Marks of the Community

It has been almost two years since Annette, Miss Lynn, and I moved into our condominium in Carrollton, and this week we got our first love letter from the condominium owners’ association.

I had been warned about this kind of thing by others who have lived in places where there are HOAs, but this has been my first experience with it, so I was a little surprised when Annette told me we’d received a notice of violation.

It turns out that we have been directed to have our driveway power-washed, and the notice included a quotation from the association’s bylaws that, frankly, requires some interpretation in order to conclude that we’ve somehow run afoul of the regulations.

Whatever. We’ll get the work done. Living under the sometimes arbitrary rules of this association was something we agreed to do when we signed the real estate closing documents.

Nearly every community and every organization one could ever be a part of includes some sort of statement of principles that one must agree to in order to be a part of it.

Some of you were probably Boy Scouts. Do you remember the Scout Law? A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

The Girl Scout Law is similar: “I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout.”

The Ruritan clubs have a pledge: “We are Ruritans dedicated to improving communities and building a better America. Through fellowship, we are gaining friendships that last a lifetime. By showing goodwill toward others, we are improving the attitudes of many. Through community service, sharing and caring for those around us, we are striving to reach our common goals together. May God Bless the Ruritans!”

Rotary clubs begin their meetings by reciting the Four-Way Test: “Of the things we think, say, or do: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”

These kinds of statements help members of these organizations remember the things that brought them together in the first place. They help the organizations maintain their focus. They help teach new members about the character of the organizations. And they help to remind members of the history of their organizations.

And it may surprise some of you to hear this, but the Church — the big-C Church — seems always to have had statements of this sort that believers learned and recited, much as the Rotary Club recites the Four-Way Test at the beginning of every meeting.

These are creedal confessions — or, simply creeds, and it’s unfortunate that we have lost the tradition of learning and reciting them, because in losing the tradition, we’ve also lost the benefit of education and spiritual formation they represent.

Many biblical scholars believe Paul’s words in Eph 4:4-6 were an early creedal confession that would have been recited when a new convert was baptized.

Ephesians 4:4–6 NASB95

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Another passage scholars believe was a well-known creed in the first-generation church can be found in 1 Cor 15:3-4.

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 NASB95

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Another appears in 1 Tim 3:16.

1 Timothy 3:16 NASB95

By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.

Each of these passages describes something about the faith that the earliest converts to Christianity shared. Each of them was used as a teaching tool within the young church. And each of them helped to focus those believers on the mission of the church — to glorify God by making new disciples in Christ.

Creeds have fallen out of favor in much of the Protestant church. “No creed but Christ” has often been the rallying cry of those who consider such statements of faith to be the stuff of popes and stuffy old churches with pipe organs and chancel choirs.

But you’ve heard me say many times before that WHAT we believe about Jesus is what’s important when it comes to saving faith.

We can believe that He was a great teacher and even a prophet, as many believed during His incarnation on earth, but those things do not constitute saving faith.

What we must believe about Jesus in order to be saved is that He is the unique and eternal Son of God; that He came to earth and lived a sinless life as a man; that He gave Himself as a sacrifice on the cross, taking upon Himself the sins of all mankind and the just punishment for those sins; that His sacrifice provides the only way for people to be reconciled to God; that He was raised back to life on the third day; that He will come again for those living and dead who have placed their faith in Him and His sacrifice on their behalf; and that He will rule in eternity over a recreated world.

These concepts are just the kinds of things we see covered in the creedal confessions of the churches in Ephesus and Corinth. They’re also the kinds of things we see covered in the creedal confessions of the church as it grew and matured in the next few centuries after Jesus ascended back into heaven.

One of the earliest of those creedal confessions is known as the Apostles’ Creed. Nobody is sure when it was written, but there are references to it that are almost as old as the New Testament church, probably dating back to about 150 A.D.

When the Apostles had died, and especially in the absence at the time of the canonical collection of books that we know as the Bible, the second generation of disciples needed to put together a declaration of faith that captured the Apostles’ teaching and that could be passed down to new generations.

You’ll find the text of this creed on the back of your song sheet this morning. Read along with me.

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into Hell, on the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into Heaven and sitteth at that 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.

Now, we’re not going to spend time this morning going through all the doctrine within this creed. I want to encourage you to read it again at home.

