Community Of Truth: Creed- Ian Graham

Ian Graham unpacks the Apostle's Creed as an invitation to indwell the story and grace of Jesus. 

Transcript

Setting The Theme: Truth As Doctrine

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, last week we set our non-Easter attendance record. Yeah, that's great, no? And then you roll back up this week and you're like, this is church planning, and it's delightful, and uh it's such a joy to be together. So thank you, those of you who are here every week, those of you who are here for the first time, uh, it's a real joy to be with you as we worship the Lord together. Um we've been in a series called a The Community of Truth, which uh is is quite an ambitious claim uh in so many ways. Uh first of all, that the truth is something that we somehow could access, that we could claim, but also that it's held not just by us individually, but us as a community. And today we want to talk specifically about the idea of truth as doctrine. Now, if somebody were to call you doctrinaire, and actually maybe even call you dogmatic, they probably aren't paying you a compliment, right? Like, I don't know. Do you have things that you get really fired up about that you just have very strong opinions on? I I do. And I try not to project them onto you as pastor. Uh I've got a few things. But uh if someone were to call you a dogmatic person, they're probably insinuating that you're being kind of rude. Right? It's usually an invitation for maybe you to take a bit of a pause. These are not words that we use often in our cultural lexicon, doctrine, dogma. But so much of what forms the foundation of Christian faith and practice and expression falls into the realm of dogma. And so how do we as a people how do we hold to that which has to be held to? And how do we express to the world, hey, this is the beauty of the Jesus way, of the Jesus truth? As Peter reminds us, always be ready to give a reason for your faith, to give a defense of it. But then the second part often gets forgotten. Do so with all gentleness and respect. And how do we be a people who hold fiercely to the truth in such a way that it invites people to the gentleness and the kindness of our God? One of the ways we've been given to do that is an ancient way that we're going to unpack today. I'm going to read it for you. It will probably sound familiar to many of you in here. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. Amen. How many of you grew up reciting that? Anybody? That is called the Apostles' Creed for those of us who are low church evangelicals who have been told that any sort of rote memorization or recitation of prayers is dead religion. I'm here to tell you that's dead wrong, and that's good news. But today we want to unpack what are the foundational truths that we hold to. If we are seeking to be a community of truth, then we're saying that there is a truth in our world that often is defined by a contesting of truths or a bunch of truths that are on equal footing. The Jesus people are saying two things at once. There is a truth that actually narrows down to something quite specific. But in that narrowing, in that centering, it opens up into a life that is expansive and broad and beautiful. And we also have to remind ourselves that Jesus tells us that He is the way, the truth, and the life. And so often people will say that they are they are holding fast to the Jesus truth, but they're doing so in such a way that you're like, well, you kind of sound like a jerk. How are you holding fast to the Jesus truth in such a way that is repulsive, that is pushing people away from you? It seems like you have disdain for the people that you're trying to proclaim the truth to. You can't have the Jesus truth without the Jesus way. And we see that Jesus' way and truth coalesce into this life, this life eternal, this life abundant, that Jesus has invited us into. And what I want to do today is to use the Apostles' Creed as a way of discussing some of these core truths. We talked last week about faith as the thing that we can be most certain of, which in our culture, which is often rationalistic, is often objective. That's a pretty uh paradoxical statement. Uh uh faith is the thing that I am most certain of. Uh but these words uh form the beliefs of the earliest Christians not just from a head knowledge perspective, but in the way that they live their lives. We want to look at that today as we explore the Apostles' Creed. Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 4, he's talking to him as a preacher and a teacher. He says, watch your life and your doctrine closely. And I wonder for us who are just we've, you know, we classify ourselves, God doesn't classify you this way, but you classify yourselves as just run-of-the-mill, lay Christians. Uh uh I wonder how often you pay attention to what doctrines you're subscribing to, uh, what teachings that you have submitted to. Uh because God is inviting you to know him, and often so that that involves this exploration, this reception of an invitation. So, how do we respond to God's invitation today? Let's look at the Apostles' Creed together. Probably emerged in Rome as an early statement of faith used at baptism of new converts in the late second or early third century. The precise wording that we just recited, that we'll recite together later, probably dates back to the 8th century. It's not used in the Eastern churches. Uh, it's part of a wider realm of what are called ecumenical creeds. Ecumenical is just a fancy word for what can Christians who are often divided and uh often far apart from one another, what can we agree upon? How can we come together across divides? And the Eastern churches tend to recite the Nicene Creed, which is a kind of an expansion of the Apostles' Creed. New Testament scholar, church historian Michael Byrd says this. He says the creed is not simply a checklist of things I'm supposed to believe, but a synopsis of the entire sweep of redemptive history that narrates a sequence, including God, creation, redemption, and consummation. These are the basic acts in the divine drama as scripture tells it. By its very structure, the creed compels us to see our faith as part of a bigger picture, as part of God's grand purposes, rather than single out one or two pet topics to be myopically treasured. The first words in the creed are I believe. Again, we talked last week about faith as the thing that we can be most certain of. But usually these are different categories. How can the thing that you are most certain of be a belief that you hold? How can it not be an objective fact? The first Christians who recited these words did so at great cost to themselves, financially, socially, and for some, even at the cost of their very lives. Polycarp was an early church leader, second century. He was in the city of Smyrna, which is in modern-day Turkey. Church history holds that Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle. So John the Apostle sat at the feet of Jesus. Polycarp sat at the feet of John, learning about Jesus and the Jesus way. And so Polycarp is in every way an inheritor of this treasury, this trove, of what it means to follow Jesus. And he was known in his area as somebody who would not go along with the general sway of the culture. In many parts of the Roman Empire, specifically the eastern reaches of which Turkey was a part of, it was common for people to have some worship or veneration of the emperor. Christians would proclaim that Jesus is Lord. And the Roman culture would proclaim that, no, Caesar is Lord. And so often there was this contest: who is the authority? Who is in charge of the world? And the Roman authorities, because their truth was fickle and had to be fought for through things like persecution, would often try to demand that the Christians would acquiesce to their version of the story of the world. And under great torture and duress would imply that these Christians renounce their faith in Jesus as Lord and say, no, Caesar is Lord. And Polycarp was put in this position. Polycarp, at this point, as we're going to pick up in this brief story, is 86 years old. And you can almost just see the poverty of the Roman story and the fact that they have to take this 86-year-old man and say, recant all the things that you believe, and say this one thing, and we'll let you go. And Polycarp's response is the stuff of legend. I want to read just a little bit of it for you here today. This is called the Martyrdom of Polycarp. It kind of does have the feel of legend. You can tell the early church really had a high regard for Polycarp. So it says, on his confessing that he was the proconsul sought to persuade him to deny Christ, saying, Have respect to your old age and other similar things according to their custom. And this is what they're telling him to do. Swear by the fortune of Caesar, repent and say away with the atheists. From the Roman vantage point, the Christians were the atheists, because they did not worship and venerate the local gods, the Roman gods, of which the emperor was a part of a wider pantheon. And so they're saying to Polycarp, yes, say away with the atheists to all the Christians. And Polycarp looks around and he says, I will say that, actually. And he says, Away with the atheist. Now, uh, my dear friend Alan is here, and we both had a church history professor in undergrad, and this was his like