Recognizing Christ: The Power of Presence and Faith

Those that heard Jesus preached the first Easter sermon did not recognize the power of his sermon. So, it it is it would be beyond me to actually think that I could give you any words that were better than his that that you could miss everything I'm about to say because that's exactly what happened. They don't actually understand the power and the lessons being taught in that first sermon until later that night. They're invi they invite Jesus to supper. And when they invite Jesus to supper, they still don't know it's the resurrected Christ. He's already preached the message, the sermon to him, and they still don't know until something interesting happens. [00:02:19]

Jesus takes some bread and he takes the bread and he blesses. He gives thanks for this bread and he breaks this bread. And when he breaks that bread and starts handing that bread out, it's the first time it says that they actually realized it was Jesus, the resurrected king. And and what's interesting about this is Jesus disappears at that moment. And and then they they they think back to the sermon and what they said is very interesting. And he said, "Did our hearts not burn within us when we tal when he talked to us on the road while he opened the scriptures to us?" [00:02:57]

They look back on the power of that sermon. And once they realize it wasn't the words he said, it was the presence of God himself with them. That's what gave that sermon power. That's what gave the message power. And so I want to give you two just caveats to this. The first thing is that this sermon and every lesson you will ever learn in your journey in Christ has no power without the resurrected presence of God with you. There is no lesson that is going to change your life. But the power and the presence of Jesus Christ will. [00:03:41]

The second thing I want you to see though is that even in the presence, even in the the presence of the risen Christ, you can still be distracted. you can still miss the message of the Messiah. Isn't that incredible? In fact, I want to give you some backstory about why I think Jesus left them when he uh when he broke the bread. I think Jesus was overjoyed because he spent his entire ministry trying to teach his disciples the power and this lesson about breaking bread. And up until that point, we don't know that they ever got the message until this last time where he breaks it and they recognize that's Jesus. [00:04:17]

The first one of the first times we see bread is in Mark chapter 6. Jesus is about to preach to 5,000 people. He's going to preach to 5,000 people. And somebody comes and says, "These people are hungry. We're way away from any McDonald's, any place where we get food. Jesus, what are we going to do?" And Jesus says to them, "What do you have?" What do you have? They have five loaves, two fish. Jesus takes it, and what does he do? He takes the bread, he blesses it, he breaks it, and he gives it back to them. And they take it, and they start feeding 5,000 people. [00:04:57]

And after they're done feeding 5,000 people, they have seven, not loaves, seven baskets full left over. And you would think, "Oh, that's a pretty clear thing. If I give something to Jesus, he he will bless it. He might break it, but he'll multiply it." But you know what happens next? This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible because uh in theology we talk about the hypoatic union of the two the two natures of Christ that Jesus is all God and he's all human. There's a third nature. He's all man. He's all dude, too. Because this is a very very manly thing. [00:05:35]

He goes up on this mountain to pray and he prays probably for an hour. we don't know, maybe a few hours. He's up there praying. And the disciples, while he's praying, decide to get in the boat and go across the Sea of Galilee, which is a lake. It's a big lake. And they're going across it. And Jesus up on the mountains done praying. He looks down and he sees that the boat is still making its way across. It's they they're not across yet. And so he sees this headwind. And Jesus has the same thought that every every kid growing up with me would have that that I I would definitely have thought. [00:06:13]

He says, "I think I can beat that boat across the lake. I think I can make it. I think I can beat those guys." In fact, it says in uh Mark chapter 6 and verse 48, it says he was about to pass by them. He meant to pass by them. The reason there's a lot of sermons preached about why he was going to pass by. I think he was going to pass by because his only plan was to get to the other side first and then to say to them, "Hey, what took you so long?" That's the only he was set up for a joke. All his divine powers in that moment were, "I just want to beat him to the other side." [00:06:45]

But what's interesting is what it says in in Mark 6:51 when Mark is telling us why they were freaking out, why they were so scared at a man walking on the water. Listen what he says. It says he got in the boat with him and the wind ceased and they were utterly astounded for they did not understand about the loaves. Their hearts were hardened. So the reason that they freaked out wasn't because they saw this man walking. It's because they didn't understand about the loaves. [00:07:19]

When I give something to Jesus, whether it's my life, whether it's my struggles, my problems, he will take it and he will bless it. Now, he might break what I gave him, but he will multiply it in some way. You might think that lesson is now resonating. Look what happens right after in Mark chapter 8. Right afterwards, they all go get in the boat. Jesus gets in the boat with them this time. And you know something's about to happen because the the first thing it says in verse 14 is this. Now, they had forgotten to bring bread. And they only had one loaf with them, which by the way, they would have had eight loaves to multiply had they remembered to bring that bread. [00:08:48]

