Life Everlasting

In “Walk the Line,” the 2005 biographical drama about Johnny Cash, there’s a scene where young Johnny is singing along to hymns with his mother. His brother, Jack, makes a comment about Johnny’s ability to remember songs so well, saying, “God’s given you a gift, Johnny, you can hear a song once and play it right back.”

Now, Johnny’s older brother, Jack, was also gifted, but in another way. He liked reading and dedicated himself to studying Scripture, and he could quote it in much the same way as Johnny could music. This gave him the perception of being deeply religious in contrast to Johnny’s musical inclinations. Jack was perceived as the more responsible of the two brothers—even favored for having declared at a young age that he wanted to be a preacher. It likely also served a major role in their dad’s indictment of Johnny when his brother died, “The devil took the wrong son.”

It’s good not only that we worship together but also that we confess together! Worship and confession of our faith are tied together by necessity.

Today, I want to illustrate just that, that confession is a form of worship, and that worship is confession—and that they both take place in eternity!

Many of you have seen The Chosen Series. In Season 3, Episode 2, which is entitled “Two by Two,”the disciples gather to encourage one another as they head out on their own for the first time. They recite Psalm 3 together. This is not uncommon; the Psalms are a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and prayers from different eras in Israel’s history and have different purposes. They recall God’s faithfulness and in repeating them, we are reminded of God’s qualities of loyalty, steadfastness, and provision. This isn’t exclusive to Old Testament Jews. When we look at Paul’s letters, we see doctrinal statements that are, in part and parcel, his joyful worship. Many commonly recited benedictions are actually the closing remarks from his letters!

Philippians 2:5-11, often called the “Christ Hymn,” refers to Christ’s act of humility in becoming human, taking the form of a servant, and being obedient even to death.

Today, most scholars agree that this was most likely an early creed or hymn of some sort, and that makes sense; Paul was a Jew!

Worship begins with holy living and is joyfully expressed in song, just as today, God gifts us with only some who are truly talented in that way, and a good song spreads far and wide, and songs or Psalms were established in the early church in the same way that today our theology is communicated through music. We have somewhat of a cannon in hymnals, the same songs often sung from church to church.

So, in Philippians 2:5-11, which begins:

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

Is Paul singing a hymn of praise, or is he giving instructions to Christians on godliness? YES!

8 And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

Is Paul professing doctrine, or is he worshipping?

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

Again, YES!

This is why Creedal Statements are part of our worship. Because confession is worship, and it’s part of our worship. Theology and doxology, the Greek compound word meaning “words of praise,” are meant to be integrated.

And this is not at all to say that the Jews were culturally different than us today in that things weren’t perceived as “feminine” or “masculine.” Recorded in 2 Samuel 6:16-23, David was shamed by his wife, Michal, for dancing in celebration of the return of the Ark to Jerusalem. It says he danced with all his might, wearing a linen ephod, in an act of joyous worship. Michal, who was watching from a window, despised him in her heart and later confronted him, saying mockingly, “How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself in the sight of the servant girls as any vulgar man would!”

David responded by saying that he was dancing before the Lord, “and now I’m going to dance even harder!” As a consequence of her scorn, Michal remained childless for the rest of her life.

The point is that in worship, humility and devotion to God are to be revered over human approval.

The opposite of this can be observed in Amos. In 5:21, God says, “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.” In 8:10, we see a prophecy: “I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping.” In Malachi 1:13, we see God’s characterization of Israel’s regard towards worship, “‘What a nuisance!’ And [they] scorn it.” “Weariness” is the word of choice in the ESV. Not only is it boring, lifeless, and sad, and a little further down in verse 13, it says they’re bringing stolen animals or otherwise injured, lame, and diseased ones! So, He says, “Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.” (Amos 5:23)

Confession is worship, and worship is confession! In repeating them, recalling God’s tributes and accomplishments, we are reminded of God’s qualities of loyalty, steadfastness, and provision, and as a byproduct, we’re encouraged, or at the very least, filled with a right understanding of our place in respect to Him; filled with awe. And what else do we have in response to that?

There’s a song by Jim Croce, “I’ll Have to Say I Love You In a Song.” It’s an oldy-but goodie; in it are the lines, “Every time I tried to tell you, The words just came out wrong, So I’ll have to say I love you in a song.” It’s kind of one of those “if you know, you know” situations. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, just wait until the praise band comes back up!

There’s a saying from St. Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 73, where he says, “He who sings prays twice.” He says this about the power of music in worship, teaching that singing not only expresses prayer but also deepens it, believing that when people sing, they engage both their hearts and minds in devotion to God.

You see, doctrine and praise were always meant to be tied together.

And you say, ‘That’s well and fine, pastor, but today’s about life everlasting!’

Ok!

John 10:28: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

John 11:25: “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.””

1 Timothy 3:16: “And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

Our hope in orthodox Christianity is not in this lifetime, and this is a good thing! How terrible would that be? Think of those in poverty; think of those who, not just today but in the course of human history, have been victims of trafficking or slavery? Those who have experienced nothing but constant war or injustice. What comfort would it be to tell them that this was it?

