Wednesday, March 4, 2015

"This I Believe--The Apostles' Creed" Lenten Midweek Series 2, Feb. '15, 1 Cor. 15.3-8

 

1.                 Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  We’ve traveled one week so far on our Lenten journey. I hope you’re profiting from reading Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms.  A few years ago, a Lutheran pastor was in a serious car accident. Seat belts and air bags saved his life, but nothing could save his car. The insurance wasn’t enough for a new car, but it was enough to buy an older model with heated seats! With delight the pastor imagined the first winter day that he would turn on those heated seats and live in luxury!  But, the pastor was disappointed when winter came and he got into the car to push the button. No heat! He determined that the next summer he’d check the wiring and the fuses.  Sometime later, the pastor managed to push a button by mistake. The seat began to heat. He was so excited he found his son and told him, “This is great!” He showed him how he’d turned on the seats. He said, “Oh, I knew how to do that.”  This was a great revelation to the pastor. The only thing wrong with his car was his ignorance. Unfortunately, in today’s culture, it’s not so silly that people often are proud of their religious ignorance. The consequences can be serious.  Many are ignorant about the Apostles’ Creed—both about why we use it and about its content. Rather than ignorance, let’s be sure we know, what’s in a Creed Anyway?

2.                Our American Christian culture is mainly non-creedal. It believes there’s something wrong if you declare, “This I believe” when speaking of the Creed. One group says “deeds, not creeds.” Another says, “It’s my freedom to believe what I want. Don’t tell me what to believe.”  It’s tempting to buy into this culture and say, “It doesn’t really matter what anyone else says about the Bible. The only thing that matters is what it means to me.” People develop strange ideas about the Bible when they abandon the creeds of the Ch urch. They become pleased with their ignorance.

3.                Did you know that the Bible contains creeds? Our text today is an early creed. Paul quotes it to the Corinthians: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3–4). Doesn’t that sound similar to the Apostles’ Creed?  The creeds have been part of the foundation of Christian teaching for over 1,500 years. We use the three ecumenical creeds because they summarize the Bible’s teachings.

4.                I’ve had the privilege to read St. Augustine, and I can relate to him because he taught the catechism every year. Just as we’re doing, Augustine would teach the catechism during Lent. Part of his instruction was the Apostles’ Creed. (See William Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1995].) By Augustine’s day, around AD 400, Christian instruction using the Apostles’ Creed already had been taking place for about 200 years. As we meditate on our Christian faith as confessed by saints throughout the ages and reflected in the Apostles’ Creed, we’re in good company. For this reason Martin Luther identified the Creed as a chief and important part of Christian doctrine.  The Creed is divided into three parts, concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Did you notice that this is how our Readings were divided today—the Old Testament Reading about the Father, the Epistle about the Son, and the Gospel about the Holy Spirit?

5.                The first Reading was creation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Gen 1:1–5). Before God said, “Let there be light,” there never had been a day before.

6.                Martin Luther did something interesting with the First Article of the Creed. He made it personal. Asking, “What does this mean?” he answers, “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul . . .” And he still takes care of me today!  There was a time—an evening and a morning—when you had your first day. Do you know who gave that first day to you? God did. God the Father gave you your first day.  Luther says in the Large Catechism, “If you were to ask a little child, ‘My dear, what sort of a God do you have? What do you know about Him?’ The child would say, ‘This is my God: first, the Father, who has created heaven and earth. Besides this One only, I regard nothing else as God. For there is no one else who could create heaven and earth’ ” (LC II 11). Later he says, “This is what I mean and believe, that I am God’s creature. . . . I mean that He has given and constantly preserves . . . for me my body, soul, and life, my members great and small, all my senses, reason, and understanding, and so on” (LC II 13).