They've got one piece or one loaf of bread and they've just seen Jesus not once but twice multiply after breaking and blessing it. So what do they do? Jesus starts to preach a message just to the 12, which seems like an honor. You're in the presence of of a man you've seen walk on water. And now he's going to and the and the theme of the sermon he's about to preach to them is is bread, by the way, leaven. And it's amazing. He starts preaching and what happens? He sees the disciples murmuring. He sees them distracted, not listening to him because they were discussing the fact that they had no bread. [00:09:31]

Jesus, aware of this said to them, why are you discussing the fact you," In fact, he said it like this, "why are you discussing the fact you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Do you still have hearts that are hardened? I think when Jesus saw that the resurrected sermon, the first Easter sermon was recognized by breaking the bread, I think part of him just fell on his knees and said, "Thank God. Finally, somebody got this lesson I was trying to give to him." But here's what I want you to get and understand. Jesus struggled to teach 12 men that spent every second of their lives for three years with him about the kingdom of God and a simple lesson with bread. [00:10:11]

How much more difficult is it going to be for you and I in a world in which distraction is no longer just out there. It's in our pocket. It follows us everywhere we go. Fake news inundates us. There's so much we don't know what is real and what is not real. How much more difficult will it be for you and I to discern the teachings and the things Jesus wanted us to know about the kingdom of God? Who in here has never just wondered, you know, I've been to church. I've done all these things and I don't feel the presence of God the way that I think I should. [00:11:01]

And so this is my goal for this sermon. My goal for this sermon is for you to love an ancient tool that was given to us by the early church, for you to love the creeds. Now, not the band creed, okay? We're clear on that. Okay? Not the Assassin's Creed, the video game, right? Not the guy from the office creed, right? Okay. Not Apollo creed or his son Michael B. Jordan, right? None of those, okay? The ancient creeds. Now, I don't know how you grew up. All of us have different uh uh threads that we came up in. [00:11:54]

But today, I want to show you one of the best tools that we were ever given for our faith. And I just want you to fall in love with it. I want you to understand how the presence of God can be drawn in through the use of the creeds. I want you to understand how how you can use these creeds to to be confident in your eternal salvation, your eternal life. There is some power in the creeds. And no, my hope today is this. Not that this sermon will convince you, man, this is the church you need to be at, or this is, man, this pastor, that's the guy you need to get. [00:12:38]

My hope is this, that somebody in here, and we've been praying all week for this, that somebody in here will finally say, you know what, I've been putting this off. I need to meet with the resurrected Christ. I need to have the Holy Spirit come into my life. Maybe you think, you know what? My life didn't go in the way I thought it would go. my my the direction of my life is is not going or there's an area of my life that I've just given up with. And man, I'm here because of another reason, but man, it would be great if God's presence would would speak to me and would reveal himself in a new way today. [00:13:20]

God has not left us to figure out his teachings all alone. He has given us not just these two. In fact, our church is kind of on a on a several year crusade to to reclaim some of the ways that the church and that God has taught us to worship and to experience his presence. So, I'm going to go through some history everybody. Yay. Okay, we've got two people. That's great. I'm going to speak just to y'all. This this I'm I'm going to give you two different problems that the creed solved in the early church and then we'll go through six things they do for us. [00:13:59]

For the first 30 years there was nothing written down. There were no scriptures in the New Testament. There was no life of Christ they could go read for the first probably uh 30 to 40 years. nobody had. And for the first hundred or or more rarely, you would be you would have hit the lottery if if your church had one copy of one gospel. And if you might have a couple of letters of Paul so that for the first hundred years of the church, most of these underground churches didn't have a copy. There was no printing press. They didn't have a copy. There was no Google either. Did y'all know that? I checked it out. [00:16:07]

They had to figure out a way. How are we going to train people in the gospel but not let it go? And so they came up with a a great great idea to train on the essentials of the faith. The solution the early church came up with was a secret code. They thought of a secret code that if they would just memorize this code, it would never be spoken outside. In fact, it was explicitly said, "You do not speak this to people outside of the church." But this code began something to become something that you could identify other believers just by saying the first words of this code. [00:16:51]

