Apostles Creed: The Forgiveness of Sins, The Resurrection of the dead, The Life Everlasting

Introduction:

Introduce myself: Abdiel Valerio - Youth Pastor for Highland and Munster Campus’

Concluding the Series on the Apostles Creed.

Kids will receive a gift for memorization, and might get two since its the last day!

I’ve been enjoying this series and I think its great that we take time to learn about the Creed. It can sometimes seem like we just grow up with a tradition and never really know why we practice it. We ought to have the meat on the bones when it comes to our faith so we can stand strong against opposition and so that we can live a life that honors God.

Our main focus today is of the last portion of the Creed

The forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body

and the life everlasting

Let’s now go to our passage of Scripture today that we will use to explain these lines.

2 Corinthians 5:17–21 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

PRAY

Content

There are three pieces of this portion of the creed that actually have to do with our position in the faith

Book, “Apostles Creed” by R. Albert Mohler Jr.,

“Now however, the creed turns to the character of mankind. Humanity finally shows up, and we show up as sinners

To understand forgiveness, the first thing we have to do is ask ourselves, “what am I being forgiven for?” Let’s look at the first line of the Apostles Creed - The Forgiveness of Sin.

We have sin, but we are Forgiven

1. We are Forgiven

context of sin: In Genesis, God establishes two trees. One was the tree of life, the tree that produced fruit that gave Adam and Eve an eternal life. The other tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree did the opposite and ended life.

God made an agreement with Adam and Eve - I have given you this place, I have given you a privilege over this place, and I have given you a purpose, Now be fruitful and multiply and don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam and Eve were both disobedient to their purpose and ate of the fruit and placed a curse on the world which was sin. The tree of life was then blocked off and no one could access the fruit that gave people eternal life. Mankind would always be born into the curse of sin.

So think about it this way, if we were to grade ourselves from an F to an A like we do in school, and the grade was in goodness, we would get an F as soon as we came into being.

The Grading scale comes from the 10 commandments, Each law shows us how we have all fallen short in some way.

We’ve lied - white lie

we’ve stolen - no matter its value

we’ve disobeyed God, took his name in vain

worshipped idols in our lives

All this to say, our human nature is sinful because of the curse placed upon creation in Genesis.

(good way to start our morning - we are sinful! but in order for there to be good news, there has to be bad news present. I’m just letting you all know what this bad news is. We have a problem, and we need forgiveness.

Denial of Sin

some of us however, might be in denial of our sinful nature.

watch the news and see everyone else is worse than me.

“the people doing those things are the sinners, i’m not as bad as they are.

The truth is God sees us all as sinners

Romans 3:23 (ESV)

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

This “all” includes you and I into the list of horrible sinners we have made.

God does not over look any sin

white lie to spouse or parents

We all have sin regardless of how we might measure it.

The Good News

The good news is that this nature is transformed because of the work of Jesus Christ.

Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:17-22 again and let’s start first with verse 17

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

What’s the old self that has passed away? It’s referring to our sinful human nature that I brought up. We all start with it, but the beauty of Jesus’ death and resurrection is that when you believe in Him, believe that he took the penalty of sin we deserved, rose 3 days later to proclaim victory over sin and death, than we can also have victory over those things. We become a new creation.

Communion Thought

This is why we engage in communion, so we can continue to remember the punishment Jesus suffered on our behalf. The body that was broken for our transgression and the blood that was spilled to cleanse us of our sins.

May we consider this as we prepare to take communion later on in this service.

Identity Transformed

Our identities are transformed and our sins are then forgiven. If you are in Christ, you have been transformed into this new creation. This new creation really refers to a moral change. To be transformed doesn’t mean we change physically into something mystic or like a Decepticon. But rather, your F turns into a perfect A.

When God sees you, He doesn’t look at your sin anymore, he looks at the goodness and perfect nature of Jesus Christ.

Reconciliation

Let’s keep going in our passage, look at verses 18 and 19.

