Why Statements of Faith

Introduction

Open your bibles to the book of 1 John… and turn to the fourth chapter…

This morning we embark on a journey that is most exciting for me and I hope it will be for you as well. This morning we will begin to consider the truths found in our statement of faith. We as elders were going through it a few months ago when we were planning to put it before you, and it came to our attention that if we are going to have it in our constitution, we as a church, and not just elders, should know what it means. Should know why it is there and how to use it. So I intend this series to be something that can serve as a resource for believers at Providence Church in a systematic and categorical preaching and teaching of the doctrines found in our statement of faith. This morning it is my goal to show you that our statment of faith is at least three things for our church, 1) Our baseline for sound doctrine, A line between critical truth and error, and our connection to the historical church. To do this lets stand together and first read 1 John 4:1-6…

1 John 4:1–6 LSB

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. 4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world hears them. 6 We are from God. The one who knows God hears us; the one who is not from God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

I. Our Statement of Faith gives us a base line for sound doctrine (v1-3)

A. It is in this statementwe are declaring what we believe to be true and why. It doesn’t mean that we don’t believe other things to be true, my theology is not exhaustively poured out in this statement, but we are unitedly saying, this much is true.

What john is concerned with here is what? True verses false. The false prophets, verses the word that is from God. He is drawing a distinction between what is true for them to believe and what is false for them to reject. We don’t just see that John is concerned with what they say to be true. He also tells them the why, it is from God. That is our desire, to follow God. To allow him to change the love in our hearts to be more for him than anything else…

Thus the motivation behind this is so the church knows who God is. Our God is worth knowing, amen? How many of you like it when people think wrongly about you? Like they have some details wrong? Thinking you like Pepsi when can’t stand it… thinking your disposition is angry instead of kind… Ok, now magnify that times a thrice holy God. Our God wants to be known. He has revealed himself! And why he has revealed himself in his word, and in Jesus Christ, is in part that he doesn’t want to be known wrongly. In fact knowing god wrongly leads to idolatry… look at the last two sentences in the book of 1 John… 1 John 5:20-21

1 John 5:20–21 LSB

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

If you aren’t growing in your understanding of who God is, and seeking first his kingdom, make no mistake, there are demons out there posing as God in the forms of various ideologies that would love your worship. This is so much more than just being right. It is keeping ourselves chasing after God forsaking all others… therefore,

i. It is important for our confession to be deep enough

B.H. Carroll writes, “a church with a little creed is a church with a little life. The more divine doctrine a church can agree on, the greater it’s power, and the wider its usefulness.”

John states that the bear minimum is Jesus Christ came in the flesh… Thus a minimum for church membership is a credible profession of faith in Christ and a teachable spirit. He didn’t say they had to know everything, they had to know one thing. That Jesus came in the flesh… He reminds them in chapter two about who Jesus is to them… 1 John 2:1-3

1 John 2:1–3 LSB

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.

The commandment John is after is not a new one. It is old. The teaching we have is eternal, for it is the word of God. It is the whole counsel of God! A confession or statement of faith is simply taking the whole counsel of God and categorically extracting truth from the scriptures.

This is not a new idea. We just saw this in 1 Timothy. 3 times in 1 Timothy Paul mentions a “trust worthy saying”… In chapter 3 he even gives a popular creed of truth from the apostolic teaching. He does this again in 2 timothy and even more detailed in Titus 3. Paul and the apostles were adamant about teaching through statements of faith that were sound summary or what they believed to be true.

I must add that

ii. Sound statements of faith must be apostolic

Again, the etter of first John assumes this as he opens his letter by saying, 1 John 1:1-3

1 John 1:1–3 LSB

1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

The apostles creed is something confessed in many churches today, it is as follows…

I believe in God, the Father almighty,       creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,       who was conceived by the Holy Spirit       and born of the virgin Mary.       He suffered under Pontius Pilate,       was crucified, died, and was buried;       he descended to hell.       The third day he rose again from the dead.       He ascended to heaven       and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.       From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

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

This creed is known to first be uttered popularly among churches in the second century, and written down in the third century. Our statement of faith takes this doctrinal position, the I believe, and because of the false teaching we have had to combat in history passed confessions have delved into more detail. And then tells why… We list the scriptures to go and look up and study for yourself. A apostolic confession that is from God. The Apostles stating place is scripture, and so is ours. Sola scriptura, the scripture alone. More on that next week. But that statement of faith serves another purpose,

B. In this statement we declare what we teach

The whole idea of our faith is not to just know that something is true, it is to teach it. To make disciples. 1 John 4:1 is a warning to test the spirits because of what? False teaching… The church is not a center for music, or style, or fads, or good works. We are the pillar and buttress of truth. Through a statement of faith we are declaring, these are the truths to which we hold in our Sunday school classes, in our bible studies, in our literature, on our website, in our singing, and in our preaching…

This baseline is also profitable in:

C. In this statement we declare who will teach

Our church is declaring what we believe to be truth, and thus those who teach in our various classrooms and from this pulpit should be tested first by this baseline of sound doctrine. It is a good thing for us to test one another. Especially those who teach. They are held to a stricter judgment becuase of what is at stake…. Matthew 5:19

Matthew 5:19 LSB

“Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

So, statements of faith give a baseline of sound doctrine, and Secondly

II. Our Statement of Faith draws lines between truth and error (v4-5)

A. In this statment we are declaring that we are listening for and to the voice of God.

John tells us in verse 4 that believers are from God. We have a specific voice that we are listening to and following. But on the flip side there are those of the world… They speak as the world, and the world understands them and vice versa. Come with me to 1 Corinthians 2…

Look at verse 10…

But to us God revealed them, that is the wisdom and mystery’s that were once hidden…Truth of Jesus… He has revealed them how? Through the spirit. For the spirit searches all things even the depths of God…. My friends, why have statements of faith grown over time? Because We continue the spirit of God that knows the depths of God. Thus we have access to these riches. We will never know everything, but there is so much we have learned of God through the scriptures… Lets keep going, verse 11, For who among men knows the depths of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the depths of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world (there is the distinction John is making to the church he is writing to), but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God, (There is profit in this, profit in knowing God so deeply that we are able to articulate more and more about him and the things of God, but watch this…) 13 of which depths we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined.