7.                Unfortunately many people only know the God of nature, the God of creation, the God of power & might, the God of hurricanes and tornadoes, the God of lightning and floods. The First Article ought to humble and terrify us all, Luther says, “if we believed it. For we sin daily . . . with eyes, ears, hands, body and soul, money and possessions, and with everything we have” (LC II 22). Our sin offends the Creator. It’s a wonderful blessing that the Creed goes on to teach about the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

8.                In the First Article of the Creed, you learn that God gives you all that you have. In the Second Article of the Creed, you find out that God gives you all that he is. Luther says, “He completely poured forth Himself . . . and withheld nothing from us” (LC II 26). God gave you all he is when he gave his only-begotten Son.  I believe “in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.” These are wonderful facts of history. Luther makes it personal. He says. “What does this mean? I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.”

9.                Some people will say, “Jesus is Lord. You must make Jesus the Lord of your life; make him the boss of your heart.” But here’s what Luther says: “I believe that Jesus Christ, God’s true Son, has become my Lord. But what does it mean to become Lord? It is this: He has redeemed me from sin, from the devil, from death, and from all evil. . . . Let this, then, be the sum of this article: the little word Lord means simply the same as redeemer (LC II 27, 31).  If Jesus hadn’t died on the cross, do you know who your Lord would be? Sin, death, and the devil. For Jesus to be your Lord isn’t something that you do. It isn’t putting Jesus on the throne of your heart. It’s Jesus stretching out his hands and allowing himself to be nailed to the cross. For “He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” When he has become my Lord through his death on the cross, then “I will be his own and live under him in his Kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.”

10.            In the Second Article, we learn that God has given himself to us, all that he is in the person of Jesus, our Savior. That should be enough, right? God created you, gave you your eyes, ears, fingers, toes, and then he gave you his Son, Jesus, who died on the cross for your sins to be your Lord, your Redeemer. That should be enough, but it’s not. Jesus knew that it wasn’t enough. The Holy Spirit must be given.  In John 15, Jesus says, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning” (vv 26–27).

11.            Jesus died on the cross. That’s an objective reality. It happened. But unless the Holy Spirit applies the reality of Jesus’ death on the cross to you, to your heart, it remains hidden from you. Just as in ignorance the Lutheran pastor didn’t know how to turn on the heated seats in his car, there are many people in the world for whom Jesus died who know nothing about him. Or they may know the facts about him but refuse to believe in him as Savior. The Holy Spirit must give you faith.  The work of the Holy Spirit is sanctification, the work of making you holy. He does this when he calls you by the Gospel, enlightens you with his gifts, sanctifies and keeps you in the true faith.  The Holy Spirit connects you to Jesus, his cross, and his resurrection. He does this through the Means of Grace, Word and Sacraments. Luther says this in his Large Catechism, “How is such sanctifying done? Answer, ‘The Son receives dominion, by which He wins us, through His birth, death, resurrection, and so on. In a similar way, the Holy Spirit causes our sanctification by the following: the communion of saints or the Christian Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting’ ” (LC II 37).

12.            I believe that you have faith in Jesus. How did you receive that faith? You received it through the Church. Whether you know it or not, members of the Holy Christian Church brought the Word of God to you. For some it was the Word connected to the water of Baptism. For others it was the Word proclaimed in a sermon or shared over a cup of coffee. Possibly it was the Word printed in a booklet given to you. But it was the Church that the Holy Spirit used to bring you to faith.  He uses the Church to keep you in the faith. Luther writes this: “The Spirit has His own congregation in the world, which is the mother that conceives and bears every Christian through God’s Word” (LC II 42). Next comes this famous quotation of Luther, “I believe that there is upon earth a little holy group and congregation of pure saints, under one head, even Christ. . . . This group is called together by the Holy Spirit in one faith, one mind, and understanding, with many different gifts, yet agreeing in love, without sects or schism” (LC II 51). This is you. The Holy Spirit has made you a member of that little group, the Church. It may not appear to the world to be successful, but success in the world can often be counterfeit to God. By the calling of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, you are part of this little flock.

13.           I mark up my sermon notes in various ways: Bold type means “better not miss that one.” An asterisk marks things I’d better not skip. Here’s my bold Luther quote of the night, so wake up, if you fell asleep: “Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live” (LC II 55). That’s why we’re here. The Church exists for people to come and know their Savior Jesus and his precious blood shed on the cross and to receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. That’s the Creed we believe. Amen.

 

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