Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hello everyone, this is Pastor Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City Orlando.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: At New City, we long to see our father answer the Lord's Prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Advent series, which is around the Nicene Creed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Uh, but we we've also got a sense of, and if you look at the the slide for this series, you'll notice a few things.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One, you've got the church praying.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is the Acts One picture where the Holy Spirit comes down upon the church in that prayer meeting.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But the second thing you'll notice is that the Nicene Creed is in the background behind Advent.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this series, like last year's series, really is progressively building towards this culmination when we come together as one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to pray and praise the Triune God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so to that end, I'm going to invite you to stand as we pray together aloud this prayer of illumination and hear God's word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Join with me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Promise Savior, as we remember your first advent and wait for your return.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Help us to see your glory and love through the reading and preaching of your word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Through Christ our Savior, we pray.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Our scripture reading this morning comes from the gospel according to Matthew chapter twenty eight, starting in verse sixteen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hear now the word of the Lord.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them, and when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is God's word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Thanks be to God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You may be seated.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In August of 2023, I was sitting at a cafe in Jerusalem having a conversation with my Jewish guide about his faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And according to him, Judaism is less about believing the right things and more about doing the right things.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, you're a practicing Jew if you eat kosher, honor Shabbat, and go to synagogue.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so asking him about his faith was actually a distinctly Christian way of framing the question.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not only modern Judaism, but I know some Roman Catholics who will make this distinction will say, I'm a practicing Catholic, right?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And not just like just any Catholic, I'm a practicing Catholic.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I was listening to a podcast with, it was about Greek mythology with the historian Tom Holland, the historian, not Spider-Man.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in the podcast, he was asked this question Did the Greeks believe in their gods like Zeus?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: To which Tom Holland replied, that's a Christian question.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In other words, they would have never asked a question like that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, because for Greeks and Romans, their religion was about rituals and practices, not about doctrines.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And yet, since Acts 5, 14 until today, Christians describe ourselves as believers.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's something about Christianity that causes us to ask the question about what do you believe?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, because the heart of Christianity is faith, not merely a mental ascent, but a confidence in God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the heart of the Christian religion.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And if we have a confidence in God, we got to ask the question, which God?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Who is this God?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What is this God like?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And our fathers in the faith, they fought for clarity to answer that question, and that's what we get in the Nicene Creed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We get a clear answer to the question of what is God like?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Who is this God that we believe in?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so the reason why we're spending the next five weeks in the Nicene Creed is because 2025 is the 1700-year anniversary of Christians in all times and places using these words to give voice to our faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's why we come up here and we say, Christian, what do you believe?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We believe in one God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the way that our creed articulates our faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this advent, we are returning to the heart of Christianity, that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we're exploring this ancient pledge of allegiance together.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But here's something that you you want to know about early Christianity, and Christianity honestly, for the last two millennia, is that our prayer and our beliefs and our living are in a symbiotic relationship with one another.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What you pray, what you believe, and how you live are all interrelated.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's actually hard to tease them out as if they're separate.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so in the early church, there was this phrase that became known as a way to describe how the church developed its beliefs about things.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so I'm gonna ask you to repeat this after me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You ready?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Here we go.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Lexorandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of y'all just came back to church for the first time.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're like, they're casting spells in there.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The dude's been watching Stranger Things all weekend, like it's getting weird.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, that was Latin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's a Latin phrase that has a great ancient pedigree in the Christian church that simply means this is kind of my translation, as we pray, so we believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And as we believe, so we live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And those are our three points for today.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: As we pray, so we believe, as we believe, so we live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so let's look at our scripture and the Nicene Creed together as we get a glimpse into who this God is that we pray to, believe in, and live in light of.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you have a Bible or device, get Matthew 28 out in front of you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at Matthew 28, verse 16, and we're gonna see as we pray.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Says this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And when they saw Jesus, this is key, they worshiped him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But some doubted.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, I want you to imagine for a moment a line, okay?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Just a just a flat line like this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And God, the creator of all things, is above the line, and everything else, all of creation, is below the line.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's really important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This this creator-creature distinction is the fundamental binary of Scripture.