Beliefs of Our Faith Community Part #1
In recent months we finished up two series of messages that relate to the series that we will start today.
What Every Christian Believes was a series about the dogma of the faith.
Dogma states the essential beliefs of Christianity.
We used the Apostle’s Creed to help identify the dogma of the Church
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from where 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.
Just a reminder the word catholic in the creed refers to the church universal not the
Roman Catholic Church or Catholicism.
After considering dogma we then studied the book of 1 John, exploring Authentic
Christianity.
The Apostle John gave us three tests to assure us that we are practicing
Authentic Christianity.
There is the Dogma test of the incarnation,
Jesus is fully God and fully human, fully both at
the same time.
There is the moral test of obedience,
A true believer obeys God’s commands
And there is the social test of love,
A true believer self sacrificially meets the needs of others
If you recall a person needs to pass all three tests in order to be practicing
authentic Christianity.
Today we will start a series entitled “Beliefs of Our Faith Community”
This will be a series about doctrine.
You know that dogma is a consistent across the wide spectrum of
authentic Christian belief.
Doctrine is a faith communities belief and practice based on dogma.
Doctrine can be different from one faith community to the next.
Because they are basically the faith communities
Teachings of their understanding of the scripture.
All doctrines are subordinate to dogma.
In other words doctrines that disagree or contradict dogma,
Are wrong.
I put a picture of the Christian Faith Family Tree in your notes.
Judaism is at the bottom because out of it came Christianity.
Judaism is in the roots of Christianity
But the tree doesn’t break ground until Christ.
Each one of those branches holds to the dogma of the Apostle’s Creed,
But each branch has a different doctrinal stance
Way up at the top of the tree you will see a branch labeled “holiness.”
I’d like you to draw in 5 smaller branches
And then label the branches:
Wesleyan, Salvation Army, Nazarene, Free Methodist
and Church of God (Anderson)
These five faith families are very similar in
doctrine.
These five faith families
Wesleyan, Salvation Army, Nazarene, Free Methodist and Church of God
(Anderson)
are very similar in doctrine.
Even though this is a very simplistic diagram
we can trace our doctrinal roots from the holiness movement that occurred
just before the civil war to Methodism, and John Wesley
to Anglicanism (The Church of England) and James Arminius,
to the Protestant Reformers and Martin Luther,
to the Roman Catholic Church,
to the Apostles, to Jesus.
At the end of our session today you will
Know why doctrine is important.
You will have gained and understanding of the core
values of the Church of the Nazarene,
you will have read through our doctrinal statements
And you will have taken a quiz to test your skills at discerning
dogma and doctrine.
Why in the world would we spend time on learning the doctrines of our faith
community?
“Doctrine is important because ultimately the decisions that we make
and the actions that we perform will be based upon what we believe.”
http://preachersfiles.com/why-is-doctrine-so-important/
2 Tim 4:3 (MSG)
You're going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy
Solid teaching, sound doctrine, is what we want to discover.
Our doctrinal beliefs form a part of our world view,
how we see the reality around us,
shaping what we deem trivial and what we hold as vitally essential.
Doctrine dictates behavior,
What we think effects what we do,
Doctrine creates boundary lines for discipleship.
They direct, and they contain, and they protect.
Doctrine helps us understand our faith.
There is so much material in the scripture,
Faith statements give us summaries of what our faith community
deems important to living the Christian life.
Doctrine helps us to discern truth and error in our thinking.
Scripture warns that there will come a day when people will believe what
ever they want concerning Christianity.
Doctrine ties us to a historical and theological tradition
Safeguarding us from heresy.
But before we jump on what we as a faith community believes I want to watch a
video that tells us who we are, what we value as a denomination.
By the way denomination is not a bad word.
It simply refers to a “subgroup within a religion that operates
under a common name, tradition, and identity.”
“Core Values” clips
The Church of the Nazarene is composed of a Christian people,
a holiness people and a Missional people.
Extremely diverse,
23,000 local congregations in 151 countries
On average there are 500,000 Nazarenes gathering for morning
worship every Sunday in the USA and Canada.
As a body we raised almost 959 million dollars last year.
Huntington Beach Community Church is part of a much larger network.
What ties us all together is our theology, our doctrines, our core values.
Over the next four weeks we will be considering the doctrine of our church.
The Church of the Nazarene has 16 articles of faith.
16 doctrinal statements that identify who we are theologically within the
Christian faith family.
http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/administration/visitorcenter/articles/display.aspx
Let’s take a little quiz
We’ll read the statement of belief and you choose if the statement is
Dogmatic, or Doctrine
Dogma would be a statement that in universally accepted by all
Christians everywhere.
Dogma is essential Christianity
Doctrine here refers to what Nazarene’s believe.
If there’s a decidedly Nazarene twist, you need identify the
entire statement as doctrine.