halftime speech moment. He loved this moment so much when Polycarp turns the whole thing they're saying on his head and he says, away with the atheist, and he would get his voice would get real gravelly, and he would summon up all the drama in his soul in this church history class in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he would just be like, This is the treasury, the trove that you have inherited. And I can still hear his voice right now in my head. But Polycarp says, No, I'm not going to deny Jesus. I'm not going to go along with what you're saying. Polycarp gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium and waving his hand towards them while with groans he looked up to heaven and said, Away with the atheists. Then the proconsul, who was the Roman leader, urging him and saying, Swear and I will set you at liberty. Reproach Christ. Polycarp declared, declared, Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never did me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my king and my savior? You see, when we talk about belief, we're not just talking about a list of facts or the right set of doctrines. We're talking about trust in a person. And here we see the 86-year-old polycarp, the end of his life, under all pressure of life and liberty, under all of it, saying, No, I will not reject my king who has loved me all the days of my life. When we say I believe, we're not just saying, oh, I subscribe to this certain list of doctrines. We're saying I, heart, soul, mind, and strength. Say that this is the true story of the world. And what is it, or who is it that we believe in? The creed then begins to extrapolate, what are these beliefs? Well, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. The personal takes precedent in a faith with God. The religion is in fact a relationship. And T. Wright says it this way: we are renewed as this people, the people who live within this great story, the people who are identified precisely as the people of this story, rather than as people of one of the many other stories that clamor for attention all around. I believe is to speak from the heart, to reveal who one is by confessing one's essential belief, the faith that makes life worth living. It's a relationship to both the truth and the author of the truth. The first words of the creed invite us to focus on the Father. The creed is given to us in a Trinitarian structure. And Trinity is both incredibly mysterious and complex and incredibly simple. God is Father. God is Son, God is Spirit, and the three are one. And any analogies beyond that to explain it, I don't have for you. Because they eventually devolve into some sort of heresy. And so I will say with all comfort: God is God the Father, God, God the Son, God, God the Spirit, and all three are three in one. It's a mystery, it's complex without being complicated. The first lines of the creed focus on God the Father Almighty. There's this beautiful juxtaposition put forth here by the Creed. We get glimpses of the sort of father that this creator God is. You see, usually when we focus on God as creator, we focus on his power. He is so powerful, so sovereign, that he has at his whim the ability to call forth life. And he does that. But the creed sets this power alongside his fatherly disposition towards us. The psalmist captures what kind of father is God? Well, Psalm 68, sing to God, sing in praise of his name. Extol him who rides on the clouds, rejoice before him, his name is the Lord. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God and his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. He leads out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. I believe in God the Father. It was not common for the Jewish people of Jesus' day to address God as Father. Now it didn't mean that they didn't have a category for God as Father. For them, God was this kind of father, Psalm 68, Father, a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows. He also was the father of the nation of Israel. He was the one who brought them forth in places like Isaiah. But Jesus, throughout his life, doesn't just have this theological category for God as Father, he addresses God as his father. And in doing so, the disciples see the way that Jesus prays. And they become quite interested. Jesus' prayer life piques their interest. And they say in Luke 11, hey, John the Baptist taught his disciples how to pray. Will you teach us how to pray? And Jesus, in praying to his father and teaching his disciples how to pray, says, When you pray, pray like this. Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins. We also forgive everyone who sins against us and lead us not into temptation.