Now, what they would do is they would have a a a time where they would teach you this code. In fact, this is what one of the early pastors serial of Jerusalem said. He said, "Already you stand on the frontier of a mystery. I adjure you smuggle no word out. Not because the things that you are told are not worth telling again because the audience is not fitted to take them in. When by what you experience you grasp the excellent or the grandeur of these things that are being taught, you will know for yourself that the catechumans are not fitted to be told to them. What he's saying is, listen, don't tell what you're about to learn to anyone because they're not ready for them." [00:17:31]

The catechuman was a baptism class. Basically, it was a class before you baptized someone, which would also be done very discreetly. But before you you did this, you would go through a catechum in class and you would be taught these words, this secret code. And then eventually this secret code would be the way you would get baptized. An early follower said it like this. This this is a man named Hippolitis. And this is the way he described the process. He said one would go down into the water and the baptizer will lay his hand on him and say, "Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?" And the response would be I believe. [00:18:21]

And at at that confession, they would baptize him the first of three times. The baptizer would they would then ask, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate and died and rose again on the third day living from the dead and ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the father and will come to judge the living and the dead?" And when he says, "I believe," he is passed into the water a second time. Again, he will say, "Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Church, and the resurrection of the flesh?" [00:18:59]

And the one who is baptized will say, "I believe." And then he will be baptized a third time into the water. And so this confession or this creed, this became a way that you would you would know and be able to recognize these are the essentials of the faith. And you would also be able to know that if you heard your brother say, "I believe in God the Father Almighty," they wouldn't have to say anything else. you would know that is my brother in Christ, that is my sister in Christ. We are united because of those words. [00:19:39]

But an interesting thing happened now. You do start googling the the church down the street, right? and and you begin to see, wait a second, I don't know if that's the same thing I I learned in the catechum. I don't know if that's the same baptismal creed. And what was astounding is most of the churches were were were what we call orthodox. Orthodox is simply a word that means right teaching means good teaching. Okay. Now, if you have a capital O, there are some that that will have Eastern Orthodox, Greek orth in their name. Okay, that's different. Okay. Orthodox is just a word shouldn't be scared of it. Means good teaching. [00:20:40]

There were a lot of orthodox teachings but there were some crazy teachings too. There was the uh the Simmonians and they followed a guy named uh Simon Maggus. Okay. Now this guy he taught that the angels created the world and that Jesus was never resurrected. Can you imagine the worst Easter sermon ever? Right? You go there for the resurre nothing nothing. You're just waiting and nothing. Right? This was being taught in a church though. You understand this is a problem. There were the Gnostics. They were all over the place. The Gnostics, they believed that the material uh flesh and the material world is a bad is evil. [00:21:21]

And so Jesus was not a human. He appeared to be a human. And if you wanted to get rid of and and get this secret knowledge, they claimed you could have this divine spark and you could supersede this as well. Probably the the biggest uh Tik Tok influencer at the time was a guy named Aryen. Aryan is the guy that really started throwing things in. Okay, Aryan was a popular pastor. Aryan was a guy that had a huge following and was was actually a leader in churches. Okay, and now Aryan, he also said that that Jesus Christ was created and he said things that that he's not equal to God the Father. [00:21:59]

There were a lot of problems with what Aaron was saying. And so, what do you do? What do you do when the Tik Tok theologians and all of the the internet begins to try to say things that might be adding or might be twisting things just a little bit? I would argue that the solution for us in this day to the heresies is the same as the solution for that day. In fact, did you know, I was uh researching this a little bit, 60% of Americans say there is no objective truth. 60% of Americans. Do you know that one out of three Christians do not know or do not think that God is a trinity? [00:22:39]

That God is triune. In fact, two out of three would say that the Holy Spirit is a force to be wielded or invoked and not a divine person of the Holy Trinity. In fact, there are theological errors rampant today just as there were then. And the solution they came up with is they got as many of these Orthodox, these right teaching churches together and they spent not days, not weeks, sometimes decades, and even centuries getting every word and language right. So that when you profess to be a follower of Jesus, you could know I have right teaching. [00:23:19]

The word creed comes from the Latin word credo, which means I believe. In Greek, it's symbol and sometimes they're called the symbols. Now, when we use these, we need to understand in this series, we're going to to look at two the next two weeks, we're going to look at two of the most popular and most influential creeds of the early church, the Apostles Creed and the Nyine Creed. By the way, I am going to start a cover band for Creed called the Nyine Creed if anyone wants in. Yes, I'm looking for a drummer and a basist and backup dancers. [00:23:59]

