Apostle’s Creed 4 Series

Dakota Community Church

February 5, 2012

Church History Sunday 3/2012

The Apostles Creed 4

These Things We Believe

2 Timothy 4:1-3

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

I BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen

The creeds came about as a way of combating those errors that the compilers thought most dangerous at the time. Three current threats to sound doctrine (teaching):

1. Foreign threats

2. Fallen threats

3. Faux motive threats

These are threats to sound doctrine that come about as a result of incorrect motives – the right thing but with the wrong motivation.

Galatians 3:1-3

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

So we have these enemies, these things which threaten sound Christian doctrine or teaching.

With almost any point of Christian teaching, (essential or non essential) you find false teachings abounding that attack from one of these platforms – outside teachings, fallen nature teachings, and wrong motive teachings.

Examples:

a) Jesus is the only way

First in His own words:

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 17:1-5

“Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

John 14:6

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.

And from Luke’s account after the resurrection:

Acts 4:12

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

In order to preach sound doctrine then the man of God must proclaim Jesus as the only way to be reconciled to God, forgiven of sin, declared righteous/justified in the sight of God and saved from the eternal consequence of the fall.

Is this a universally accepted truth or is there opposition to this sound teaching?

Foreign: Exclusionary, what about all the good Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists… etc

Fallen: My Jesus would never judge or condemn

False Motive: Us four no more, prejudiced, haters of all outsiders, unloving of lost

b) Original sin

Original sin is “that sin and its guilt that we all possess in God’s eyes as a direct result of Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden.” It focuses particularly on sins effect on our nature and our standing before God.

Psalm 51:1-5

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. 5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.