Our hope is not here. There is A hope in this current life, but it’s only a shadow of our future hope. It’s found in our fellowship with one another, our sharing of burdens, our care for one another, running the race with endurance; the process of growing in our faith through perseverance, which is sanctification. This can be satisfying for a time, but if it is ALL there is, I would submit that it’s not quite enough. Please don’t hear me joining in the rebuke of the Israelites of Amos and Malachai, but endurance and perseverance are not quite their own reward. That’s not why people should join us. Our eternal hope is to join the angelic choir and sing God’s praises forever! Testifying to His greatness with a new, uncorrupted likeness to Him through which we become heirs. As Mark Driscoll once put it, “For some of us, this is the closest some of us will ever have to come to hell. For others, though, this life is the closest they will ever be to the throne of God.”

The point is that there aren’t many Scriptures that explain God’s nature that don’t primarily focus on his deeds.

In addition to declaring God’s identity, the Creeds also outline His present and future actions.

His deeds include creating everything, seen and unseen, taking on flesh, dying, rising from the dead, and ascending. Currently, He’s ruling, constructing a church, expanding his reign throughout every people group, city, and country, granting us fellowship with one another, reconciling us to Him, and pardoning all our transgressions.

He will raise us from the grave so that we can live with Him eternally in a restored and renewed creation.

We can know who the Lord is from what He has done.

Eternal life doesn’t start at the end of this one. No, it started the day the Spirit opened your eyes to know God as your Lord and Savior. Because knowing this fact, and I mean knowing it—in your heart, not your head, it is said that that is the longest 8 inches in the world, Hebrews 11:6 teaches that the one who believes He exists will draw near to Him because they believe He rewards those who seek him. It is the logical result of a proper understanding of your place in regard to God.

There’s another saying by a 4th-century monk, Evagrius of Pontus, who said, “A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian.” It underlines the interconnectedness of our prayer and our theological understanding. This maxim by Evagrius inspired a 5th-century disciple of Augustine, Prosper of Aquitaine, to pen the precept, “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi,” which is Latin for “the law of prayer [is] the law of belief [is] the law of living.” Because how we pray, as Evagrius points out, reflects what we believe about God, whether He is a wish-granting genie, or the Almighty. And what we believe about Him, as Prosper adds, ultimately informs how we go about our life and spiritual walk, whether it is of consequence or not.

Eternal life doesn’t start at the end of this one. It began on a cross 2,000 years ago.

Now, I wish everyone were going to Heaven, but we know that isn’t the case. Billy Graham once said, “If God doesn’t bring judgment upon America, He’ll have to go back and apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!” Part of believing God is just is that he also punishes. If how we pray reflects what we believe about God, and what we believe about Him informs the way we go about our life and spiritual walk. What we profess to believe, I’d say, is pretty important, wouldn’t you?

Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Sure, there are Scriptures like the account in the synoptics, found in Matt 18 and chapter 9 of both Luke and Mark where John says to Jesus,

“Teacher, we saw someone else driving out demons in Your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not accompany us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus replied. “For no one who performs a miracle in My name can turn around and speak evil of Me.

The problem with interpreting this to mean that there is license to say whatever you want about Jesus is probably best articulated by Christ himself in The Parable of the Good Shephard, in which Jesus says, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So, there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

He isn’t describing separation or division at all; rather, He is foreshadowing His future ministry and the inclusion of Gentiles.

Listen to the parable real quick, John 10:1-10:

1 “Truly, truly I say to you, the one who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. 2 But the one who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep listen to his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he puts all his own sheep outside, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 However, a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus told them this figure of speech, but they did not understand what the things which He was saying to them meant.

7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All those who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.

Why do they follow Him? Because they know His voice!

And the point is, it doesn’t matter if you know His voice from Scripture or hymn! “God’s given you a gift, Johnny… You can hear a song once and play it right back.” Had that gift been met with support and fostered, we may well have never heard of the infamous outlaw country singer!

If how we confess reflects what we believe about God, and what we believe about Him informs how we go about our life and spiritual walk, then what we profess is pretty important. “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10). I’d say that pits us pretty firmly against death, wouldn’t you? There’s not much more diametrically opposed to death one can get than life everlasting!

This might as well be Romans Road:

Romans 3:23—We’re all sinners; Romans 6:23—The penalty for sin is death; Romans 5:8—Jesus paid our penalty; Romans 10:9-10—Salvation comes through faith in Jesus; Romans 10:13 Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!

The customary treatment throughout the early church when church leaders erred in their treatises, that is, committing blasphemy or becoming a heretic, was death. That swift earthly judgment might be merciful if today’s alternative is to be allowed to continue on and propagate that message. To paraphrase Billy Graham, if God doesn’t condemn today’s heretics, there will be an apology due to those who were killed as an act of mercy to the fledgling church.

Again, I wish everyone were going to Heaven. And there are many things we don’t know, and I’m not the one in the judgment seat. But Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians, “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:2).

