May 10th, 2026

Pastor Michael Crocker

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning, everybody. I want to take a second to look into the lens. Say good morning online. My name is Pastor Michael. We're excited to have you with us on this Sunday morning, wherever you're dialed in from. We hope it's a glorious day for you, like it is here. Those of you in church, hello, church! Some of you didn't say hello, and that hurts my feelings. Um, it is ex I'm excited to see you today. Today is a couple of things. One, we have our communities under the bridge. Uh donations going on. I see some people brought some stuff back there. This uh communities under the bridge is a great ministry. They do a lot of work downtown San Antonio. We've been connected to them for many, many years, and uh this summer we're collecting clothes, shorts, pants, socks, things of that nature. So if you find yourself in a store and you're like, hey, you know, I should pick up a couple extra things of these, that would be great. All summer long we'll be doing that and delivering to those folks down there. And then also, I don't know if you've been uh to the east side of our campus lately, but you should go drive by, do a drive-by and see what's going on. I was in the balcony this week. That's right, we have stairs up, somebody. Yeah, and it was after hours, and no Mitchell construction people were here, and they can't stop me when they're not here. Um, and I walked up the stairs very gingerly and stood up there, and it was awesome. Um, it is so cool to see it coming together and taking shape and um just so exciting to see where we will be Mother's Day next year uh celebrating over there. Um it's gonna be great and wonderful. So just go look at it, it just gets you excited. Uh go drive down Robinhood and look at the front of it. Um you can see it coming together. It's really cool and really fun. Um but today is Mother's Day, and as we all know that, which is why some of you um some of you are here and why some of you look better than you normally do. Um because it's Mother's Day, and that's what happens on Mother's Day. And um at the at the first service, we didn't have the screens, they weren't working, so we couldn't get Miss Natalie. So I did the children's time, and it was legendary. It was I don't need props, you know, um, and I'm not smart enough to do props, but it was uh I I did it and um it and I kind of want to talk about it right now because Mother's Day, I don't know, have has anyone received an email that says our Mother's Day emails will be coming out soon? If you want to opt out from receiving that, click here. Right? Like I saw some of the okay, some of you know what I'm talking about. Like you, hey, if you don't want to see the Mother's Day email, let us know. Because and I thought about, I was like, gosh, we live in way too sensitive of a world. Like, suck it up, man. It's Mother's Day. Like, we get it. Some people have good moms, some people have bad moms. Like, but every single one of us, and I asked the kids who came up front at 9:30, it was like, okay, how many of you have a mom? And they all raise their hand except one little girl. She's like, ah, and her sister's like, raise your hand. Like, we have a mom. She's right there. Um, and it was hysterical. But you know, it we all have moms. Every single one of us has had a mom. Now, some of us are thankful for that, and others are like, not so much. Some of us maybe knew our mother really well, and some of us maybe never knew our mother. There's all different sorts of experiences. Some of us are coming into this Mother's Day without a mother. Um, some of us are still remembering our Mother's Day. I called mine in between services, and she told me she watched the first service and said it was amazing. Because that's what mothers do. But many of us on this day, because you know, we hand out to every woman that comes in, we hand out stuff, and you're like, well, oh, I'm not a mother, hand it back. You might be in ways that you don't understand because there are some folks who are mothers because they have given birth naturally, but there's some women who are mothers because they pour into someone else. Like I have a mom, Linda Ann Collins Crocker, who is better than your mom. But I also have a lot of other mothers who have poured into me in my 52 years. And there's something to be said for those women of God who step into that role as God calls them daughter and step into that role of motherhood for someone else, even for those that they didn't naturally give birth to, who pour out nurturing and caring and wisdom and comfort. And I'm thankful for all of those women in my life. Many of you I know have those thoughts and feelings as well. And one of the things I told the kids at the first service is I said, Jesus loved his mom a lot. And I know that because one of the very last things he said before he died, he's on the cross and he's suffering