2 Corinthians 5:18–19 (ESV)

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Let’s just first take notice at the first 5 words of these verses. ALL THIS IS FROM GOD. Our salvation comes from God, not from anything we have done or said to deserve it. We may have prayed a prayer, but the Lord put the words into your mouth by His Spirit. Consider:

Ephesians 2:8 (ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

What did God do? He reconciled us to Himself

Reconcile: To restore a relationship

The word reconcile implies that something is broken, it implies rebellion. Like when you consider marriage, you enter into an agreement with vows, promising how you will treat each other in the relationship. But if someone breaks a vow, the relationship becomes broken which then we would need to fix. The thing about us and God as i’ve just mentioned, is that we cannot fix the problem. The one who fixed the problem was Jesus.

His death and resurrection worked like a bridge to make a way for mankind and God the Father to have a relationship with no barriers.

Adam to Jesus

Our relationship was broken because of the work of the 1st Adam, but Christ has come to restore it as the 2nd Adam

The tree of life which carried the fruit of eternal life in the Garden of Eden had transformed and been shaped into a rugged, splinter-filled cross that carries the fruit of eternal life in the form of a suffering servant who bore the shame and curse of all the world.

This work of Christ now to those who believe, becomes our ministry. As Christ brought reconciliation to us, we are meant to share this message with others around us.

This is the beauty of our new purpose: That God would entrust us who were once sinners to be agents of a message that brings eternal life.

That’s what the message of reconciliation is. It is the GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ.

5 points of the Gospel

If you don’t know how to share the Gospel, here is what I would call the 5 points of the Gospel:

We are sinners

We deserve God’s Justice - Hell - Eternal Separation from God

The first two are necessary otherwise we have an incomplete gospel. Don’t just skip to “Jesus loves you and died for you.”

God gives us mercy and places His Justice upon Jesus on the cross

He (Jesus) rose after 3 days to be victorious over sin and to give us victory over sin

We must repent and believe in Him, and He will give us his perfect nature so that we can live for Him and receive eternal life in Him

Have you been reconciled? If so, then you are entrusted to share this life-giving message.

This leads us to the understanding of Eternal Life in the Creed - we receive eternal Life

2. We Receive Eternal Life

2 Corinthians 5:20–21 (ESV)

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Paul uses a metaphor of what our purpose is while we are here today.

We are Ambassadors

Definition of Presidential Ambassador: An Ambassador is the President’s highest-ranking representative to a specific nation or international organization abroad.

Someone that is sent to a foreign nation to represent their home nation.

All this to say: You and I are called to represent the Most High and Holy God while you live here. The Bible is clear that this is not our home, we are citizens of heaven. SO you are a representative of your true home while you are here as a foreigner. My question for you is:

How do you represent Christ in your daily life?

How are you representing Christ at home? at work?

Students, How will you represent Him at school or in your neighborhood?

How do you live with eternity in mind in what you do everyday?

What is Eternal Life

Eternal Life doesn’t start the moment you die, it begins the moment you believe that Jesus Christ is your Savior

Another thing to note about Eternal Life is that its not ONLY referring to us living forever, it refers to the life we were designed to have. That is a quality of life with God that is pure and intimate. We of course will deal with our sin and brokenness while we live, but forgiveness is how we can remind ourselves of how we are made right with God through Jesus Christ.

So to bring back the question, how are we living today with eternity in mind?

Living in Eternity Today

Think about the relationships you have with people.

Is the way you treat others now the same way you think you will treat them in heaven?

If you think that it will be different in Heaven, I would suggest that you need to change the way you treat others now. Forget political parties, forget ethnicity, forget rich or poor, forget appearance, and skills, and remember that Christ has made us to represent Him as He is the King of all people.

Don’t let your identity be found in your politics, material wealth or poverty, don’t let it be found soley on your ethinicity either, for we are all one in Jesus Christ.

Our differences let us know the extensiveness of God’s grace, but our identity is found in Christ alone.

We have been given an identity and role as an ambassador so that we can live in a Christlike manner for others to see, and people are watching.

How people see you will determine how they see Christ

You may be the first Jesus someone may see, but will He be the true Jesus when they see you?