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It begins in Genesis 1:1.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In the beginning, God created.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Okay?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God created.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: All right, that's super important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because the people of God have always been very careful not to worship anything created as if it belonged above the line and worthy of worship.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So where does Jesus belong?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Does he belong above the line or below the line?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In the creator or the creation category?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, verse 17 says, when they saw Jesus, they worshiped him.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the disciples are worshiping this man, Jesus of Nazareth, as if he belongs above the line where only God belongs.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is either blasphemy of the worst kind or a revolution in our understanding of who God is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so, Robert Lewis Wilken, an ancient church historian, says it like this as early as the beginning of the second century, outsiders, so this is non-Christians, outsiders had observed that when Christians gathered together, they sang hymns to Christ as to a God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They worshiped Jesus.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And because they worshiped Jesus, they started thinking about what that meant about their view of who God is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, this is what lexeroni lex credendi means.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: As we pray, so we believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so verse 17 says they worshiped Jesus, but some doubted.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, doubt about worshiping Jesus is what led to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In 318, a preacher from Alexandria with a black hood and a pale, sunken face, like a Sith Lord, came walking into the room chanting, There once was a time when the sun was not.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm just kidding, that's not how it worked because that's rarely how false teaching comes.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: False teaching looks more like preachers and sneakers on your Instagram reels.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now and then.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In fact, his motivation for denying that Jesus was God is to preserve a transcendent view of God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That God is to be unoriginated, and so therefore, Jesus couldn't possibly be God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, Arius was attempting to be devout, which is why he could not extend worship that only is deserved by the one true and living God to a man, Jesus of Nazareth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He couldn't go there.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so listen, heresy works like bacteria in our theological immune system.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not until false teaching arises that the church develops doctrinal antibodies to fight it off.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so notice within the first few hundred years, the Christian church is having to work hard to articulate who is God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We got to tackle that one first because it's the heart of our faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this theological immune system fighting off the bacteria of Arianism reached a fever pitch.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So much so that Constantine, the newly converted emperor of Rome, called together a council of over 200 church leaders from all around the Christian world.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And he made it in a city called Nicaea, which is in northwestern Turkey because it was more accessible by the sea.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so leaders, 200 leaders came from all across the Mediterranean world, from the west, places like Italy and France and Spain, and from the north, it was Greece and Turkey, and from the east, it was regions like Syria and Lebanon, Armenia and Iran, and from the south, places like Egypt.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And these bishops, these leaders, these church leaders all came together, over 200 of them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because of their fierce devotion to Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the Council of Nicaea gathered in 325, but in 303, an intense persecution came against the Christian church.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so many of these pastors came to the Council of Nicaea, bearing in their very bodies the marks of persecution.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's this story of Constantine greeting one of the bishops.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And when he walked up to him, this guy was from the Nile Valley in Egypt.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in order to defend the faith that he had in Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire gouged out one of his eyes because he wouldn't deny Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And as the story goes, Constantine walks up and kisses him on the empty eye socket as a way of honoring this man for his fierce devotion to Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So you ask, why did they gather?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why did Christians come from all over the Mediterranean basin to come to this council at Nicaea?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because they had a devotion, a zealous love for Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They suffered for the gospel.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They died for Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And these are the remaining few that lived and endured the Diocletian persecution.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Of course, they're going to gather to defend the faith once for all, handed down to the church.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this is what we see as they come together, they debate and they disagree and they argue and they wrestle with words and they come to hammer out what we call the first edition of the Nicene Creed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And this is the first creed to obtain universal authority in the church, which means all Christians in all times, in all places say, yes, that's what we believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let me just say that the inverse of that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you do not say yes to the Nicene Creed, you are many things, but Christian is not one of them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That means that anybody who professes the Nicene Creed is a friend of mine, it's a friend of yours.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We have a heart cry that this is the true and living God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so as we pray, so we believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let's look together at what we believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is the Lex Credendi part of this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me again at Matthew 28.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Verse 18 says this, and Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, Jesus says with his resurrection authority, he says to his disciples, as the church spreads throughout the world, immerse new disciples into Trinitarian reality.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the translation of it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And notice that the Nicene Creed is actually built around the framework of Jesus' Trinitarian baptismal command in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You'll see those three movements in Matthew 28, 19 represented in the creed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because when we articulate our faith using the words of the Nicene Creed, we are speaking forth our baptismal identity.