33,355 Look what it says that he does. 526 00:37:34,473 --> 00:37:44,506 For us men, for us humans, men and women, for us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. 527 00:37:44,506 --> 00:37:53,848 For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death, and was buried, and rose again on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures. 528 00:37:53,848 --> 00:38:04,191 He ascended into heaven, he's seated at the right hand of the Father, he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. 529 00:38:04,563 --> 00:38:09,367 So here we are, the final eight minutes of the sermon, and we go over that. 530 00:38:09,367 --> 00:38:11,409 I mean, you think, what are we, what do we do about that? 531 00:38:11,409 --> 00:38:17,294 Well, hopefully these things are being touched upon continually here from this pulpit. 532 00:38:17,294 --> 00:38:21,137 You're hearing the death and resurrection of Christ continually. 533 00:38:21,137 --> 00:38:27,442 But let me just reiterate for you what this creed calls us to confess together. 534 00:38:28,183 --> 00:38:30,004 Three things very briefly. 535 00:38:30,004 --> 00:38:33,827 First, what we just spoke is the wisdom of God. 536 00:38:34,099 --> 00:38:35,659 The wisdom of God. 537 00:38:35,699 --> 00:38:43,721 Remember that the wisdom of humans wants to go up and grab and make it my own, figure it out myself. 538 00:38:43,842 --> 00:38:48,023 The wisdom of God says, you cannot come to me that way. 539 00:38:48,083 --> 00:38:51,624 The wisdom of God says, I descend to you. 540 00:38:51,624 --> 00:38:53,684 God becomes man. 541 00:38:53,684 --> 00:38:56,225 The word becomes flesh. 542 00:38:56,225 --> 00:39:01,326 Life hangs on the cross in death. 543 00:39:01,326 --> 00:39:03,107 This is the wisdom of God. 544 00:39:03,107 --> 00:39:03,959 And I 545 00:39:03,975 --> 00:39:13,101 Defy any philosophy or worldview or teacher or hero or God to be like this. 546 00:39:13,101 --> 00:39:14,462 There is no other. 547 00:39:14,462 --> 00:39:20,286 In all of human history, there is no other wisdom like the wisdom of the cross. 548 00:39:20,687 --> 00:39:24,990 Paul says this is the wisdom that destroys the wisdom of man. 549 00:39:24,990 --> 00:39:33,341 That desire to make it my own and attain it is destroyed by the cross that says, you can't know God, he comes down. 550 00:39:33,341 --> 00:39:39,313 And reveals himself to you in the flesh demands our humbling. 551 00:39:39,313 --> 00:39:43,394 It demands our receiving of what he has revealed. 552 00:39:44,034 --> 00:39:57,198 In Jesus Christ, in the wisdom of God, God kneels down and reaches through the thorn bushes that we've entangled ourselves in, the thorns of addiction, the thorns of our sin, 553 00:39:57,198 --> 00:40:02,159 the thorns of our anxious thoughts, the thorns of our decisions. 554 00:40:02,159 --> 00:40:03,850 horrible decisions we've made. 555 00:40:03,850 --> 00:40:05,061 Why did I do that? 556 00:40:05,061 --> 00:40:08,785 And we're tangled up in these thorns in Christ. 557 00:40:08,785 --> 00:40:12,747 God reaches down, because we can't get out of that. 558 00:40:12,748 --> 00:40:22,496 He reaches down through the thorns, tearing his flesh, reaching in to take us like a shepherd, and bring us up to himself. 559 00:40:22,496 --> 00:40:24,878 That's the wisdom of God. 560 00:40:24,878 --> 00:40:27,820 And the wisdom of man cannot compare. 