When I started this series 11 weeks ago, I read a quote from Carl Trueman In his book, The Creedal Imperative:

All Christians engage in confessional synthesis; the difference is simply whether one adheres to a public confession… That Christians are not divided between those who have creeds and confessions and those who do not; rather, they are divided between those who have public creeds and confessions that are written down and exist as public documents, subject to public scrutiny, evaluation, and critique, and those who have private creeds and confessions that are often improvised, unwritten, and thus not open to public scrutiny, not susceptible to evaluation and, crucially and ironically, not, therefore, subject to testing by Scripture to see whether they are true.

As I close this series, I want to point out that our creeds are one of the few things that have stood the test of time for most of our history as a people. Through the Reformation, lampstands were removed, and the orthodox confessions of faith that we call Creeds stood the test of time and have been received and repeated by generation after generation.

If anything, it is a modern pride, an innovation of the last 100 years or so, that has suddenly supposed maybe we don’t need these anymore.

I began this morning by recalling The Chosen Series. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. But that they recite Psalm 3 together, that this wasn’t an uncommon practice, the Psalms being ancient prayers, that in reciting them, we are reminded of God’s qualities and faithfulness and are encouraged.

A tradition widely accepted until about the 17th century is that the disciples also once joined in prayer, being led by Peter, who began, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” After which, his brother Andrew said, “And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.” And James, son of Zebedee, or “big James” (as he’s known in The Chosen), added, “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.” Then Thomas said, “He descended into hell and on the third day rose again from the dead.” James, son of Alphaeus, said, “And he ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father Almighty,” to which Philip added, “Thence he will come to judge the living and the dead,” because he spoke fluent Elizabethan. Nathanael followed him, saying, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Matthew added, “The holy catholic church, the communion of saints,” after which Simon says, “the remission of sins.” Thaddeus adds, “the resurrection of the flesh.” And Matthias concludes with, “the life everlasting.” And because it was 12 stanzas and Dallas Jenkins didn’t have any more material, they all said, “Amen.”

I’m kidding. But again,in the same way, that it’s hard to find texts that describe who God is that don’t rely mostly on what he has done, while The Apostle’s Creed is not as much a direct quotation from the Bible; it’s a coherent summary of core biblical teachings, and creeds not only declare who God is, but also what He has done, is doing, and will do. In reciting them we are reminded of God’s qualities and faithfulness and are encouraged. How we pray reflects what we believe about God and how we go about our life and spiritual walk.

The last point I want to make is what exactly this means. What is also true if “life everlasting” is really a thing.

Heaven is older than the Christian Church. It’s older than Christianity because our God has been saving, leading, and instructing his people by all of His Words for much longer than the last 2,000 years.  

In fact, the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11 contains a long list of saints who left behind faithful examples for us. And it says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

The author doesn’t say, “Therefore, since you have some examples,” or “Therefore, since you know these stories,” he says, “Therefore, since [you] are surrounded.” Not only are these saints not dead, they’ve got us surrounded!

As I wrap up this sermon series, I have to say, this has truly been my favorite sermon series yet during my time here, and we’ve had some good ones; The Story, the Parables, Job, Ecclesiastes, Habakkuk now almost 3 years ago! The overall point of this one has been; were not the Sadducees and Pharisees Jews alike, yet the former did not believe in the resurrection? This is, seemingly, a significant issue, yet communion between the two sects persisted. Today, excommunication is practiced instead as a default, only recognizing communion after professing an abstract threshold of similarity.

And those of you here at the beginning of this series will remember the joke I started with, the guy contemplating jumping off the bridge, his would-be rescuer soliciting, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?” ending with him pushing the first man off after he said he was a “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912!” Would grace abound, that love would prevail in the midst of the disparity of dogmas! 

While right belief is worth pursuing, my point is that I am less confident that we have such a vantage in contrast to others, except those addressed in our orthodox confessions!

So, my encouragement to you this morning is to not regard confessing creeds together as some sort of terrible duty, as the Hebrews did in Malachi (1:13), as a “nuisance,” certainly not reduced to the “mourning” as described in Amos (5:21), but as one of the highest privileges we have as Christians. Serving as a call to remember together, and encourage one another that we are never alone in our struggle. In the same way that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27), what a blessing we have to be able to join our voices with the timeless echoing of the saints, expressing our faith together in unity.

Again, not that it is its own reward, but because how we worship reflects what we believe about God, and what we believe about Him provides us our endurance because it is the reason or our sanctification; becoming more like God in thought and deed! This is our eternal hope! For this reason we proclaim this is who we are, this is what we believe, and this is who our God is. The one who has created all things has rescued us by His Son, sent us His Holy Spirit, our Lord, and giver of life so that we might know Him and be brought into His rest.

As long as you are calling out to the same God. On the other hand, serving to identify to us those with false claims about who God is or diminish His Deity.

Because, if it is also true that “No one comes to the Father except through the Son” (John 14:6b), how you go about your life and spiritual walk is a direct reflection of who you confess Him to be.