Good morning, everyone. We are starting a new
series. I'm super stoked to get to preach the
first message of it because it really digs into
church history. I really love history, as you
know. So, yeah, I will just jump right into it
because, well, not because. I always have to
feel like I'm transitioning us into it. If you've
been here a minute, you know me. I don't have
to worry about that. So, okay, 32 years ago,
it sounds like I'm starting with my life story.
Before I was born, everyone, I want to tell you
about, okay, 32 years ago, almost a week to the
day, Rich Mullins put out an album called A Liturgy,
A Legacy, and A Ragamuffin Band. I was a senior
in high school. I had been a Christian for just
a little over three years, and I was in the very
early stages of exploring my faith and how to
practice it. This album was important to me for
a lot of reasons, one of which was that for those
of us who were growing up Christian in a certain
generation where Rich's music was new, it affected
us in a way that's hard to describe. Who remembers
this album? Yeah, thank you. We have two people
back there. I think there's probably, at least
for people I know of our generation, it was a
seminal album for us, for sure. It was music
that was the most genuine and honest of kinds,
and it was without guile. It described a faith
that was often messy and complicated, joyful
and heartbreaking, and not always easy to find,
but worth asking questions about and worth evaluating,
worth getting to the core of. And very much about
a God whose love was relentless towards its creation.
For me, the songs remind me of New York, where
I grew up. They remind me of some really good
time in high school and youth group, new beginnings
and looking ahead to college. The album also
helped give me some tools for my faith that were
new to me. The album formally introduced me to
some historic practices of the church that I
would come to love. The church has these historic
practices like communion and baptism. We're very
familiar with those things. They are in the scriptures.
We see them laid out. But as the church grew
and spread out, additional practices were added.
We follow the church calendar here throughout
the year. It is the reason these things change
color. They tell us where in the year that we
are. They lead us through specific times which
have prescribed structure. We say collective
prayers together that are constructed from within
our local community that we've now set as a body
for 11 years, one of which we said today as our
prayer of work. And Rich's album collected a
number of these pieces from... The history of
the church body. There are songs about communion
on this album and the passing of the peace, and
there is a song called Creed, in which he simply
sings the words of the Apostles' Creed, a predecessor
of what would later become known as the Nicene
Creed. This is what our sermon series is about,
the Nicene Creed. You know it as the words we
say on the fifth Sundays that begin with... I
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the
maker of heaven and earth. And we sang a variation
of that today in the song, I Believe. At the
time, back in high school, I had probably said
the Nicene Creed maybe just a handful of times.
But I had likely not thought about what it was
or where it came from. And that's the thing about
a number of these traditions. They are things
that we've either always known or have always
done, but we have little context for. They are
tradition. And by that definition, it gets redone
every year at certain times. It is very easy
to lose where these things came from. So that's
what we're going to get into. So a creed is simply
a statement of belief, the word being lifted
directly off the page of the original Latin,
which was the language of the empire in which
this was developed. Credo in unum Deo. Translated,
I believe in one God. This is the opening line,
and from here on out, a statement of belief is
a creed. Credo statements allow us to reenter
the framework to which we adhere. When things
become unclear in our walk with the Lord, this
helps us re -see the structure that holds it
up. The creed is not the thing of belief. We
don't believe in the creed, but it helps us see
and remember the thing in which our belief is
founded on. And this is why I love... what the
church historic has provided over time, and how
I know others have felt the same. They have given
us the gifts in the form of liturgy. These are
scaffolding framework and structures that we
can look to to understand what is the build of
this thing. I have talked about the church year
using the metaphor of a map. The church year
helps you know where you're going, or if you
get lost, it gives you a marker to get back to.
Things like creeds do something similar. They
give you points for pause and reflection. They
provide reminders of how you got to where you
are today or points to return to when you are
feeling lost. A creed can be a great tool and
a reminder of what your faith is meant to look
like. Creeds get you to the core. They help you
get unstuck from the weeds. They get you to the
irreducible minimums. And so the early church
spent a lot of time working through what these
irreducible minimums were. So a quick word on
the format of this and content of this message.