unimaginable pain. And he looks down at John, the youngest of the disciples, and Mary, who are standing together. And he says, Woman, I love that he called her a woman. This is your son. Son, this is your mother. It was important for him to know that Mary would be taken care of. Because he loved her. Because she played a vital role in his life up to that point. You don't see all of it in the stories, but you see through Mary's Magnificat, you see through the moment in the temple, that she knew who he was. And you know that she reminded him of that every day. Moms are important. And we love you for answering that call, for raising your own kids, for raising somebody else's, for pouring in to anyone that God has put into your presence. And so I'm just gonna ask you. I usually call this Hug a Mother Sunday. And everybody go hug a mother, but we're not gonna do that this Sunday. I'm just gonna ask all you mothers out there, if you're a mother of some sort because you naturally gave birth or because you poured into somebody, would you please stand? Real quick. We're gonna point you out. Look at you. Stay standing, stay standing. Hold on. We're gonna say a blessing over you. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for these women who have answered the call, for these women online who are watching. For those who have you know their name, and they call you father, you call them daughter, and they've stepped into the role of a mother, raising their own kids, raising somebody else's, pouring out your comfort, your love, and your care on your children. We ask your blessing upon them. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, sit down. That's enough, mothers. Y'all got one day, that's it. We moved on. Father's Day's neck. Come on, somebody. Um we grilling. Um, okay, today we start a new series called The Creed. And if you if you've been in our little gym experiment, we started this off by talking about the sword and the shovel, right? That as a believer in Jesus Christ, we're all called to carry the shovel. We're all called to create, to join God in the creation of the kingdom of heaven. That we've been given these talents, these abilities, we've been called to live here in this community, this day and age. So what do we do with that? And the other side of that is we're all called to carry the sword. We're called to carry the sword of defense, to defend our faith, to have the knowledge strong enough so that when something is said, they're like, oh. We know how to defend the faith. And so, if whether you know it or not, I've been kind of preparing series that are either shovel-oriented or sword oriented. Last week we finished a series that was more sword oriented because it was talking about the the Church of Thessalonica, the letters to them, and it was kind of deep. There was some heavy stuff. JG, I gave him, I was like, when I asked him to preach, I was like, oh, by the way, here's the topic. I was like, he's like, what? Um, end times. Yay! Uh and so there's you know, there's the sword side of things. That was one, but I I want to get a little different. Because when I was preparing these sermon series, I did this months and months and months ago. Like, I can't, like, it's been a long time ago that I did this, almost coming up on a year that I've planned this stuff out. And and I didn't realize that today would be Mother's Day when I was like, we're gonna do this series called the Creed. I was super excited about it. And then when I started preparing for it this week, I was like, well, this is well, this is weird. Because Mother's Day, and because you know what mothers want to talk about on Mother's Day? Conspiracy theories. I know you do. And some of you like you want to talk about it more than others, right? Some of you in this room, I've been told by some people wearing yellow in this room, that it's not a theory if it's true. Right? Yeah, it's not a theory if it's true. Um, and so stop saying that it's a theory, Michael, Pastor Michael, right? Conspiracy theories. I know moms, you know, some of you are like rolling your eyes, especially a mother that I know very well, um, is like, please move on. Um but I want to get to creeds. And there's there is a conspiracy theory around how wait, how many of you grew up in a high church type church? Like a mainline Protestant denomination, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, and you did the you did the creeds, right? How many recovering Catholics in here who know the creeds, right? Yeah, so so these things, remember, I grew up in a high church, episcopal church. Smells and bells. You know, it was like the priest would be walking down the aisle and they'd swing in the incense, you know, and then the deacon would be behind them with a bell, d-ding, d-ding. On really high holy days, they bring out the water. Y'all remember that? The little with a sprinkling. Yeah, you got exactly like sprinkle the water and stuff like