So, why study the creeds? We're in a church, right? We're supposed to study the scriptures. And I 100% I grew up where you did not study the creeds. You did not read the creeds. I grew up where the the scriptures is all we did. We had no creed but Christ. And that's what I grew up in. But I will tell you, part of my hope for this is that as our church, and you know this, if you're a part of our church, if you're new to this church, this is a little different. We focus on the essentials more than anything else in this church. [00:24:52]

And so part of this series is our church anchoring to these two creeds. As when we think about what is our church about, we want to be known for the essentials of what we believe. And there are a lot of things that we don't believe or we believe different than other churches. But we do not major on these. We major on the essential things that Jesus taught us that the essential things that we need to and these creeds sum them up very well. I would say it like this. Scripture is God's word to man, but the creeds are man's word to God. So at one time, the creeds can be a prayer, can be a worship song. [00:25:32]

It can be a a a clear statement of beliefs. It can be a way for for someone new to the faith to know this is what I need to believe. In fact, here's what an early believer said about the creeds in about the year 400. Beloved, persevere in the tradition that you have learned. Be true to the pact you made with the Lord and the profession of faith which you have made in the presence of angels and men. The words of the creed are few, but the all mysteries are in them. Selected from the whole scripture and put together for the sake of brevity. [00:26:12]

They are like a precious gems making a single crown. Thus all the faithful have sufficient knowledge of salvation. even those that that are even though there are many that are unable or too busy with worldly affairs to read the scriptures. And so beloved, whether you are walking, resting, or at work, whether you are asleep or awake, let this salutoary confession be ever in your hearts. Let your souls forever be in heaven. It's a great tool that the early church used. [00:26:52]

If you're new to the faith and you've always wanted I've always wanted to to read the Bible. I would tell you the creed, Apostles Creed, the Nyine Creeds, they're a great place to start to give you the overview before you get into the text and then read the scripture as well. But the creeds are a powerful tool if you're trying to teach your children. This is a powerful tool. In fact, let me give you six reasons and we'll do these pretty good, pretty quick. Uh six re uh reasons or purposes we go that we want to study the creeds. [00:27:16]

The first one I've already given to you. It clearly articulates the essentials of the faith. The creeds clearly. This is what orthodox Christianity believes. The second is also something we've talked about. It's heresies. It tells us what not to believe. It helps us to discern non-Christian beliefs. In fact, I want to to real quick just give you an example of this. Let's suppose you had someone walk up. Maybe they're a Jehovah's Witness and they walk up to you in your house and they say, "Listen, I want to tell you about Jehovah." [00:27:44]

And they begin to tell you how Jesus was not God Almighty that that Jesus is created. And they even show you some scriptures, maybe Colossians 1, Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. See, he's the firstborn. So, he was born. So, he's obviously God's, you know, created son. How do you refute this? Now, some of us theologically might say, "I know that doesn't sound right, but how do you refute this?" So, I'm going to give you a scripture or I'm going to give you a a quote from the Nying creed. And the Nying creed, they spent hundreds of years trying to figure out how do we talk about Jesus? [00:28:24]

And this is what they said. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, the only begotten, begotten of the father before all ages, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made. Y'all repeat that with me. begotten, not made, of one essence with a father, by whom all things were made. By the way, Bob's going to be preaching this in two weeks, so I'm not going to steal his whole sermon. But what's the difference between being begotten and not made? And why would they spend a hundred years trying to clarify this? [00:28:56]

Listen, there's a difference between begotten and made. And the early church had drew this distinction out. Okay, this is what they said. They said, "You do not make a baby. You beget a baby." And the reason is this. If I'm going to make something, I am making something. To make is to produce something different than yourself. To produce something different than yourself. If I make something, it's I make something different than myself. To begat is to produce something that is the same essence of yourself, the same thing as you. I can make a bowl of spaghetti. Okay? I can't make a baby. I beget a baby. [00:29:37]

That's why when you read the scriptures, Matthew in the King James version, you this is where you you tune out because it says that that you know Abraham begget Isaac, Isaac begget Jacob, and Jacob beget Judah and his brothers. And so you you that word beget is showing hey that that's a specific word that the church uses. And so the nyine creed they tell us listen God and Jesus are the same essence the same. They even create a word. I'm not going to give you the word. They make up a word for this. But begotten is a way that we would describe not made. It is the same. They're are distinct. Jesus and the father are distinct but they are both one God. [00:30:13]