561 00:40:27,820 --> 00:40:31,271 So that's what we confess when we can when the creed calls us to confess 562 00:40:31,271 --> 00:40:33,692 What Christ has done. 563 00:40:33,933 --> 00:40:38,275 Secondly, it calls us to confess the love of God, the love of God. 564 00:40:38,275 --> 00:40:51,462 This whole thing, coming down, taking flesh, being born, being crucified, suffering, dying, buried, raised, ascended, reigning, returned, all of that, those aren't just 565 00:40:51,462 --> 00:40:54,464 historical events, though, praise God, they are. 566 00:40:54,464 --> 00:41:01,147 That is the love of God for you working itself out. 567 00:41:01,147 --> 00:41:02,488 In time and space. 568 00:41:02,488 --> 00:41:10,735 That account there that we're so used to that the creed calls us to say, that is God's love for you. 569 00:41:10,735 --> 00:41:13,557 Remember what Paul says in Galatians 2:20? 570 00:41:13,557 --> 00:41:20,363 He says, The life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. 571 00:41:20,363 --> 00:41:27,910 These things, these high and awesome things, it is God your Father loving you. 572 00:41:27,910 --> 00:41:28,710 So 573 00:41:29,733 --> 00:41:34,808 Right, theology confessed together is just speaking of love. 574 00:41:34,809 --> 00:41:36,671 It's just what love looks like. 575 00:41:36,671 --> 00:41:39,033 It's just what love does. 576 00:41:39,033 --> 00:41:40,875 You have been loved. 577 00:41:40,875 --> 00:41:48,662 You have been loved in this way by this God doing this awesome work. 578 00:41:49,004 --> 00:41:50,675 Now we know that, right? 579 00:41:50,675 --> 00:41:52,827 It's in our heads if you're a Christian. 580 00:41:53,171 --> 00:41:54,801 But doesn't it drift away? 581 00:41:54,801 --> 00:41:58,823 Doesn't it get covered over by familiarity and by other things? 582 00:41:58,823 --> 00:42:00,473 And it's just out there. 583 00:42:00,473 --> 00:42:05,214 And what a creed does is says, recite it. 584 00:42:05,415 --> 00:42:07,575 Say again what he did. 585 00:42:07,875 --> 00:42:09,156 Say again. 586 00:42:09,496 --> 00:42:10,516 You recite a creed. 587 00:42:10,516 --> 00:42:13,877 If you recite a creed every week, sometimes you're on the top of the world. 588 00:42:13,877 --> 00:42:20,615 Sometimes you're down in the valleys and you're saying, for us and for our salvation, God has done this. 589 00:42:20,615 --> 00:42:23,176 For us and for our salvation, God has done this. 590 00:42:23,176 --> 00:42:29,497 This is who he is in the highs and in the lows, when your heart is rejoicing and when your heart is broken. 591 00:42:29,497 --> 00:42:42,101 A creed calls you to remember, remember his love, confess his love, confess his love, press it into the fibers of your mind so that you don't wake up singing that random song 592 00:42:42,101 --> 00:42:50,665 or remembering those words from that reel on YouTube, but you wake up with the love of God in your mind because you're confessing it. 593 00:42:50,665 --> 00:42:52,656 Confessing it, confessing it. 594 00:42:52,656 --> 00:42:53,837 Confess it. 595 00:42:53,837 --> 00:43:07,534 Have it in your mind so that if your mind goes in the last years, the thing you still have is the love of God, the creed, the gospel, the truth reciting in your mind. 596 00:43:07,534 --> 00:43:08,585 That's what I want. 597 00:43:08,585 --> 00:43:13,308 That's how deep I want this in my brain and in our brains. 598 00:43:13,308 --> 00:43:15,299 May this we know this love. 599 00:43:15,299 --> 00:43:19,527 And then finally, very briefly, what we confess here is what we 600 00:43:19,527 --> 00:43:19,957 believe. 601 00:43:19,957 --> 00:43:22,348 This is the very center of our belief. 602 00:43:22,348 --> 00:43:30,632 This coming down of the God man, this this old, old story, this is everything, Christian. 603 00:43:30,632 --> 00:43:32,192 You don't get beyond it. 604 00:43:32,192 --> 00:43:34,173 Don't think you've gotten beyond it. 605 00:43:34,173 --> 00:43:35,990 Don't think you're you're familiar with it. 606 00:43:35,990 --> 00:43:37,634 You've heard me say this before. 