Because this message is largely a teaching message
and heavily historic, the creed itself is the
home text that we are jumping off from. In all
ways, it is a result of the careful evaluation
of scriptural texts. But because of this, I will
be presenting text along the way versus working
from a passage. We will be jumping around many
passages today, so I suggest if there are some
that you want to circle back to, have a paper
and pen handy so you can just jot down the references
and then you can go back and reread them later.
With that said, let's use this as the point at
which we're going to pray for today's message
and what God has for us. God, we welcome you
into this space in our hearts. You are here.
We acknowledge that you are present with us,
but we want to recognize an invitational spirit
within us to say to you, we want to hear from
you. We want to learn from you. We want to grow.
And so use these words and our look at the creeds
today as encouragement. Help. It tie us more
deeply to the church body historic and the church
body globally. Let us see the bigger picture
of your work in this world and who you have been
to us. Help us grow in who you are and in our
faith today. Let me pray this in your name. Amen.
So, guys, I think we know that the Church of
the New Testament was a scrappy bunch of people.
They were common. They were unpolished. They
were not society's best in a contest of clout.
Even Rich's album holds a word that would be
appropriate for these early followers. Ragamuffin.
The word in the album's title is referring to
Brendan Manning's book, The Ragamuffin Gospel.
If you want to know more about this, ask Greg,
ask Cindy. You will watch their whole face change
when they talk about this book. The book centers
on the truth that Jesus came for the bedraggled,
the beat up, and the burnt out, the outcasts
and imperfect people, the ragamuffins. The church
got its start before it really had time to think
about what it was. And as the church began to
take root further out from Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and into the areas known as the ends
of the earth, the core aspects of the message
also started getting a little stretched. 1 Timothy
1 .3 says, As I urged you when I went to Macedonia,
stay there in Ephesus so that you may command
certain people not to teach false doctrines any
longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless
genealogy. Such things promote controversial
speculations rather than advancing God's work,
which is by faith. Galatians 1, 6. I am astonished
that you are so quickly deserting the one who
called you to live in the grace of Christ and
are turned to a different gospel, which is really
no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are
throwing you into confusion and are trying to
pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we
or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel
other than the one we preached to you. Let them
be under God's curse, as we have already said.
So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to
you a gospel other than what you accepted, let
them be under God's curse. Wow. So even in the
early church, already we are starting to see
a stray, a movement from the gospel was being
distorted even early on. The young church hadn't
been around for more than a few decades when
these words were being written, and things were
starting to go a little off the rails. So I want
to jump ahead a few hundred years. Can you imagine
what happened in that time? We're going to land
in the first quarter of the fourth century, and
it was a really pivotal time in the history of
the world. Constantine, you've probably heard
his name. Has just become the emperor of Rome.
The Roman emperor. Christians have been a minority
group, but things are about to change. The old
Roman empire is on its last legs. The new will
be ushered in. Constantine is a catalyst for
this. He moves the operations of the empire to
Byzantium in modern -day Turkey, the city that
became modern -day Istanbul. Not? There we go.
thank you and in a bold move he decriminalizes
christianity and ends the era of persecution
for them so in the two centuries between when
the church had started and where we find ourselves
now You had those, the church grew significantly
during that time. So you had those that leaned
towards more esoteric and philosophical ideas
of Christianity and that there's like secret
knowledge that only certain people can know.
Or you also had those who wanted distinct clarity
on every single point. So they got really, really
stuck in doctrine and dogma. Certain thinkers
developed unique strains of thought and gained
followers and churches or regional groups of
churches each. had their own rules of faith that
would be adopted at baptism. The waters of orthodoxy
had gotten murkier and murkier. Various teachings
gained strength, and there was no real good collective
plumb line. There were collections of scriptures,
but even those were still being verified and
discussed and collected and canonized. So by
the time Constantine was ready to say, hey, you
know, the Christians are cool, We're fine with
them. It had to get cleaned up a bit because
once the faith was no longer underground, sharp
theological disputes emerged, particularly about
things like the nature of Christ. Is he divine?
Is he one with the Father? So Arianism was a
prevalent doctrine that rejects the traditional
notion of the Trinity. It is... you might think
that I'm going on a side quest. When I tell you
that Arianism was so... I just had the word.