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is who God is, and therefore this is who we are.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We are those who have been immersed into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so those three sections, I want to do just a quick flyover because we're going to spend five weeks, this is the first of five, walking through these sections, but I want to do a quick flyover right now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so if you look on your worship guide, you've got the Nicene Creed printed there.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want to read some of this together.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says this, we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If I were to tag this sermon with a title, it would be We Believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, it's not we believe that, but rather we believe in.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Confessions are really important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We have a confession, the Westminster Confession of Faith, which really tells us what we believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Creeds are more about who we believe in.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In that way, it's more of a pledge of allegiance, if you will.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this is significant because it's not necessarily saying simply what do you believe, but in whom do you trust.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so it goes on.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is actually really important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We call God Father before we call him mighty or maker.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why is that such a big deal?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, Adolf Hitler actually was known for he loved calling God the Almighty.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That was his favorite term for describing God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And God is Almighty.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's true.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's just not the whole truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's far more to say about God than the fact that he's simply Almighty.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And since Hitler was influenced by his Nietzschean philosophy, Hitler wanted to be an ubermensch and he needed an uber God who was all strength, all domination, all force, and all power.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And since we become like what we worship, you could see how Hitler was shaped and formed by worshiping God the Almighty.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But our fathers in the faith were so wise, and they knew it was important to say, God the Father Almighty.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, because God's maker might is guided by the heart of a father.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: To call God Father implies that he has a son as well.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In other words, God the Father is known by the fact that God the Father generates the Son.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Inherent to the very identity of who God is, is not maker, otherwise, God would be dependent on his creation, but father.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because in the life of God, God the Father generates God the Son.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So we turn from the Father to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me again at the creed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the authors of the Nicene Creed were careful to draw every single word from the Bible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because they were Bible people.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Like we are Bible people.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But there were a few words that were not drawn directly from the Bible, and here's one of them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now I'm going to invite you to lean in for a moment, because I know everybody in this room is not a nerd like me, but I just, this is important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Nicaea contended for a word here, this word substance, which in Greek is homoousia.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Arians contended for a word very similar, homoeousia.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Notice the similarity and the difference.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It came down to is God, is Jesus one and the same substance with the Father?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Or is Jesus similar, just simply similar in substance to the Father?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It all came down to the symbol, the single Greek letter iota.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Homo homoi.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And this was worth fighting over.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This was worth debating.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This was worth arguing.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, because this was the place where the contested territory was between the Nicene Christians and the Arians.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, I know this is family worship Sunday, and so I lost some of y'all.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let me get you back together with a fake story.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Um, this is this is a legend, a medieval legend, uh, that says that the debate got kind of heated.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so there was a fan favorite in the room named St.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Nicholas of Mira, who had a little round belly like a bowl full of jelly.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: AKA Santa Claus.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And he had had enough, and so he stepped up and slapped an Arian at the Council of Nicaea for denying the deity of Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, when I tell my kids, I make sure that they know that Santa Claus was a pastor.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's really important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They need to know that gives me some cred as their dad, alright?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And and so long before Santa Claus was handing out presents, he was handing out smackdowns to Arians for denying the deity of Jesus.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of the kids in the room, the main takeaway is gonna be like, Santa Claus punched an Arian.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Is that what he said?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Merry Christmas.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I don't really know where we go from here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But but the significance of this is it was worth debating and discussing and even dividing over one letter, the iota, because it had everything to do with who Jesus was.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so not only does the Council of Nicaea focus on the person of Jesus Christ, but also his work.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at the count the creed with me again.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says this, who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he shall come with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That language, for us and for our salvation, he came down.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what we celebrate in Advent.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He came down.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He didn't have to.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For us, for our salvation, he came down.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the point of Advent.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the point of Christmas is in these words right here, and was made man.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The incarnation.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what Christmas celebrates.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, Jesus Christ is the center of the creed and the center of Christianity.