The natural man doesn’t understand our efforts… The natural man can’t understand the things of God. The natural man speaks the language of the world. The Child of God born of the spirit of God speaks a heavenly language. The things of God are spiritually examined, meaning the spirit teaches us, the spirit makes us understand, and if you don’t have the Holy Spirit, you won’t get it… Thus believers through the last two thousands years have learned more and more about our God, and the things he has revealed in his word. The spirit of God has allowed Jesus’s bride to go deeper and know him more. And we have taken care to write those revelations down!

Now here is where it get tricky…

i. Statements of faith unite and divide the body of Christ in various ways. 

The Roman catholic church has their own, the Lutheran Church has their own, the Presbyterian church has their own, the baptists have a number of them…. Really every church has one. Even take our own history for example. Alexander Cambel, the leader of the movement that the christian church came out of is famous for saying, “no creed but Christ”. He was so tired of confessions of faith because he wanted church to be simple. I sympathize with him, however he was a walking contradiction. Not only is “no creed but christ” a creed… but to love in such a way is impossible if you have the holy spirit… in fact Just a few years after the christian church emerged it separated into three distinct denominations: The christian church, the church of God and the church of Christ.

Why the separation? I am glad you asked… because of their doctrinally distinctive understanding of scripture. Now… this is why we need the confession of truth and why… Many brothers and sisters in christ are found in various denominations, and subscribe to various confessions of faith. That is why we need our statement of faith to at the very least hold to the basics. Remember our rule, sound doctrine begins at the very foundation with the apostles creed.

So, I can fellowship and share a church service with my brother over at Hopewell even though he is a pastor of the prebyterian denomination which holds to a unique confession of faith… its because we agree on gospel truth! What is it that is necessary for salvation? We have the same foundation. We wouldn't be members at each others church, but we we fellowship with joy because we know what our core doctrines are. And we share much in common. This is why Roman’s 14 is about. Many believe it to be about not offending immature Christian’s… no it is about requirements for fellowship in the gospel.

However, I would not fellowship with a church under the united Methodist denomination, why? Because they have now confessed that marriage can be defined by man and not God. Those who hold that are believing a false teaching, a spirit of the antichrist, because God’s word never says that... We also would not fellowship with the Mormon church who believes that Jesus was one of many Gods. No, God’s word says that Jesus is a manifestation of the one true God. He is God. You get my point. We have a baseline of truth formed by a statement of faith, but also a sharp line between gospel truth and error drawn.

We must understand as a church that there are certain things that can not be deviated from or else we wander into the arena of false teaching.

Lastly,

III. Our Statement of Faith connects us to the historical church (v6)

A. In this statement we are declaring that we are not recreating the wheel but are holding to the sound doctrine in the word of God.

The letter of first john was written sometime toward the end of the first century. There was great false teaching that was happening through greeks and jews alike… John was concerned about various statements that the church believed to be true. Paul outlines his great division of truth and error from the gnostics in 1 Corinthians 15… But as the false teaching grew more sophisticated and devious, so the church would have to refine what they believed to be true.

So, In the midst of great false teaching in the second century AD the apostles creed was born. IN the midst of greater false teaching about the trinity the nicene creed was born out of the council of Nicea in 325 AD. Fifth century, 11th and 12th century, 13th century, the 16th and 17th century with the reformation… All of these were times in which false teaching was running rampant and faithful men who were devoted to rightly dividing the word of truth, in accord with the apostolic teaching, combated false teaching by searching the scriptures and writing down a confession of what the truth is according to the word of God.

Our statement of faith was written in 1853… But we have added two sections to it on sexuality and the sanctity of marriage because false teaching in our day has run rampant in these areas and we want to be clear about them and what the truth is from the word of God. But my friends, men and women of God have been confessing truth that the Spirit of God has shown them for the last 2000 years. Often times when churches try to reinvent the wheel they are twisting the truth. We don’t need a new word from God, and no things haven’t changed. The flower wither and fade but God’s word never changes.

IN verse 6 of John 4 John says we are of God and this is how we know the spirit of truth and error. This truth goes back all the way to Adam and Eve, and their children. God has had a remnant, a people who held to truth and confessed his word since the very beginning. We don’t want to root our foundation in this present moment, nor in the times of our fathers or grandfathers. We are connected to something greater wherever the word of God is confessed in spirit and truth. We are connected eternally to God himself and his children that he has born in the spirit since he ascended into heaven 2000 years ago and those who believed by faith since day one.

So my friends, does our God deserve to be known? Does he deserve to be followed? Statements of faith are not simply a list of what we believe, but are an act of worship. An offering to our God to say, we want you, we want to know you, and know you more. And we want everyone to know the real you. Let me end with this scripture from Titus 3:10-11

Titus 3:10–11 LSB

10 Reject a factious man(one who is divisive) after a first and second warning, 11 knowing that such a man is perverted( or warped) and is sinning, being self-condemned.

My friends, beware of false teaching. Beware of those who won’t listen to and obey sound teaching. Keep yourself from idols.