that. My sister would always like, no, like that. She'd probably melt. Um it and so the high church, and so the one of those things, and why I get super comfortable with liturgy is because it was ingrained in me from the beginning. Because a high liturgical church, where you would do, um, you would go through the Psalter, right? Anybody remember the Psalter? Responsive readings, you would do all these different things, and you knock out the creeds. You would throw it, there'd be a creed all the time. Sure, the Lord's Prayer, we would throw that in there, but that's just that's rookie stuff, right? We're gonna go the creeds, right? There's the Nicene Creed. How many are Nicene Creed fans? I think that's your favorite. How many Apostles Creed fans? How many Apollo Creed fans? Thank you. I landed that way better at this service than I did the first service, yeah. Tripped over it. Um, yeah. So there are these creeds, and these creeds, when we get into it, there are these statements of belief, and we just did this song that are foundational and core to who we are and what we call ourselves. It's the statement, this is what we believe. This is what makes us the son or daughter of the Most High God that we are. But there's a conspiracy theory around one of them, the Nicene Creed. In fact, it came out in the early 2000s by a book, by a guy by the name of Dan Brown. He wrote this book called The Da Vinci Code. 930 knew it, y'all didn't. Apparently, y'all they're more literary than you are. Um, the Da Vinci Code. Remember that anybody remember the Da Vinci Code? How about this? Tom Hanks was in the movie, so it must be real.

unknown 10:58

Right?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

And so the Da Vinci Code. And the Da Vinci Code was actually, right, it was this conspiracy theory that the Nicene Council, the first council of Nicaea, was to make Jesus divine. Because he wasn't. See, that that was that was the whole deal. That was the premise behind Dan Brown, right? Because it what did he say? That Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, and there is a lineage of the family of Jesus that lives in France. That's how you should know this is a lie. Because Jesus would never have his family live in France. Like, there's no way. They wouldn't be French. I'm sorry. Right? It's a but there's this thing, and this whole thing, like the family lineage goes through that. But it all started from this council of Nicaea that Emperor Constantine called in the year 325. Now, true. There was a council at Nicaea in the year 325, and Emperor Constantine called it. Now, Emperor Constantine was the Roman Emperor of the day, so he essentially was the ruler of the world at that time, and he had recently come into the faith. His wife was a believer in Jesus, and she works on him, and he finally accepts Jesus as his savior. Also, and one of the things that he does is he makes Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. But there's power and politics at play. And he needed, according to Dan Brown, to solidify this as the only way. And so he called all the bishops together. He gathered them from far and wide, and they met in this little town called Nicaea. And Nicaea is on, um, today it's called Lake Isnak in Turkey. And actually, if you look, there's a church where this council happened that today is underwater because of a huge earthquake that shifted, it was an earthquake right there. Thank you, Jesus. That shifted the waters of the lake and swallowed up this place where this council of Nicaea happened. But the belief was that that the Emperor Constantine needed this power to make the religion what everybody followed. And so he chose a really dynamic speaker of the day. His name was Arius. And Arius was a he was a speaker, he was a preacher, he was one of the bishops who had a huge following. Like he was a dynamic person. In fact, there was a whole movement that came from him called Arianism. And his premise was, not his premise, his whole belief was that Jesus was an incredibly powerful prophet and wonderful teacher, but he was just a man. And so they needed to gather the bishops together and say, no, no, no, he's divine. So we all must follow him. And so the council of Nicaea met. And they created. A few things came out of it. Many different decisions were made about ordination, clerical rites, and responsibilities. The day we celebrate Easter was decided at the Council of Nicaea because the Western Church and Eastern Church were arguing about it, and so the day we celebrate today was decided at 325 during the Council of Nicaea. But also came the Nicene Creed. And you'll have uh every other seat has one. If you pick it up, let's read it together. We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is 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. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. Now, how many of you who are high church people are like, that's wrong?