It was sort of... What's that? It was really
prolific, and it was a big problem in the church.
So it was a prevalent doctrine that rejects the
traditional notion of the Trinity, teaching that
Jesus was created by God and is therefore distinct
from and subordinate to God. The council's outcome,
so this council that got together to decide some
things, I'm about to talk about it, deemed that
this was a heretical idea. That was the outcome
of it. But this view threatened the unity of
the church. The unity of the church was not Constantine's
concern, but because it was such a big deal,
it was also... potentially problematic for the
empire. And that was of Constantine's concern.
How are these things connected? Reasonable question
from a 21st century church. Religion is to us
a personal thing and something you practice on
your own. Not here. Because in the history of
the empire, religion was civic. It was all of
us. It was the case with Rome Historic, and it
was meant to be the case when Constantine eventually
said, this is our whole personality now. So wanting
both theological and political stability would
make sense. And so things had to get unified
in the church. He called the first ecumenical
council together to resolve it. It was a political
initiative. Let's get you folks together to talk
this out because it was such... an unstable source
in the empire. So in the summer months of 325
Common Era, the first contemporary era, the first
gathering is said to have occurred. It happened
in Turkey, in Nicaea, with about 200, so 220
to 300 bishops, mainly from the Eastern Roman
Empire. So think Turkey, Palestine, Syria, Northern
Africa, Armenia, Georgia, Persia. Honestly, places
we today do not think of the Christian church,
but they were critical. They were our church
fathers. And then there was a small representation
from the West. So there's so much we could talk
about here, like there's so much, and I would
love to talk about that with you if you want
to talk more after this. But we need to jump
another 55 years to the future, to 381 CE, rather.
So Constantine's dead. Heresies are still around
in the empire. Arianism, among others, still
have tendrils and spaces far and wide. Civil
war was literally on the table for the empire
because of this. New Emperor Judas Theodosius,
the first, is in charge at this point. So Christendom
has come a long way. New issues have arisen,
new heresies to combat, in addition to the old
ones. Especially now, what does the nature of
the Trinity, or excuse me, the Trinity and the
Holy Spirit look like? So Theodosius requests
a defense of the faith from all the major sects
providing, that they provide sort of... We need
to get back to this because we are falling apart.
We need you to really, really nail down what
you believe. So the first council did come up
with something. It was in use for about 60 years.
And then it needed to be expounded upon. It wasn't
carrying the weight that it needed to for the
church. It needed to become more robust. Words
needed to become clearer. So what I'm saying
is over this amount of time, the thing that we
say on the fifth Sunday. was labored over. It
was a potentially empire -crushing thing for
this not to get solved. That's kind of a surprise,
I would think, for those of us who, you know,
we just say this casually on our fifth Sunday,
right? This is a big, big deal. So, a word on
this. Christians had to develop the biblical
and philosophical traditions that they inherited.
And what I mean by this, so like the principles
of one God and Father Almighty maker of heaven
and earth, they were present, they existed, they
were comfortable, but their meanings were not
fully appreciated until the questions of the
origin were made clear. We have to talk about
where does this all get? founded in? What is
the root of all this? Do we just believe it because
this is what we've just always done? Or do we
understand where the foundations of this all
lie? And so I think we can all appreciate not
blindly accepting something because it's the
way it's always been done, right? That's essentially
what they were trying to get away from. The apostolic
church got rolling before they could really ask
questions about what they were doing. We see
in somewhat real time in the scriptures the things
that they were figuring out in the moment. How
to care for widows, how to handle communion,
how to treat the poor, how to respond to society.
They had to figure out a lot as they went along.
They were learning how to listen to the Spirit
of God and hold true to the words of Jesus as
things came up. And so with just about everything
we do, we figure out practice in the moment.
What do we do about fill in the blank? Often
the plan and policy get rarely really parsed
out only after you have had time to look at how
you've been doing things. So these councils reviewed
scripture. Incidentally, the Bible in the form
most Catholics would know it in was also generally
agreed upon. around 382 in Rome, in the Western
Church. So these councils reviewed scripture,
considered the practices and the traditions of
the churches that had already taken into consideration
some of these big topics. They debated the position.