unknown 16:41

N.

God The Father: Power And Tenderness

Jesus The Son: Identity And Authority

Christ’s Person: Hebrews And John

The Life Of Jesus In The Creed

Cross, Descent, And Holy Saturday

Resurrection And Ascension Imagery

SPEAKER_00 16:42

T. Wright talks elsewhere about the Lord's Prayer. He says, The Lord's Prayer is the invitation to Jesus' very special relatedness to God. And it's so amazing that when Jesus invites us to pray as he prays, he gives us this phrase, our Father. That just as Jesus prays to the Father as his own father, we are invited into that very special relationship. But we see throughout Jesus' life that often this is the grounds of conflict with the religious leaders of his day. We're going to look in John chapter 10. Beginning in verse 25, Jesus answered, he's having a bit of a theological dispute with some religious opponents. And John is shorthand for these religious opponents as the Jews. And that can be off-putting for us. John is describing a certain subset of religious leaders that were in conflict with Jesus. He's not describing a whole people group here, and that's important for us to remember often. Jesus answered in verse 25. The works I do in my Father's name testify about me. But you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my father's hand. I and the Father are one. Look at the response here in verse 31. Again, his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him. Harsh response, right? But Jesus said to them, I have shown you many good works from the Father, for which of these do you stone me? We are not stoning you for any good work, they replied, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I have said you are gods? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be set aside, what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy? Because I said I am God's Son? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. So we see as we boil down this conflict, we see that it is a conflict about the title that Jesus claims for himself. He's saying, I am God's only son. And he is my father. And it's in that language that Jesus applies to his relationship with the Father that sparks this conflict, to which the religious opponents say, You are guilty of blasphemy. You are claiming to be on equal footing with God, the maker of heaven and earth. And it's this interaction with Jesus that brings us to the next section of the creed, the section focusing on the second person of the Trinity, the Son. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. Our belief is not just in a creator God, a powerful God, or even a loving God in the way that we often conceive of love, but in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, who is the only Son of the eternal Father, our Lord. In this section of the creed, we have the nature and work of Christ in micro, and it opens up to a whole macro world of beauty and wonder. Jesus is the eternal Son and Lord. He is fully God. Look at what Hebrews 1 says of Jesus. In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets, and at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he also made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word, after he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. The writer of Hebrews is saying that through the Son everything came into being. That God is the creator of heaven and earth through the word that brought the world to life. And again, when we talk about God's creative power so often, we talk about that. We talk about might, about power, about strength. But there's another question that lingers in all that power and all that strength. God could do whatever he wants. One of the basic questions of philosophy is why is there something when there could be nothing? Now, how many of you rolled your eyes at that question? It's like, oh my gosh. Pastors in coffee shops, they're nonsense. Right? But it's actually a good question. Why does anything exist when there could be nothing? Or, take it to the more personal level, why do you exist? And the question is twofold. The answer is because God is powerful enough to draw you forward. But the second part of the answer is even better. Because God wanted you here. You exist because you were joyfully narrated into being by a God who wove you in your mother's womb, who crafted you in the intricacy of your being, who gave you your personality with its flaws, yes? And delights in them. And the Son, as the exact representation of God's being, is centering all of it on what Jesus has done and what that says about who we are. This word that brought the world forth has become flesh and moved into the neighborhood. John 1, verse 14. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory. The glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and full of truth. I want to look at this section on the Son just as a way of perusing these little moments, these snapshots of Jesus' life. The Creed captures Jesus' work in very, very short economic phrases. Now, I I stand with John at the end of his gospel. If all the things that Jesus did were to be written in books, the world could not contain the books themselves. It's an amazing feat that the creed captures something of the hold of what Jesus has done. So let's look at these phrases, and just to give you a little aid, I've provided some artwork as we kind of focus on these different moments in Jesus' life. First, conceived by the Holy Spirit. This is the annunciation by the African-American painter Henry Osuwa Tanner. It's a beautiful picture. The annunciation in the church calendar is traditionally celebrated on March 25th, which is nine months before December 25th, which is Christmas. So the Annunciation is the announcement of the good news of the birth of Jesus. And if you look at Mary's response in Luke chapter 1, Mary is no passive vessel of what God is up to. This is a fierce, faithful follower and lover of God, who is a theologian. Look at her song, My Soul Will Magnify the Lord. He has sent the rich away empty, he's filled the poor with good things. I mean, this is this is fiery theology that she's got at her disposal. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. And there's so much theological streams that converge in this place. But that Jesus really came through the birth canal of a young woman in the first century. That is an astounding claim. Fully man, fully God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. We see the wonder that we often experience at Advent and at Christmas time. And born of the Virgin Mary, we'll go to the next one. This is by Botticelli. This is often called the mystical birth of Christ. And again, my uh and we're not quite in high definition here, not the 4K situation, but we've got a lot going on here. We've got angels up there, they've got the harvest in their hands, they've got olive branches signifying peace. My favorite part of this painting is classic to a newly born baby. So Mary is up attending the baby, and Joseph is just sleeping. So we've got some real life happening here. Newborn dad, kind of useless. Uh not really there. We've got angels attending to the manger scene here. Very beautiful stuff. Alright, let's go to the next one. Again, we're fast forwarding quickly through Jesus' life. This is Velasquez, Christ crucified. It's so there's so much restraint here, right? So powerful. And yet so restrained, especially when we think about the horror of the crucifixion. Jesus died. And he died because he loves you. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. The world would not perish, it would have light. Crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered. Giving historical reference. We go on in a moment that's often unremarked upon in our evangelical tradition, Holy Saturday. Next we have an Eastern Orthodox icon. There's a lot going on here as the Eastern Orthodox are so capable of capturing a lot in really powerful images. Christ's robe is flowing upward, which symbolizes his radical descent into Hades to save those who have died. The golden bars by his feet are the gates of Hades, which he has broken apart, conquering death. There are keys that are floating. Says in Revelation that he has the keys to Hades and death. There's a skeletal figure at the bottom there that you can kind of see who's Satan or death itself. The two figures that Christ has grasped in his hand are symbolically Adam and Eve. Not only does Christ save humanity, he recapitulates humanity, he takes on our nature, restoring our nature. That which was lost in the fall, that which was lost in the curse is now restored by the redemptive work of Christ Jesus. Again, there's so much here we could go into. We could the whole sermon on this icon. Holy Saturday. What was Jesus up to? On Saturday. Peter remarks that he was preaching to the spirits who were in chained in the abyss. I don't know what that means, but conquering. The Eastern Orthodox had this phrase, the harrowing of hell. And he was breaking apart the stronghold of death. And then on Sunday, he rose again. This is by Anabal Karachi, 16th century. And again, this is a great depiction from the gospel stories. This is a uh this is a uh Renaissance Italian tomb, not a first century garden tomb. But we have this raised tomb and the soldiers are sleeping on it as the world is being remade under his not watchful eyes. We see that some soldiers are kind of aware. We've got a little bit of depiction of Matthew's account where there's just dead bodies getting out of the graves, and nobody knows why that's happening. He ascended into heaven. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. We have a Syriac icon from the 6th century. Next one. Yeah, so this is found in Syria. We have Mary, the mother of Jesus, pictured prominently, and Jesus ascending to his father to sit at the right hand. We have the disciples looking. If you're familiar with the biblical story, this is the angel says, Men of Jerusalem, why? Why are you staring off into heaven? He will come back just as he went away. Oh, let's put that next one up. Let's Rembrandt, just because Rembrandt's the man. That's beautiful, right? And you can't see the disciples here. They're they're here. And I love the end of Luke's gospel as Luke transitions from Luke to Luke, which which becomes the second chapter of Luke, the book of Acts. At the end of Luke's gospel, as Jesus ascends to heaven, the last posture that they see from Jesus is that he's extending his hands towards them, blessing them. I mean, think about the power of that image. Their last vision of the the the risen Christ is blessing them. How would that hold them and sustain them through all the mission that awaited them? Jesus is ascended, seated at the right hand of God the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. Let's see what that last one. We've got the uh Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo, the Last Judgment. We have Jesus at the center. And Michelangelo, genius that he is, there's there's a lot of things going on here. How many of you have seen this up close? Good for you. Someday I will get there too. But there is this borderless kind of sense of this. Is trying to capture that heaven and earth they have no beginning and no end. And so the vantage point from which you look at it, too, almost immerses you in the depiction. You're almost known like you will be a part of this at some level. And I love the scale of it, too. I mean, this is about heaven and hell. This is about judgment. But the judgment is so, from a ratio standpoint, so small compared to the expression of heaven. Michelangelo had a critic that was critical of his work he put in hell, which is his next level. Just like, you know, doesn't get you free all the time here. We see the work of Jesus, the drama of Jesus, the Son of God, his person. And his work is the true story of the entire world. He is the word through whom the world came into being. And he has taken on our nature to restore all that was lost and broken. And through his work, he has broken the curse, paid the ransom, redeemed creation from futility, said yes to life eternal, and no to sin and death and all that would threaten us. He has conquered death, I believe. 