unknown 16:04

Right?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

It's a little different. Yeah, it's a little different, it's a little different from my high church version, which is why I had to read it as opposed to just going from memory, because I would have been different than you. But this is what came. This is the big movement that came out of the first council of Nicaea. According to Dan Brown, it's so that we could prove the divinity of Jesus and make people believe that it was the divinity of Jesus. But there's more. Right? We're gonna get into that a little bit more next week. But what I want to ask now is why do we even care what a group of bishops in the year 325 said or did? What gave them the power and the authority and their right to actually create something like this that so many years later people are still reading and believing? That's a foundational document for the church. So, what's their authority? Was it just because the leader of the world called them all together? Or is there precedence for this? This isn't the first council of the church. The very first council that the church had was 300 years earlier than the first church. It's called the Council of Jerusalem. And you want to look at that because in that meeting you have the foundation of the formation, because I call it the first council of Nicaea because there were more. And it wasn't the only council that was formational on the history of the church. There were more later, too. What gives them the right and the authority? Precedent. And so we have to go back and look at the first one and what was going down at the first church council, the council of Jerusalem. So if you know the story, Jesus comes, he lives, he takes the cross, they bury him, he doesn't stay dead, he walks out and he gives the church its marching orders. Your turn. Go into the world and carry my message of hope and peace and love with you. Luke picks up the story in his book of Acts as he's telling the story of the church. And he gives them these orders go to Samaria, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Jesus, again, those are his marching orders. Go into the world and take the kingdom of God with you. And so the church did that. The church began to speak about Jesus to anyone and everyone who would listen. Peter, James, John, all the disciples were going out talking about Jesus, and people were coming into the church. People were getting saved because they were accepting the grace of Jesus Christ. And then you have this guy, Saul. And Saul's walking on a road to Damascus to remember this, and he's the one who's persecuting Christians the most because they're going against the grain. And he has this encounter with Jesus, and Jesus is like, hey, my brother, why so angry? And he reaches Saul, who changes his name to Paul, and he sends him, because he's so uniquely gifted out to other areas that the disciples really couldn't go. They didn't speak the language, they didn't have the intellect, they didn't have the citizenry that Paul did. And so Paul was uniquely sent to reach places that no one else could. And he goes on these missionary journeys. We've talked about it. These missionary journeys when he would go out or he would reach people in the name of Jesus. He would start a church, he would raise up leaders, and then he would go to the next village and do the same. All of his letters are writing back to those churches that he created, or churches that were created by people he had trained to check in on them, to encourage them, to support them. Paul goes with this guy Barnabas at one point. It's his buddy in preaching, and they go out into an area of Turkey, modern-day Turkey, Asia. And it's their first missionary journey. They go to Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derby. They go to all these different places and they're planning these churches. And the thing that happens is unique because it's Paul, they preach in the synagogues like they always do. Jesus was a Jew. He's the fulfillment of the promise that they've been waiting for for generation upon generation. He's the Messiah. And so he gathers these Jews together and he shares with them the gospel message that Jesus is indeed the one we've been waiting on. And this is what happens when you believe. But an interesting thing was other people heard. Because Paul wasn't just speaking to the Jews, he was talking to anyone who would listen. And he would say, This message isn't just for them, it's for you too. Jesus didn't just come for the Jew, he came for the Gentile. He came for everyone who would call on the name of Jesus, profess with their mouth, believe in their heart, they would be saved. This is good news. And it worked. People believed. The church grew by leaps and bounds, but it was really irritating some people. Specifically the Jews. In fact, when Paul and Barnabas would move on from wherever they were, there was a group of Jews who were very Pharisetical. They were part of the Pharisees, right? They're about rules and regulations. This is the way you do it. This is the way we've always done it. This is the way we have to continue to do it. They would come in behind Paul and Barnabas and