Arianism that I talked about, Arius himself was
present at the first council to defend himself,
later got exiled. They prayed and asked the Spirit
for wisdom, and I believe that they took the
assignment quite seriously. And they did this
all so that they could come up with, we believe.
Given what I just told you, the significance
of this one opening line, credo, we believe,
I believe, is profound. When I tell you it was
a big deal to say as much together, it was a
big deal. to get to that point. So we believe.
Sure, belief, it just makes sense to start with
it, right? But it's bigger than that. Yes, it's
a good place to start when talking about a statement
of faith, but know that it was a hard -fought
landing point. The start carried the weight of
the whole church up to that point. In our world
today, when we think about what it means to believe,
We make that word belief and faith nearly synonymous
with each other. We think of something that is
blindly accepted without evidence. Not entirely,
but we do understand the word almost as even
things that have evidential backing. Often in
our world today, faith and science are opposed
to each other or often pitted against each other
because one is assumed to be based in evidence
and the other is not. That is our current perspective
in a lot of ways. But the term belief means almost
exactly the opposite today from what they meant
in the early church. The church fathers, Irenaeus
being one of them, was writing in the second
century. He outlines some of the essential elements
that make clear that faith is not a subjective
opinion, but is based on actual evidence and
objective reality. Belief is based on what is
known. So for the early church, belief and knowledge
work together. We have faith when we learn something
from another. We have knowledge when we see something
for ourselves. Honestly, almost everything we
think we know, we, in fact, believe on the testimony
and authority of others. We believe most things
our friends relate to us about their lives and
experience. That we often have not witnessed
these things firsthand, but we believe them to
be true based on what somebody is telling us.
We believe the history, geography, and science
we've been taught, even though we were not present
at the events, have not visited the places, or
cannot verify the science. Due to time, inclination,
or ability, it is actually impossible to investigate
every question for ourselves, isn't it? It is
completely reasonable, then, to experience belief
in most areas of our life based on what we have
been told from the testimonies of others. We
cannot operate our daily lives without it. So
how can we have belief in God based on this thinking?
How can faith exist universally? This was the
importance of the apostles' work. This was why
in the development of the Bible canon, the accounts
of Acts and the letters of Paul, Peter, James,
and Jude were so important and why they worked
together to recognize their veracity. The church
history traced back to ground zero. The traditions
that had the deepest roots, the practices that
lined up with Jesus. And so it is with the testimony
of those who had experienced and known Jesus
that others were commanded to go and tell others
so that they would also then believe. Mark 16,
15 through 16 said to them, go into all the world
and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved,
but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
It was based on, belief was going to be based
on somebody else's testimony. John 20, 29, Jesus
said to him, Have you believed because you have
seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have believed. It was about the testimony.
We believe was not a guess in the dark. It was
deeply rooted in what the church had experienced
from the point of Jesus. It was presenting what
it had already found to be true as to what to
build the structure of one's faith on. Belief
was based on the evidence of the apostles and
their experience and their testimony and their
witness. But as we said, the church was dealing
with all sorts of ideas here in this point in
which the creed was called upon to be put together.
So the church was dealing with all sorts of ideas
about who it was. that they were following and
how they were following. For the early church
and the catalyst issues of the councils, the
key questions were about the nature of Jesus
and the Holy Spirit. God the Father had been
worked out long before the council met in the
face of challenges from Gnosticism paganism in
the second and third centuries, early Christians
started to work out systematically what it meant
that there is only one God who is Father Almighty.
Because they had to. Consider the context of
the early church. Greeks, pantheistic. Romans,
pantheistic. Even Egyptians had a long history
there from their dynasties. Pantheistic. It is
not unheard of to have a monotheistic religion
in the ancient world, but monotheism was definitely
in the minority. While there is ample testimony
in Scripture that God is called Father and Almighty,
there is no occurrence of these terms actually
together. So we have, we believe in one God,
Father Almighty. There is no occurrence of these
terms together. But God is called Father 17 times
in the Old Testament and more than 250 times
in the New. And in the Greek translations of
the Old Testament, it occurs more than 150 times.