1 Timothy 2 says, This is good and pleases our Savior, God, our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of Him. This is God's desire. That all people would know themselves in light of this story. That God didn't just love the world so much that he gave his only son, but he loved you. That just as he joyfully narrated you into being, now he joyfully invites you to receive the work of his son, the salvation of your souls. There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed at the proper time. You see that that's a narrowing of the truth, right? It all focuses on Jesus. But in that narrowing, there's an expansive invitation to the abundance of who Jesus is. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Have you ever encountered somebody that's very comfortable praying to the universe? Like, you know, universe, send me good things, universe, good vibes. And I always would gently, with all respect, try to take that invitation to be like, do you know that the universe is not an impersonal force? That you are subjected to the whims of chance and fortune, that there is a God who ordered the universe, who sustains it, who maintains it, who's watching you right now, who also loves you? That you don't have to pray to some unknown entity and hope for the best? You have a God who's numbered every hair on your head. He watches over every moment of your life. He delights in you, he loves you. Do you know that? And they're usually like, settle down, dude. I believe in the Holy Spirit. The manifestation of the reign of God here among us right now. The Spirit has been working and operating the whole time we've been together. Because the Spirit dwells in each one of us who've said yes to Jesus, building himself a palace that he will dwell in forever, but he also dwells among us. And he's been drawing us. When we read those words of scriptures and you have that sense of like, wow, that's true. That's beautiful. He's there. When you're distracted and doing other things, that's fine. Spirit's there. He's drawing you. Distraction's okay, boredom's okay. The Spirit of God has been weaving something here among us as we've been gathered in power. I believe in the Holy Spirit. The manifestation of God's presence here. Jesus is no less present than he was when he was extending his hands, blessing the disciples in their last vision of him. He's present like that right now. His hand still extended. Extended for embrace, extended for blessing. That's what he's here to do. I believe in the Holy Spirit, which unites us as one people in the light of this one truth. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Previous church I worked at, I had heard that this one woman was quite upset with me, and I couldn't quite get to the bottom of why she was mad at me. And finally she sent me an email and it said decisively, I do not believe in the Catholic Church. And I was like, Oh, okay. We had been reciting the creeds as a part of our music portion of the worship, which I was responsible for. And in her mind, Catholic Church meant the Catholic Church of her upbringing, of again, which there are many faithful Catholic people. We know that. We quote from Catholics all the time. But for her, in that specific experience, it was not a place that brought her to life and fullness in Jesus. And she was still very upset about it. And she thought that I was saying, we believe in the Catholic Church, as in the parish of St. James or St. Paul down the street. And I was like, well, kind of, but that's not exactly what we're saying. The word Catholic here, which will be no surprise to many of you in here, is about the universality of God's church, the borderlessness of God's church. That God's church is not defined by one specific people at one specific time and place. It is about what God has been up to across the world. And I believe in the Catholic Church as it calls us to be enmeshed in the body of Christ, to be aware of what plagues our brothers and sisters around the world. Do you know? But the majority of Christians who have been martyred over the last several years have been martyred in Nigeria. I've been praying for those people as I've been made more aware of this. I mean, I just didn't know. And this has been going on. I love what Saul encounters when he encounters the risen Christ. Saul was a persecutor of the church in Acts chapter 9. And Saul is going about his business of trying to depress and oppress the body of Christ. And he encounters the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. And the risen Jesus approaches Saul, who would then become Paul, and doesn't say to Saul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my church? Why are you persecuting my people? He doesn't say any of that. He says, Why are you persecuting me? You see, the holy Catholic Church, the the the universal Catholic Church is not some vague reality. It is the very body of Jesus. We see this in 1 Corinthians also. We are the body of Christ, not only us, but us together with the entire expression of this creed throughout the entire world. And it is a borderless kingdom of which we are a part. Jesus as our Lord, united by the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. I believe in the communion of saints. Our life together is a sign and a wonder. Now, we tell you this often because it's important that you be reminded. But the New Testament's title and designation for you who find yourself in Christ and said yes to him. Do you know what it is? You're not just a nice person. You're not just, oh, you're kind of on your way to being holy. The New Testament spares no expense. You are a saint right here and right now. And I know we don't often wake up feeling like a saint ourselves. We often are aware of so many of the ways that we are not sainted. But that is what the New Testament calls you as his people. The communion of saints is about our life together. In communion with God. All the joy, the sign, and the wonder. Think about the miracle that is the fact that we are all in the room together right now. Different