go, all right, you believe in Jesus. Now it's time to be circumcised. Put up or shut up. Yeah, how much do you believe in Jesus, right? I'm 42. Yeah, let's go. Get them oil. In fact, you know what? You can no longer have a cheeseburger. What do you mean I can have a cheeseburger? Well, you can't have meat and dairy together at one time. You can have them separately, but not together. That seems really sad, doesn't it? Like that's a boring kind of rule. There's all these rules and regulations that these Jews who believed in Jesus were coming behind and saying, you must do this. Paul and Barnabas get back to like, what are you doing? We're just having to follow the rules. Like, those are your rules, they're not their rules. You're Jewish. They're not Jewish. Why are you trying to make them Jewish? They're Christian. They're following the way. I mean, that was the question. In order to be a Christian, do you have to become a Jew first? Do you have to dedicate yourself to Yahweh and the hundreds and hundreds of rules and regulations that Jesus came to fulfill? According to one group, absolutely. Because this is the way we've always done it. And if you want to get on board with us, you must continue to do it this way. So Paul and Barnabas were beating their heads against this. And finally they decide well, we got to go to Jerusalem and figure this out. We have to go to the church, to the leaders of the church. We need to gather together everyone, all the disciples, everybody who's still left. James is gone by this point, but James, not James, the brother of John, not the brother of Jesus. We got to get together and figure this out. Hence the Jerusalem Council. And so they meet together and they begin to share what's been going on all throughout this region. And the Pharisees tell their side, and Paul and Barnabas tell their side, remember, by the way, Paul was a Pharisee. So much so that he called himself, I was the Pharisee of Pharisees. If you're looking on the top 10 list of greatest Pharisees who ever lived, brother's number one, according to Paul. And yet he saw things differently. Acts chapter 15 is where Luke tells this story. They meet together, they share all this going on, and then verse 6, the council begins. So the apostles and the elders met together to resolve this issue. At the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and addressed them as follows. Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the good news and believe. Now stop right there. What he's talking about, you may remember, you might not remember, they knew. Previously, in the book of Acts, Peter was called by God to go talk to a Gentile. And he did so in this amazingly cool way that Peter had this vision of this sheet that was lowered down and all these clean animals according to the book of Moses. He's like, okay, those are cool. I can have those. He's like, have those to eat. He's like, good. Then another sheet comes down, and there's unclean animals, and God says, Have a barbecue. And Peter's like, no, I'm not falling for that. Those are unclean animals. I can have that. And God goes, if I made it, it's clean. End of story. And Peter's like, light the fire. And as soon as he wakes up from that vision, some guys come to him and they're like, hey, our boss is Cornelius. He's a Roman soldier. He's a Gentile. He's clearly not Jewish. He wants you to come and see him. Because God had delivered that message to Peter, Peter's like, okay, I get it. And he goes and he delivers the message of hope and peace and love. That is the cross and the empty tomb to this Gentile. And Peter's reminding them of this. Do you remember that time? Remember Cornelis? God told me to go so that others, so that they would believe. God knows people's hearts. And he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus. Why are you putting something on them that we couldn't even handle? You're telling them to follow all of these rules that we fail time and time again. Just because that's the way we've always done it. Tradition over grace. That's what this was all about. It was about following the ways of the things that we've always done over welcoming all, even if they're different than us. Because the grace of Jesus is big enough for it. Thankfully, the church has moved on from that. We never look at tradition in the way that we used to do things and think that's the only way to do things. Right? Some of you are laughing uncomfortably right now. That's one of the biggest areas of frustration and consternation and conflict in churches. Well, we've always done it this way. If an organ was good enough for Jesus to worship with, it's good enough for me too. He didn't have an organ. Y'all realize that. It wasn't invented when Jesus was around. And yet, those words have been spoken. Drums and a worship service? How dare you! We've never done it that way before. How many people have been turned away from the grace of God because a church, a community said, yeah, you don't look like us, you don't operate like us, you don't act like us, and unless you come and be just like us, he wants nothing to do with you. That's tough. And yet, so often is the spoken or unspoken message of the church. It's what