The precedent is there. Again, all of this, all
of the things from the creeds are rooted in the
scriptures. So early Christian tradition speaks
about God as Father in a few distinct ways. And
because nothing could be taken for granted, it
all needed to be reviewed and evaluated. I think
often our idea of God as father becomes very
zeroed in on one aspect of father. God as dad.
We hear father and go directly to God, the top
dad figure. And though that has some founding,
as we just talked about. Father is mentioned
a lot in the scriptures. We tend to overlook
the broadness of the idea that the early church
was forced to consider. Jesus certainly led the
way on this, thinking even instructing us to
pray our Father and setting the tone for us by
calling Yahweh Abba, with Galatians later guiding
us to do the same. Galatians 4, 6, because you
are his children, God sent the spirit of his
Son into our hearts, the spirit who calls out,
Abba, Father. But also, God as Father Almighty
Dad is the bearded dude sitting on the throne
punishing us when we misbehave. This is the prevalent
thinking when we talk about God the Father. We
have combated this thinking in our modern worship
because we know how prevalent it is by singing
songs like you're a good, good father. Because
we need to remind ourselves. Because we have
adhered most commonly to the trope of the dad
who is told all the day's wrongs. You just wait
until your father gets home. It is where we have
landed in terms of understanding God the Father
Almighty. However, the early church did not see
God the Father the same way and in such a narrow
way. Yes. Yahweh is the father that Jesus referred
to, and we have created images of God existing
this way as a parent. Think of all the artwork
from the Renaissance era. But I want to shift
that thinking from parent, father as parent,
to father as source, the starting point, the
beginning, which has different connotations to
it. Has different impressions. 1 Corinthians
8, 6. Yet for us there is but one God, the Father,
from whom all things came and for whom we live.
And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through
whom all things came and through whom we live.
Deuteronomy 32, 6. In this way you repay the
Lord, you foolish and unwise people. Is he not
your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed
you? Psalm 139, 13 through 15. For you created
my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's
womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I
know that full well. And Isaiah 64, 8. Yet you,
Lord, are our Father. We are the clay and you
are the potter. We are the work of your hand.
Father as not just parent, but Father as source.
Father as creator. When we broaden our understanding
of father to include father as source, some other
things fall into place more easily. Because if
we see God the father as parent only, it changes
what almighty means. It gives us that sense of
the judgmental dad, the big guy. But if we understand
God the Father as source, almighty is refrained
and carries us through to the almighty source
that is now the maker of heaven and earth, all
that is visible and invisible. It carries us
forward. Colossians 1 .16 For in him all things
were created, things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible. Unlike other ancient creation
stories where the world is a result of violence
or a fall, Genesis 1 tells the story of a good
God who creates a good world through his creative
reason. Through speech, God brings order out
of chaos and light out of darkness. Written probably
during the Babylonian exile, Genesis 1 is a kind
of declaration of war on the Babylonian gods.
Heaven and earth is much like a phrase that encompasses
all, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the
end, from the east to the west. Some of the other
prevalent controversies centered around thoughts
of different realms of existence. So the Gnostics
and others often said that there were different
makers for different realms. There was a father
of the heavenly realm, but also a malevolent
demiurge of the earthly realm. Or our souls came
from a source of light, whereas our bodies came
from a source of darkness. These were prevalent
ideas and philosophies that sort of ran around
and absorbed Christianity and intermingled with
it. Alternatively, in a polytheistic culture,
invisible spirits, where God's rivals, equals,
or subordinates could be equal to God rather
than his creatures. The Creed states emphatically
that God is the maker of heaven and earth, which
includes all things visible and invisible. God
was not one of many. God is Father Almighty,
sovereign, source over all. And by being so capable
of being the singular source of all things, It
was a radical and bold move for Christianity
to say that God is not the highest thing in the
world, but rather the radically transcender creator
of it. He is not subject to time or space, but
is the creator of time and space existing outside
of it. Creation is not ultimate so that God finds
a place within it. God is not a being that is
situated within creation. Rather, God is the
source of all creation and all the beings found
within it, which is why God, the source almighty,
is capable of being the source from which all
things, heaven and earth, invisible and visible,
are created. In fact, this was driven home harder
in the revisiting of the creed in 381 from the
original in 325. In 325, they walked away having
completed this statement, We believe in one God,
the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible
and invisible. They revisited this in 381, adding,
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the
maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible
and invisible. Because they were combating very
real ideologies that were existing that they
needed to come to very distinct understanding
of. So things we take for granted. had to be
worked through and worked through and wrestled
and discussed and had to have time to sit and
be revisited. The framework was not entirely
built when Jesus called Peter to be the first
pastoral leader, which feels wild to us, right?