ages, different tax brackets, different ethnicities, different political affiliations. Ecclesia, I guarantee you, there are only a few gatherings like this throughout the week in Princeton where this is true. And I would almost guarantee you that they're all churches. But the miracle of the body of Christ, that we come together under the name of Jesus, put down our preferences, put down our cultural locations, not in a way that diminishes them, but transfigures them. And this is what we're called to is to take our cultural stories, to take our experiences, and to see them subjected to the body of Christ and to share them as a gift with one another. The communion of saints. This is a great, great gift. And it also turns out that it is a very tender and sacred thing to live as the communion of saints. It's actually really hard to be the body of Christ. Do you know how I know that? Because I've read the New Testament. The fact that we have a New Testament at all is a testament to the fact that it's really hard for people with different cultural assumptions and different cultural preferences to live together. We need the Spirit of God. We need the constant correction of God. We need to listen to one another. When our brothers and sisters are saying, hey, I experienced this thing that happened in our world in this way, our posture is not immediately to get defensive or to diminish what they're saying. It's to listen. We see this in Acts 6. The disciples are conversant in listening to one another, not always at the ready, but eventually they get there. The communion of saints is a sacred thing. Irenaeus wrote that even many illiterate barbarians are among those who are believing in one God, the Creator. Now the Romans had this hierarchy of people. And Irenaeus was saying that as a testimony, the fact that in our gatherings there are people from different social classes, people that the Romans would deign and would label as people less than are being invited and honored in our fellowships. Paul says it this way in Galatians 3: there's no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, but all are one in Christ Jesus. I believe in the forgiveness of sins. You don't have to be anxious or speculate about forgiveness. Jesus' life, his death, his resurrection, ascension, pouring out of his Spirit testify to the certainty that right now you are forgiven. What do you have to do to receive God's forgiveness? What do you have to do to unburden yourself of the shame that perhaps you lugged in here? What do you have to do? What sort of penance do you have to pay? It's already been paid for. Whatever imagery you want to apply, ransom, has already been paid. Your debt has already been paid. The punishment has already been taken. Jesus has taken all of that upon his shoulders to declare to you once and for all that there is nothing that will ever separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, because he has conquered it all. And you can rest assured in that right here and right now. Hebrews 9 says it this way the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they're outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from the acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God. For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. I'm going to invite the first or the worship team forward as we talk through the last two lines. The resurrection of the body. I believe in the resurrection of the body. Just as Jesus was incarnated in bodily form, so he was raised in bodily form. And Ecclesia, that's good news because God will not throw away the world in order to remake it. But God is the great renovator, the artist who takes what is and imprints himself upon it in such a way that it is transfigured and redeemed. God is not just about bringing us to heaven, he's creating a new heavens and a new earth. And he writes it this way: the point of the resurrection is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die. What you do with your body in the present matters. Because God has a great future in store for it. What you do in the present by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself, will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it all behind. They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom. Believe in the resurrection of the body, that just as Jesus invited the disciples to touch his hands and his feet, God is inviting us into a life that is eternal and is solid by the love and the redemption of God, the last line of the creed and the life everlasting. Revelation 2 says, Whoever has here ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. The future that is in store for us. And so often we have to draw ourselves into that future to have courage, to have perseverance, to have perspective in the present. The life everlasting. And we can extrapolate that the life that we live on this earth, however many years we are given by the grace of God, is such a fractional portion of the life that we will live in the power of God's love forevermore. And I just want to read the scriptures over you as a way of inviting you to see the beauty and the wonder of this life. Revelation 21, the end of the story that tells us where the story has been going all along. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, See, I am making all things new. Isaiah 25 says it this way On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of H wine, the best of meats, and the finest of wines. That sound okay? On this mountain, he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations. He will swallow up death forever. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces. He will remove his people's disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. In that day they will say, Surely this is our God. We trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord. We trusted in him. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. Ecclesia, this is the Lord. This is what he has done. This is the invitation we have been given to trust in him and to receive the beauty of his salvation.