607 00:43:37,634 --> 00:43:40,156 Don't think you're familiar with this. 608 00:43:40,156 --> 00:43:41,446 Don't say, I'm bored with that. 609 00:43:41,446 --> 00:43:43,017 Let's get onto the deep stuff. 610 00:43:43,017 --> 00:43:45,138 This is everything. 611 00:43:45,138 --> 00:43:49,007 God made flesh dying 612 00:43:49,007 --> 00:43:51,528 Rising and gathering us to him. 613 00:43:51,528 --> 00:43:58,551 There are infinite infinities of wonder woven in this story. 614 00:43:58,551 --> 00:44:00,332 This is what we believe. 615 00:44:00,332 --> 00:44:02,612 This is who we are. 616 00:44:03,033 --> 00:44:09,055 And the creed calls us to confess it over and over and over again. 617 00:44:09,055 --> 00:44:12,936 And I would just ask as we conclude: do we believe it? 618 00:44:13,037 --> 00:44:16,478 Do we believe what these words say? 619 00:44:16,478 --> 00:44:18,909 Next week we'll say them all together at the end. 620 00:44:18,909 --> 00:44:22,021 Do we believe what is here? 621 00:44:22,021 --> 00:44:24,022 And I don't just mean, do I affirm it? 622 00:44:24,022 --> 00:44:25,191 I'm a Christian, of course I believe. 623 00:44:25,191 --> 00:44:26,503 I'm here, aren't I? 624 00:44:26,503 --> 00:44:27,383 No. 625 00:44:27,384 --> 00:44:29,365 Do we believe? 626 00:44:29,485 --> 00:44:42,872 Is my life so built on these things that if they were not true, all my hopes, all my plans, all my goals would fall to pieces and my life would be worth nothing? 627 00:44:42,892 --> 00:44:46,014 Because that's how deeply we're to believe this. 628 00:44:46,014 --> 00:44:48,025 There's no escape plan. 629 00:44:48,125 --> 00:44:50,446 There's no, well, if it's not true, you know, it'll be okay. 630 00:44:50,446 --> 00:44:51,196 No. 631 00:44:51,196 --> 00:44:58,259 We we lean on this so heavily that if this were not true, we are on our faces without hope. 632 00:44:58,259 --> 00:45:01,460 That's what it means to believe this. 633 00:45:01,460 --> 00:45:03,291 I believe this. 634 00:45:03,291 --> 00:45:04,622 May it be so. 635 00:45:04,622 --> 00:45:12,305 May it be so with all that we are and all that we have, because in the end, this is all that we are and all that we have. 636 00:45:12,305 --> 00:45:18,067 I don't mean the specific creed like we need these words of men, but I mean the truth. 637 00:45:18,439 --> 00:45:26,145 Clearly articulated here is all we are and all we have as Christians, as humans. 638 00:45:26,646 --> 00:45:36,233 Jesus Christ, born of woman, God from God, come down for us and for our salvation, crucified, raised, and returning. 639 00:45:36,254 --> 00:45:38,225 So let's believe this together. 640 00:45:38,225 --> 00:45:41,018 Next week, we're going to look at the second half. 641 00:45:41,018 --> 00:45:47,993 The original creed was everything we read, and then at the very end it said, and in the Holy Spirit, period, the end. 642 00:45:48,199 --> 00:45:56,582 And then a few years later, in 381, they thought we should fill out the Holy Spirit a little bit and say a little bit more about that, about Him. 643 00:45:56,582 --> 00:46:03,644 And so next week we will look at the Holy Spirit and the Church, what we confess about the Holy Spirit and the Church. 644 00:46:03,644 --> 00:46:13,046 But of course, the Spirit, may it be, has been part of this whole thing, because there is no seeing God in Christ apart from the working of the Holy Spirit. 645 00:46:13,046 --> 00:46:15,739 And there is no doing what we do now truly. 646 00:46:15,739 --> 00:46:20,642 Apart from the Spirit, because what we do now is to come to this table together. 