Spend some time investigating the Scriptural backing for each of the statements. Creeds aren’t meant to replace the Bible, but to teach it.

I will not be surprised if you have questions about this creed after you’ve examined it. If so, please don’t hesitate to come to me with them.

What I’ll tell you this morning is that the Apostles’ Creed, with some modifications that we’ll see in a few moments, represents the things that all Christians in all places from all times have always believed.

We may differ on the Rapture or millennialism or predestination or lots of other things, but these are the basic tenets of our faith.

But something began to happen after the Apostles’ Creed came into being in the mid-second century. Gnosticism, which held that there was secret knowledge about Jesus that was available only to some, became fashionable, and false teachers associated with it came into the church.

And at the same time, biblical scholars began working to try to understand things like the divine nature of Jesus.

And in the process of all this scholarship, there were some priests and scholars in the church who began teaching things that were contrary to Scripture.

And so, an ecumenical council of churches was convened in Nicea in 325 A.D. And among the things that took place during that council was the writing of what’s known as the Nicene Creed, which dealt very directly with the heretical concepts of the deity of Christ.

Now, I’m not going to read the whole Nicene Creed today. You’ll see it on the back of your song sheet, and again, I encourage you to take some time to look at it for yourself at home.

What I want to focus on this morning, as we continue our series of messages on “The Church — Revealed” is that last paragraph:

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

One of the great things the Nicene Creed accomplished was to set out the four marks of the church, the four characteristics that set this true New Covenant community of the Spirit apart from anything else that might claim to be the church.

First, notice that the Church is mentioned in the same paragraph that describes what we believe about the Holy Spirit. Remember that the Church cannot exist without the Spirit, so this placement makes a lot of sense.

But look at that fourth sentence: “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Those are the four marks, and I want to spend the remainder of our time this morning examining them.

These are the things you should look for in a church, because these are the characteristics that speak to whether an assembly of people who call themselves Christians is truly part of the body of Christ.

The first mark is oneness. We’ve talked a lot about this, and we’ll talk a lot more about it, because Jesus considered unity within the Church to be one of its most important characteristics.

Remember that He prayed in John, chapter 17, “that they may be one even as we are.”

From John 17:22-23:

John 17:22–23 NASB95

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

Unity within the church is one of the ways the church shares the gospel.

Remember the church that formed in Acts, chapter 2? It included people who had come to Jerusalem from all over the known world at the time — slaves and free, women and men, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, prostitutes and Pharisees.

And the people of Jerusalem were amazed at what they saw taking place, because all of these people who might have had nothing to do with one another otherwise were eating together and spending time in one another’s homes, and they had all things in common.

You’ve heard me say it before, but it bears repeating: When the church looks just as divided as the world around it, the church has lost its distinctiveness and it no longer can be an effective witness for Jesus.

Unity within the church should create peace. And since Jesus is the Lord of Peace, peace should be a characteristic that we greatly desire to show the world.

Now, unity doesn’t mean that we all have to agree on everything. But what it does mean is that we have to disagree in love. As the writer of Hebrews puts it:

Hebrews 12:14 NIV

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

So, the first mark of a true church is oneness, or unity. And that verse from Hebrews is a nice transition to the second mark, holiness.

To be holy means to be set apart, dedicated or consecrated to the service of God. And, in the sense that the church — in Greek, the ekklesia — has been called out from the world for service to God, we are already holy. But there is more to holiness than this.

It’s helpful to remember that Scripture portrays holiness as the most foundational characteristic of God. He is absolutely different than everything else in creation. He is set apart from it all.

And His holiness is part and parcel of all His other characteristics. His love and His righteousness and His justice and His grace and His mercy are all aspects of His holiness.

And Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, is the perfect representation of God’s holiness. In His life as a man, we see holiness lived without flaw.

And we who have followed Jesus in faith are being conformed to His image. The Holy Spirit works within us to sanctify us, to make us more and more like Jesus, at least to the extent that we are walking in the Spirit, rather than walking in the flesh.

As one commentator put it, the holiness of the church “can be identified by the degree to which it lives a life reflecting the glory of God seen in Christ. [T]his is made possible by the presence of the Spirit in its midst. When we do this we will demonstrate a distinctive quality to our life that will indeed mark us out as different, distinct from others.” [https://kevinrward.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/one-holy-catholic-and-apostolic-may-2012.pdf]

Of course, this is an imperfect process among imperfect people, but as John Calvin said, it should be the measure toward which the church is daily advancing.