We must be mindful of our attitudes, actions, and our words. We ought to live now as though we are already walking in our eternal state of life.

So how do we live into our eternal life?

I’ll give you 2 ways we are meant to live in our eternal state of life today a part from representing Christ as we should.

Participate in the body of Christ

Heaven: place where community of believers come together to work and worship God in everything they do.

The church is a clear foretaste of exactly that heavenly experience.

Consider right now, you are surrounded by other believers and we are worshipping together. You right now are experiencing a foretaste of the heavenly experience. The cool thing about it is that a building won’t be able to contain in in heaven. And neither should it contain the church now.

Cameron spoke beautifully last week on the church not being a people, but a people. Your participation in the body of Christ is a gift and each of you have a gift to give to the body of Christ.

What more can we do? Get to know those around you right now, invite them to your house for dinner, introduce them to your family, Live with each other as though you are already in heaven. Serve in the church, sign up for a small group, come to youth group.

Your participation in the body of Christ is a beautiful foretaste of what is to come.

2. Forgiving others

Consider the grace that has been placed on you. You have been given something you didn’t deserve, forgiveness. God have that to us freely and powerfully. However, forgiveness can be easy to receive, but not easy to distribute.

There are many reasons why we may not be able to forgive someone, but I want to maybe just share two. These are the two P’s that get in the way of forgiveness.

PRIDE & PAIN

Pride - Pride gets in the way of knowing that we are sinners and we make mistakes.

Pride makes us think that we are better than others. Sort of like how I mentioned before, the bad people on tv are the sinners, i’m not that bad. the thing is Hell burns at the same temperature despite what you think is better or worse.

Pain - Pain is a huge barrier next to Pride. When you think about what someone has done to you, it might bring out a lot of hurtful memories and feelings that just make you feel sick. There is nothing abnormal about these feelings, we have the right to feel them, but we should not be led by them.

Our great hope we have in Christ is that we can come to him bearing all of this pain and trust that He would give us the strength to forgive.

Why should we forgive?

We forgive because we have experienced the greatest forgiveness. The Most High and Holy Being has extended His grace and mercy to us who are filled with sin.

Jesus makes it very clear in Matthew 6:15 right after he teaches his disciples about prayer, “but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

We need God’s strength to forgive those who have hurt us, since we have been forgiven, we must also do the same to others.

So we can live into our eternal life now, but we should also expect that the best is still yet to come. This leads us to the Ressurrection of the Body.

The Resurrection of the Body

3. We Receive a New Body

Those in Christ can also experience the resurrection of the body and this is what we know about this body:

1 Corinthians 15:42–44 (ESV)

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

We can simply say that our desires here will not be the same as they are when we are risen up with Christ.

Our souls will be with the Lord when we pass away, but when God restores all to a new heaven and new earth, our bodies then will rise up in a new way so we can be with God in soul and in body. Think even about what Jesus was able to do when He rose from the dead. He could pop into rooms with the door locked. Just imagine if you could do that now someone talking a mess behind a door and you just pop in without touching the door, “What you all talking about?”

We receive a taste of that when we are made into a new creation. Our morals change and we have a desire now to serve and seek after God rather than seeking and serving ourselves which is what our old selves desired.

The Best is yet to come

Buried with a Fork

There’s a story of a lady who requested to be buried with a fork in her hands. Her reason was this, “When I was a little girl, my grandmother would take me to church, and after the service there would always be a selection of cakes and desserts. Often I would eat a piece of cake and then put my fork and plate away. But sometimes my grandmother would come up and tell me to keep my fork because the best desserts were yet to come. The reason I want to be buried holding a fork is because, just as my grandmother told me, I believe that the best is still yet to come.

This is our Hope in Christ. The best is yet to come

Conclusion - Transition to Communion

Maybe you have never put your trust in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Or maybe you haven’t been living in a committed relationship with Him, we would love to pray with you after service and hear your story. Our prayer room will be open for you and we would love to help you understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Charlie will now lead us in communion.