647 00:46:21,003 --> 00:46:29,108 And as we're coming, I mentioned this last week, but as we're coming to this table, the whole creed is right here. 648 00:46:29,108 --> 00:46:32,150 The whole confession is right here. 649 00:46:32,190 --> 00:46:40,956 Here, witnessed in the broken bread and in the cup, is our one Lord Jesus Christ. 650 00:46:40,956 --> 00:46:45,521 The bread declares the incarnation, the birth from 651 00:46:45,521 --> 00:46:49,352 Mary, the bread and the wine declare, He is bl flesh and blood. 652 00:46:49,352 --> 00:46:50,733 He's truly man. 653 00:46:50,733 --> 00:46:59,395 The table is his cross upon which he died, and the throne upon which he reigns, and from which he will come again. 654 00:46:59,395 --> 00:47:10,358 And if this is bearing witness to the Son who was sent, it is also bearing witness to the Father who sends, the Father who sends the feast of the Son to save us. 655 00:47:10,358 --> 00:47:13,831 And if we see the Father and the Son in glory, 656 00:47:13,831 --> 00:47:18,512 Witnessed in these elements, it's only because the Holy Spirit is doing that work. 657 00:47:18,512 --> 00:47:26,935 And if we receive spiritually the presence of Christ as we come to this table, it's only because the Holy Spirit is doing that work. 658 00:47:26,935 --> 00:47:37,267 And as we partake together, we are confessing that we are one church, united to one Christ in baptism and the forgiveness of our sins and awaiting his return. 659 00:47:37,267 --> 00:47:41,018 So everything the creed says is right here at this table. 660 00:47:41,018 --> 00:47:43,599 And we're about to confess it together. 661 00:47:44,081 --> 00:47:46,173 So let's do that. 662 00:47:46,173 --> 00:47:57,582 As we come to this table to receive from Christ his own self as our food and our drink and our life, may we also be saying, I believe, I believe, I believe. 663 00:47:57,582 --> 00:47:58,973 Let me pray for us. 664 00:48:00,605 --> 00:48:03,036 Father, we thank you for these things. 665 00:48:03,036 --> 00:48:05,836 We thank you that we're able to speak. 666 00:48:06,237 --> 00:48:15,849 And Lord, we thank you that humans, fallen as we are, have crafted right statements about you according to your word. 667 00:48:15,849 --> 00:48:25,822 And we thank you that there is such a thing as the Nicene Creed that would keep your people in line with your word, because that's what we want. 668 00:48:25,822 --> 00:48:27,482 We want to know you. 669 00:48:27,543 --> 00:48:29,371 All we care about, Father. 670 00:48:29,371 --> 00:48:43,021 is to know you in Christ by the Spirit, together with your people, that as the apostle prays, we might grow up into the fullness of Christ and be filled in knowing his love, 671 00:48:43,021 --> 00:48:44,982 filled with everything you are. 672 00:48:45,343 --> 00:48:52,468 And Father, to the extent that this creed has helped your people do that and would help us do it, may we benefit from it. 673 00:48:52,468 --> 00:48:57,191 May we be built up by it and may we be reminded by it of who you are 674 00:48:57,191 --> 00:48:59,312 And what you've done, because there is no God like you. 675 00:48:59,312 --> 00:49:01,253 We praise you, Father. 676 00:49:01,253 --> 00:49:09,437 Meet us now by the Holy Spirit as we come to this table and confess again what you've done and who you are in Jesus Christ. 677 00:49:09,758 --> 00:49:11,369 We pray these things, Father, in his name. 678 00:49:11,369 --> 00:49:12,619 Amen. 679 00:49:13,060 --> 00:49:18,303 Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio. 680 00:49:18,303 --> 00:49:26,929 To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10 a.m. 681 00:49:26,929 --> 00:49:30,143 Or visit our website at Kingstreech.org.