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.
Jeremiah 17:9-10
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
10 “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
Matthew 15:1-20
1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ 6 he is not to ‘honor his father[c]’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’”
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
15 Peter said “Explain the parable to us.”
16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’”
Romans 3:10-12
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
So is the truth – the sound teaching that man is born in sin, fallen, and lost beyond his own repair – is this truth generally accepted and embraced universally?
Foreign: Man is basically good, born right the first time, Sin non-existent
Fallen: I am basically good, I no longer sin because I am sanctified, (denial)
False Motive: Jesus forgives me so I will just go on sinning happily!
PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net
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