That feels a little reckless, just picking a
human to build a church on. I mean, it wasn't.
Let me be very clear. But when you think of all
that came after it, And how little the disciples
started with? They started with a calling and
the Spirit of God. And Jesus said, that is enough
to get you going. And you have my teachings.
There you go. And truthfully, the early church
also thought Jesus was returning in a month.
It was imminent. It was coming very soon. And
so they just sort of lived in a survival mode.
But as the church went on, And they had to figure
things out, and they had to work in a world in
which an empire was changing, and leaders were
changing, and things were moving, and Christianity
was moving into spaces where cultures were different.
They had to figure more things out. And so that's
what they did. It was forged over time. The church
developed before it knew what it was. Time necessitated
organization. Teachings came out of cultural
settings and practice. The words of Jesus and
the leading of the spirit. Theology is a luxury
of time. The creed is not magic. There's nothing
specifically holy imbued in it. However, much
like there are things in our world that help
us remember our path. the direction we're facing,
the code that keeps us clear -eyed. If anyone's
ever had a vowel renewal ceremony or reflected
once again on the commitments made, a creed is
a tool for us. With all of this said, we can
appreciate that when we here speak the creed
together and we begin with, we believe, we can
hold on to that moment with a bit more understanding
and even awe for how we got here. It is not a
given that we can say we believe together in
one heart and one faith. The book of Hebrews
is entirely about the faith that was passed down
to us. 2, 1 through 4 says, We must pay the most
careful attention, therefore, to what we have
heard, so that we do not drift away. For since
the message spoken through the angels was binding
and every violation and disobedience received
its just punishment, how shall we escape if we
ignore so great a salvation? The salvation which
was first announced by the Lord was confirmed
to us by those who heard it. God also testified
to it by signs and wonders and various miracles
and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according
to his will. We believe in what was held to be
true by those whom Jesus chose to build the church
on. and they mindfully recorded what they knew
and experienced. We also believe because of the
faith of those who have come before, who tested
the truth of Jesus, the work of the Spirit in
the church historic, with the weight of their
whole lives. We have valued the lives of the
church parents who came before us. We believe
the testimony and the witness of the church historic,
universal, and global. And I am moved to think
that because of the belief that I have and live,
and my testimony and my witness, and our belief
and our testimony and our witness, others will
also be able to join in belief. The we believe.
And throughout time, the we believe has gotten
louder and bigger and stronger. When we say the
creeds, we join with the early church. It is
a powerful thing to share these words with those
that came centuries before, who forged a way
of faith for us to... have a framework in which
we understand that we aren't floating adrift,
that we feel connected to, that draws us back
to the home of Jesus when he was on this earth.
And so over the next few weeks, as we continue
to look at how the creed was broken down and
what it says, Each week, let that go deeper into
you. Let that settle more deeply into you. Use
each week as an opportunity to meditate on the
words of that week. We believe in one God, Father
Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that
is visible and invisible. This week, sit with
those words and consider what it was that got
us here. And then how does that gird up your
testimony and your faith to continue to build
the church forward so that more can say we believe?
Let's pray. God, we are grateful for the family
of yours throughout history. It is extraordinary
that we are here today. And we are so grateful
for those that you have built up in faith and
belief. Throughout time, we are grateful for
every testimony. We are grateful for the witness
of the church. We're grateful for the witness
of your spirit. We're grateful to be here today,
to have a belief, something to believe in. And
so as we continue to meditate on these things,
God, may that strengthen us. May it strengthen
our faith this week. And may our lives be something
that strengthen other people's faith because
of the experience we've had. But in all things,
we look to you. We're grateful for your life
in us. And we love you. Amen.