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is inherent, this is the heart of what we believe right here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because the all-powerful creator of the universe entered our humanity and our history.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is the gospel.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Nicene Creed is the gospel.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is the good news that we proclaim and that we believe and that we live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, just notice these verbs.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus came down, was incarnate, became man, was crucified, suffered death, was buried, rose again, ascended, is seated, and will come again.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That is the good news that we proclaim.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And Jesus is this revelation of who God is, this unfolding of the heart of God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We cannot overestimate what the advent of Jesus means to our theology, our understanding of God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One theologian put it like this: through the sun, we see behind creation into the eternal and essential identity of God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It is as if through Christ we step inside the front door of God's home to see who he is behind what he does.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: More simply put, Archbishop Michael Ramsey said, God is Christ-like, and in him is no unchristlikeness at all.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, not only the Father and the Lord Jesus, but also the Spirit together are worshipped and glorified.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at the creed with me again.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Christians would say that it takes God to know God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We call this regeneration.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, we need the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life to make us alive to God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We are born dead in our trespasses and sins.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We do not know God as God is, unless the Lord and giver of life comes.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: One person said it like this: the Spirit's abiding interest is to bind us back to the Father through the Son.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I love that language.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What's the Spirit up to?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What's on the mind and heart of the Holy Spirit of God?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The abiding interest of the Holy Spirit is to bind us back to the Father through the Son.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Always, the Lord and giver of life is moving outward to do that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And to this end, the Spirit, quote, spoke by the prophets.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the Bible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's why I'm not merely preaching on the Nicene Creed, I'm preaching on Matthew 28.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because the text of Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's unique.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the Bible is not only a witness to God's activity in the world, the Bible is a part of God's activity in the world.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God is, by the Spirit, spoke by the prophets and is still speaking by the prophets through the Word of God, through the Bible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the Bible is a testimony, a witness to Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus says so himself in Luke 24 that all of the law and the prophets and the Psalms are about me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You can't read the book properly unless you see Jesus in it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's why the Spirit spoke by the prophets.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so the Father, the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, Christianity is deeply God-centered.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not about any other peripheral doctrines primarily, it's about God, who this God is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So what?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You might be thinking that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of y'all are like, dude, this was heady.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Okay, so what?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I was meeting with a guy who was a not yet disciple of Jesus, and in our conversations, it became clear that he grew up in a spiritually abusive environment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And during our time, he would regularly cuss God out.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He would talk about God in ways that were, God was like a bully on an ant hill with a magnifying glass, just like burning ants, making his life miserable.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He would utter all these blasphemies about God to the point where I was super uncomfortable.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Sometimes I'd get angry, sometimes I'd be sorrowful, and I didn't know what to do.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so I talked to an esteemed mentor and I said, Hey, here's the situation.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I feel something welling up in me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want to defend God's honor in these conversations, but I don't think that's the right way forward.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And do you know what my wise, venerable mentor said to me?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: When I described how this guy's blaspheming God, he said, Why don't you join him?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I was struck by that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What do you mean, join him?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He's like, Well, you don't believe in that God either.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The God he hates is not God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so now, actually, when I'm talking to not yet disciples, I asked him this question: tell me about the God you believe in, or tell me about the God you don't believe in.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because if it's not the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally existing in a self-giving, others-oriented love relationship of communal identity and activity in the world, I don't believe in that God either.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And neither do you, Christian.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so, what does this matter?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What difference does it make?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It makes all the difference in the world.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If this is your God, if this is your God, this Trinitarian God, you see, we don't have to defend theism in general.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I don't care about defending any God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I will die for this God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The God articulated in the Nicene Creed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because this is the God, the true and living God, the one who's made known to us in Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is what creedal Christianity is all about.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's all about God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, almost.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, we didn't finish the creed.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And my third point, as we believe, so we live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The creed ends like this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let me pause here and just slow down for a moment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The church is an article of faith next to the Trinity.