Everybody clear?
1. We believe in one God, the Creator of all things, who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Spirit.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
2. We believe in Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully human at the same time, who became like us to bring about our salvation.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
3. We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is active in the world, bringing us salvation.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
4. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, giving us all we need to know about how to saved.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
5. We believe that we are all sinners by both nature and act and need God’s forgiveness and cleansing.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
6. We believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross and that by trusting in His death we can be restored to a right relation to God.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
7. We believe that God has enabled us to turn to Him from sin, but that He has not forced us to do so.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
8. We believe that individually we must repent, turn away from our sins, and trust Christ to accept us.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
9. We believe that when turn from sin and trust in Christ, the old record of sin is wiped clean and we are born anew, thus becoming part of the family of God.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
10. We believe that after being born anew, we need the fullness of God’s Spirit in our hearts. When we make a complete commitment to Him, He cleanses our spirit, fills us with His perfect love, and gives us the
power to live victoriously.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
11. We believe in the Church, the community that confesses Jesus Christ as Lord.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
12. We believe in baptism and urge people to be baptized as Christians.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
13. We believe that Jesus Christ is coming again.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
14. We believe in the Lord’s Supper.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
15. We believe God can heal. We pray for healing. We also believe that God can work through medical science.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
16. We believe that everyone shall face the judgment of God with its rewards and punishments.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
Next week I’ll give you the answers.
Today during our introduction to this new series Beliefs of our Faith Community
You’ve learned that doctrine is important.
The Apostle Paul told Titus that one of the characteristics of a person mature in
Christ was there ability to hold true to sound doctrine.
Titus 1:9 (NIV)
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
In the video you watched about our larger faith community,
You learned the we are a Christian people,
A holiness people and a Missional people.
Those are the core values of our organization.
And we read through the 16 doctrinal statements of our faith community.
Over the next four weeks we’ll be making an examination of those
statements that we all might be able to encourage one another
by a life style formed by sound doctrine.
Our doctrine is only good as it is lived out in our lives.
If what we think we believe doesn’t influence how we live,
Then we really don’t believe it.
To live your life to the full,
You need sound doctrine.
Beliefs of Our Faith Community Part #1
Apostle’s Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from where 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.
Authentic Christianity
There is the Dogma test of the incarnation:
Jesus is fully God and fully human, fully both at the same time.
There is the moral test of obedience:
A true believer obeys God’s commands
There is the social test of love:
A true believer self sacrificially meets the needs of others
Doctrine is a faith communities belief and practice based on dogma.
All doctrines are subordinate to dogma.
2 Timothy 4:3 (MSG)
You're going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy
Doctrinal beliefs form a part of our world view.
Doctrine dictates behavior.
.
Doctrine helps us understand our faith.
Doctrine helps us to discern truth and error in our thinking.
The Church of the Nazarene is composed of a Christian people, a holiness people and a missional people.
The Church of the Nazarene has 16 articles of faith.
http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/administration/visitorcenter/articles/display.aspx
Read the statement of belief and you choose if the statement is Dogmatic, General Protestant Doctrine, or Nazarene Doctrine. Dogma would be a statement that in universally accepted by all Christians everywhere. If you check dogma, it by definition would include both protestant and Nazarene doctrine. General Protestant Doctrine is what non Catholics hold in common and such by definition would also include Nazarene doctrine. Nazarene doctrine will be faith statements peculiar to the Church of the Nazarene.
1. We believe in one God, the Creator of all things, who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Spirit.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
2. We believe in Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully human at the same time, who became like us to bring about our salvation.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
3. We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is active in the world, bringing us salvation.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
4. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, giving us all we need to know about how to saved.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
5. We believe that we are all sinners by both nature and act and need God’s forgiveness and cleansing.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
6. We believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross and that by trusting in His death we can be restored to a right relation to God.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
7. We believe that God has enabled us to turn to Him from sin, but that He has not forced us to do so.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
8. We believe that individually we must repent, turn away from our sins, and trust Christ to accept us.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
9. We believe that when turn from sin and trust in Christ, the old record of sin is wiped clean and we are born anew, thus becoming part of the family of God.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
10. We believe that after being born anew, we need the fullness of God’s Spirit in our hearts. When we make a complete commitment to Him, He cleanses our spirit, fills us with His perfect love, and gives us the power to live victoriously.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
11. We believe in the Church, the community that confesses Jesus Christ as Lord.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
12. We believe in baptism and urge people to be baptized as Christians.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
13. We believe that Jesus Christ is coming again.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
14. We believe in the Lord’s Supper.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
15. We believe God can heal. We pray for healing. We also believe that God can work through medical science.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
16. We believe that everyone shall face the judgment of God with its rewards and punishments.
___Dogma ___Nazarene Doctrine
Titus 1:9 (NIV)
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