they were dealing with at the very first church council. Is do we do it the same way that we've always done it, or do we allow the grace of God to reach people where they are? You know, one of the worst movements of missionary journeys is to go in and teach them our music. Is to go into these countries in South America or Africa, and Wink will tell you this. I mean, they've been all over the world and Asia and everything, and we come in, hey, let me teach you this completely stuffy white Christian song that has nothing to do with your culture, that's not in your language, that doesn't connect with you, because that's the way you worship Jesus. What? Tradition over grace. Meeting people where they are and bringing Jesus with you, as opposed to saying, no, you've got to come here so that you can find him. The first church council really set the precedent for the rest of them. Because what you saw there was the leaders of the church going into a moment of prayer, allowing the Holy Spirit to come forward with the truth. No, no, no. If you want to continue to follow these ways, Peter is essentially saying, go ahead. In fact, we know that Peter continued to go to the temple because it says so. He continued to go worship God in the same way that he had worshiped God his entire life. He just did so through the lens of Jesus as the Messiah. He didn't need some Gentile to go into the temple because that's not where he would meet Jesus. So often we exclude someone from the kingdom of heaven because we expect them to act in a way that's contrary to who God created them to be. Creeds matter for some people and they want to say them. In fact, someone told me I get extra credit points today for doing a creed. Boom. And it brings me comfort sometimes to say them. But it's not the only way that I worship Jesus. In fact, I don't know if y'all know this, I'm not a very formal person. And the way I worship Jesus is because he uniquely created me crazy with squirrels going left and right in my head. I don't think many churches today mentioned Apollo Creed. Telling any. That's just us. That's your gift. Happy Mother's Day. Doesn't change my love of him. You may come and wear a coat and tie, and that may be your thing, and awesome. Love it. Love it. You look sharp today. Gavin Peterson, you're looking awesome. Sorry, you got a little collar right there. Great. You may come in shorts, flip-flops, whatever. Jesus wore sandals. That's cool. Tradition over grace. Can we just get rid of that term? Well, we've always done it this way. No. We hold those things loosely. We hold those things loosely. Tradition matters. It does. It absolutely does. History matters. It absolutely does because it informs us who we are. Holding on to those things from the past that have shaped us and set us forward on our future are important and they matter. But they're not the cross. They're not the death and the resurrection of Jesus. That's the thing that matters. Augustine once called them essentials and non-essentials. There are some things that are essential, and we can't back away from them. We can't let go of them. And those are the things, according to Augustine, that really held us together as a church that began to fracture and splint and go into many different directions. And then there's non-essentials. Those are the things that we fight over most of the time. Baptism, communion, things of that nature. The non-essentials, those aren't the driving force of who we are. They're part of it, they're important 100%. But it's not our definition. We need to hold on to those essentials. Can I tell you that we are not a United Methodist congregation any longer because what we believe to be essential, they no longer do. They call Jesus a way, a truth, and a life. He's a non-essential. For me, he is the way, the truth, and the life. And that's not tradition, that's grace. I pray we are a church who exudes the grace of Jesus, who never blocks someone from our seats or our doors because we say, Well, we've never done it that way. Because God used people in robes standing on high pulpits to change the world one day. He used fishermen who could barely spell their own names to spread the gospel across Asia. And he used some idiot from Southwest Texas State University to hopefully make a difference in a community. And he wants to use you too. We stand on the truth that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. And that his grace is not just for us. Let us pray. Gracious and Heavenly Father, I thank you and praise you for the grace that you offer us through your Son Jesus, through his life, his death, and his resurrection. I thank you, God, that you freely offer it to us. That if we just say yes and profess with our mouth that we are saved, that God, that is it. There is no end to that. We cannot earn this because you gave it to us. Father, I help, I ask us, I ask you, Father, to help us be the church you long for us to be. To one who honors what has come before, but looks forward to what you will do next. May we be a church full of your grace, full of your mercy, full of your hope, so that others might know you died for them. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' holy name. Amen.