And they wrestled with this. And so if you ever have a Jehovah's Witness, come just say, "Let's read the Nysine Creed because the Nine Creed is going to define this for us." And if you ever find uh whether it's a Mormon or or another uh uh another church or another cult, and they won't confirm either of these two creeds, that should have alarm bells going off. Now, another thing that a creed does is it clearly articulates what is not essential, but is still orthodox. There are some things that are okay as Christians, but they're not in the creed. So, that should allow us to at least say, "Okay, I can be a Christian even though I didn't grow up in the same tradition as you." [00:30:57]

Baptism is not talking about how you got baptized is not talked about in the creed. Some of you were baptized as babies. Some of you were were dipped. Some of you were dunked. You had a whole bunch of different ways. Okay? It's not in the creeds. Why? Because it's not it's important. We have a way we do it here. We have strong beliefs about it. But doesn't mean you're not a believer because the creeds intentionally did not address those. Also, there's what we call esquetology, the end times. You can believe that we are living in a dispensation. You can believe that Jesus is coming before the tribulation. [00:31:37]

You can believe that the tribulation is coming before Jesus. Your head might be spinning right now and say, "I don't know and I don't care what I believe." Listen, it's okay. It's not in the creeds. It's not in the creeds because that's not the essential part of the faith. There's a theological word called sotiology. How does God save us? Some of us might have a belief of Calvinism or Arminian or that I'm 100% predestined and everything is already ordained or maybe I have 100% free will. You know what? The creeds don't care. What matters in the creeds is that we know what matters. And so that's what they help us do. [00:32:17]

But there's other things. It unites us. There's a word you're going to hit several times in the creeds, the we believe in the holy Catholic Church. And everyone that's not Catholic says, "Oh, I hate that. What does that mean, Joel?" And that's again, it goes back to like that word orthodox. Catholic means universal. You have to understand that in the in the early baptismal creed when they said we believe in the holy Catholic Church, they weren't saying we believe in the pope. That is not what they were saying. What they were saying is there's only one church. There's one church. And if you believe in this creed, if you believe in these essentials of the faith, it doesn't matter if you're in WY, Texas, or if you're in another part of the country, or if you're another church in WY, Texas. [00:32:57]

If you're preaching this creed, this gospel, then you're a part of the church. But it's not just for location. It's also we're united to every church that's ever existed. We are a part of the the early first century church in Jerusalem, the early 2n century church in uh in Rome, all of the different churches of different eras. We are united. Which means if you've struggled with something and you think I'm the only one, I promise you, not only are you not the only one throughout ages, men and women have been crying out for God and feeling the power of God. And it gives us something to unite in. So don't be scared of that word Catholic. [00:33:37]

Another thing is it does it improves your worship with a clearer picture of God. I heard uh pastor Matt Chandler say the creed is like leg day. How many of y'all have ever worked out a day in your life? Okay, hopefully some of y'all. Okay, not a lot. So hopefully that was rhetorical in your minds. Now you've seen those people that look like an apple with two toothpicks coming out of their legs. Right. Right. Okay. That that they look tough. They look like they know it all because they can bench press, you know, 600 lb. But I mean, hypothetically, if you had a pastor that knew jiu-jitsu, I would just tell you, you would be able to take that person down and smash them and or at least your pastor would in in no time because they don't have legs. [00:34:23]

If you want to be stout, if you want to be someone who can handle yourself, you have to have a strong core. You have to have symmetry. You have to be able to have strong legs and a strong arms. And so, every church you've ever been a part of has had some struggle with asymmetry. Some churches grew up with a strong belief in the Holy Spirit. Some it was minimized down and we grew up in a different tradition. Maybe it was all about Jesus but never about the father. Or maybe you you grew up with just some ideas about, hey, I can be a Christian and not the church. And then all of a sudden you read the creeds. Oh, says I believe in the holy church that we're one church. [00:35:03]

Some of us grow up with this belief that God the father is like the the evil or the we wouldn't say evil but he's the mean judge that we we fear. It's very interesting when you read the creeds who does it say judges. Do you remember says that Jesus Christ says the son is the one who sits at the right hand of God and judges. But reading and understanding this creed that's one of the mysteries that the early Christians talked about. If you understand that picture that God the father almighty has he has given the authority to Jesus to judge which means the very savior who died on a cross for your sins who loved you so much that even though you sinned probably today you probably will tomorrow me as well Jesus says I love you so much I'm going to the cross for you and by the way I'm also the merciful judge you're going to stand before when you proclaim me on that day it can change everything when we begin to understand. [00:35:55]