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What do we do with that?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Like, Christianity is not a solo sport.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Our fathers and mothers in the faith believed that there is no salvation outside of the church.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Cyprian of Carthage, who died in 258 AD, said, No one can have God for his father who has not the church for his mother.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If that's too, you know, ancient or Catholic for you, this is what John Calvin said.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Beyond the pale of the church, there is no forgiveness of sin, and no salvation can be hoped for.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why do I say that?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, I'm aware that the strongest argument against Christianity is Christians.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But one of the best arguments for Christianity is Christians.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I get it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The church is, it can be hard, it can be hurtful, it can be hypocritical, but be a nicene Christian, not an American individualist on this point, please.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: A few years before his death, John Stott wrote this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He said, An unchurched Christian is a grotesque anomaly.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Tell us what you really think, John.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He says the New Testament knows nothing of such a person, for the church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It is not a divine afterthought.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Listen, we confess by faith, not by sight, because we don't always see this to be true of the church.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But by faith we believe, we confess that the church is united, set apart by God for all peoples, places, and times, and sent to carry the gospel forward.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why is this such a big deal?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why would you append this to the creed about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, because if God's inner life is triune, then the deepest reality is communal.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You can't be a And so if this God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is this communal God who is an outgoing God who shares and gives and pours out, then we as worshipers of this God, because remember what I said earlier, we become like what we worship.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: As worshippers of this God, we become a communal people who is outgoing and overflowing and self-giving to others.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And this is why the first thing the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ did with all authority in the heaven on earth is to tell his people, Go.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Go.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: As the Father sent the Son, and the Father and the Son sent the Spirit, so the Spirit sends the church.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Go.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what the text says.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at Matthew 19.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into this Trinitarian reality.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And Jesus promises as we're about that, he will be with us always to the very end of the age.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so if Jesus' call is to make disciples, I want to close with three quick pictures of how the Nicene Creed helps us make disciples.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's a map, it's a bumper, and it's a rope.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's a map, it's a bumper, it's a rope.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Here we go.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Nicene Creed is a map that's important because it's not the terrain.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The happy land of the Trinity is the terrain.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But the Creed is like a map that charts this landscape of who God is and what God does in the world.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We need that if we're going to make disciples.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Second, the Nicene Creed is like bumpers, like you know, the bumper lanes at the bowling alley.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We bowl a lot in Detroit where I'm from.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Maybe not so much here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Nicene Creed is like bumper lanes at a bowling alley for how we read the Bible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: An RUF campus minister who works with college students said it like this: nobody simply inherits packages of belief anymore.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We choose to believe and even construct the packages for ourselves, often as part of our self-actualization project.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's a choose your own adventure, God, these days.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the spirituality of most universities.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in that, Christians say, hey, who has a better chance of reading the Bible?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You alone with the book in your room or the church throughout all times and places?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so there's a there's a humility that the creed invites us to as we read the Bible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We want to read the scriptures with our big brothers and sisters who have gone before us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this became, this is like bowling alley bumpers.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're you're you're not going to veer off too far if you maintain the truths of the creed as you read the scriptures.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Third and finally, the Nicene Creed is a rope.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I said a moment ago, I'm from Detroit, and there's stories of uh centuries ago in the Midwest, where farmers in the winter would tie a rope from the back door of their house to the barn door.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the reason why is because they all had had stories of friends or neighbors who had gone out to their barn with a clear sky and gotten trapped out there because a blizzard burst through and made it impossible to navigate their way back to their house and they die in the storm.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So you tie a rope from your house to the barn so that when you get to the barn, you can follow the rope back home again and stay alive.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, this is what the Nicene Creed is for us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In an age of fake news, alternative facts, and following the science, we need a lifeline to find our way back home.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Back home to the God man who promised to be with us always to the very end of the age as we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let's pray.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God, our Father Almighty, we praise you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Our Lord Jesus Christ, very God of very God, we praise you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life, we praise you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Thank you, God, that you have made us your own.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Thank you that our identity is wrapped up in your identity, that who we are is that we are yours and you are ours.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So be it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Holy Spirit, I pray that the truths of the Nicene Creed and the truths of Matthew 28 would be impressed upon our hearts, that we would receive all that there is for us from you, God, in Jesus Christ.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's his name we pray.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.