And one of the great problems in the modern church is that it lacks real holiness, because so many of its members have no real desire to be holy themselves. This should be a point of conviction for us all.

We should not desire holiness in order to feel superior to those who are not. Rather, we should desire — and PURSUE — holiness, because our God is holy. “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” He says in both the Old and New Testaments.

So, the true church is one, and the true church is holy. Now, let’s take a look at that word, “catholic.”

The first thing to notice is that this is “catholic” with a little C. This isn’t a reference to the big-C Catholic church.

The English word, “catholic” comes from the Greek word katholikos, which means universal. In the context of the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, catholic refers to the church that includes believers from all generations and from all cultures and societies.

While THIS church is an entire church, it is not THE entire church. We are part of the church universal.

But "catholic” means more than “universal” or “general.” It is also comprehensive in its message. We have the whole truth, all of the saving truth.

D.H. Williams said, “Genuine catholicity is that which pertains to everything necessary for the justification and sanctification of the believer. It is a wholeness of faith that offers the complete counsel of God to all peoples in all times and places.”

Catholicity speaks of the love within a church reaching out to all believers, regardless of race, culture, class, or other distinction. This is the kind of love Jesus was talking about when He said, “By this, all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

We are one Church, because we acknowledge one Savior, Jesus Christ. We are one Church, because we are united by one Spirit. We are one Church, because we have been baptized in one baptism for — or because of — the forgiveness of our sins.

Catholicity was what Paul was talking about when He wrote to the Galatian church:

Galatians 3:28 NASB95

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

So, the true Church is one; it is holy; it is little-C catholic. And it is apostolic.

This may be the easiest of the four marks of the church to understand, but it’s frankly the one that seems to cause the most trouble.

Apostolicity means that the church, as Paul put it in his letter to the Ephesians, has “been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.”

Apostolicity suggests that the church is populated by people who have believed in Jesus through the message of the apostles.

This is the church Jesus prayed for when He asked His Father for unity among those who would believe in Him “through their word,” in other words, through the words of the disciples.

The apostolic church is the church that considers God’s word to be the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.

The apostolic church doesn’t allow itself to fall into the trap of interpreting Scripture through the lens of today’s culture. Rather, the apostolic church engages culture through the lens of God’s unchanging word.

A couple of years ago, someone said to me, “Pastor, I just think that some of that stuff just doesn’t apply to us today. Our culture has changed, and we need to change with it.”

When I said that apostolicity tends to cause the most problems of the four marks of the church, this is the kind of attitude I was referring to. And it’s an attitude that’s more widespread among the modern church than I’d like to admit.

We are playing with fire when we begin to pick and choose what to believe from the Bible.

Now, I know that this has been a bit of an academic discussion today. But I think that it was an important message for you to hear for a couple of reasons. And those reasons will give you an application for what I’ve talked about today.

First, it is useful for us to recognize that some of the ancient traditions we have set aside were useful and edifying. And we’ve lost something in setting them aside.

Whether we begin to recite the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed during our services here or you just spend time studying and understanding them, they are powerful tools for teaching and reminding you what Christians of all times and in all places have always believed.

Much like the Boy Scout or Girl Scout law helps remind Scouts about the core doctrines of those organizations, these confessional creeds remind us of the core doctrines of our faith.

Studying them — and even learning them — can only be to our benefit.

And finally, as God is working to reconcile all things together in Christ Jesus, we contribute to that work only insofar as we exhibit the marks of the true church — oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.

The reason I am preaching this series on the church is that I believe Liberty Spring Christian Church is at a crossroads.

As I have watched the spiritual growth of this congregation during the past couple of years, I have come to realize that we have an opportunity and responsibility to consider just what kind of church this will be in the years to come.

And, as we look in the weeks to come at the purposes of the church, the responsibility of the church, and even the organization of the church, it will be helpful for us to remember that this New Covenant community of the Spirit is one. It is holy. It is catholic. And it is apostolic.

To the extent that we fail to exhibit any of those four marks, we fail to be the church that Jesus founded.