Beliefs of Our Faith Community Part

Beliefs of Our Faith Community Part #2

Last week we took a little quiz to determine which of our faith community’s

doctrinal statements are to be considered dogma, or Doctrine.

I’ll give you the answer to that in a moment and then we are going to examine the

first four statements in what we call our Articles of Faith.

Also last week we viewed the intro to a video about the core values of our faith

community.

We are a Christian people, a Holiness people and a Missional people.

I want to show you the next session, dealing with what we

mean by being a Christian people.

Video presentation on Core Values.

Why in the world are we taking time to talk about doctrine?

Doctrine is our teachings on what we believe to be the important beliefs

taught in scripture.

Doctrine is our understanding of the beliefs you need to live out to be

authentically Christian.

Far from being just abstract theological ideas,

Doctrine is practical,

it calls forth a response in how we are to live our lives as

Christians.

Doctrine shapes our world view,

it helps us see life in a certain way.

Doctrine helps us discern truth from error.

As we learned during our study of 1 John

Many competitors to the true message of Jesus

have come.

1 John 2:18 (NIV)

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

Today we will consider our belief in a Triune God,

what we believe about Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Bible,

and how these beliefs influence the lifestyle we choose to live.

But before we get to that our answers for our quiz:

Remember that dogma is universally accepted as true by all Christians

everywhere.

Doctrine is a particular faith communities teachings about Dogma

1. We believe in one God, the Creator of all things, who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Spirit.

___Dogma

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

3. We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is active in the world, bringing us salvation.

___Dogma

4. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, giving us all we need to know about how to saved.

___Nazarene Doctrine

5. We believe that we are all sinners by both nature and act and need God’s forgiveness and cleansing.

___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.

___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.

___Nazarene Doctrine

8. We believe that individually we must repent, turn away from our sins, and trust Christ to accept us.

___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.

___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.

___Nazarene Doctrine

11. We believe in the Church, the community that confesses Jesus Christ as Lord.

___Dogma

12. We believe in baptism and urge people to be baptized as Christians.

___Nazarene Doctrine

13. We believe that Jesus Christ is coming again.

___Dogma

14. We believe in the Lord’s Supper.

___Nazarene Doctrine

15. We believe God can heal. We pray for healing. We also believe that God can work through medical science.

___Nazarene Doctrine

16. We believe that everyone shall face the judgment of God with its rewards and punishments.

___Dogma

We can have differences of opinion on doctrinal issues.

There is nothing wrong with that.

In fact as you study closely sometimes the difference is just splitting

hairs or a definition of a single word that separates one faith

community from another.

Now onto our first four doctrinal statements.

I. The Triune God

1. We believe in one eternally existent, infinite God, Sovereign of the universe; that He only is God, creative and administrative, holy in nature, attributes, and purpose; that He, as God, is Triune in essential being, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(Genesis 1; Leviticus 19:2; Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Isaiah 5:16; 6:1-7; 40:18-31; Matthew 3:16-17; 28:19-20; John 14:6-27; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Galatians 4:4-6; Ephesians 2:13-18)1

One observation jumps out at us.

We believe that the origins of the universe, the origins of life on this planet

have a supernatural cause not a natural cause.

We are here not by random chance, but rather by divine purpose.

This tells us that life has meaning,

And that our individual lives have purpose.

And that there is One to whom we are accountable for

how we live our lives.

Authentic Christians believe that the scripture has revealed the essential nature of

God to be triune.

The Nicene Creed, an ancient dogmatic statement describes this belief.

Here are some excerpts:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made…

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified…

You might get tripped up on that word begotten.

You’ll find it in John 3:16,

For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son.

The Greek word translated as begotten is monogenes

[Μονογενής monogenēs mon-og-en-ace]

The word means:

being the only one of its kind within a specific

relationship.

being the only one of its class, unique in kind.

We’ll come back to this when we look at our second statement of belief.

What I don’t want you to think is the Father created the Son,

That’s not the relationship.

Christians are Trinitarian monotheists

We believe in one God revealed as to us as Father Son and Holy Spirit.

God the Father above us,

God the Son before us,

God the Holy Spirit within us.

Our elders sang:

Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity

(Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty )

One God, three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Separate and distinct yet united together in perfect love.
Each fully divine,

equally infinite,

all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-existing,

and eternally the same.

Remove one member of the Trinity and there is no God.

God exists as community.

God dwells in perfect relationship.

The way God is, is the way He has empowered us to be.

We have been created communal, to thrive in relationship.

In the Garden we forsook a righteous relationship with God,

We turned our backs to one another,

Lost ourselves in the process,

And tried to fill the emptiness by accumulating the stuff of earth.

Yet the Father calls us back to righteousness, through faith in the Son,

Empowerd by the Spirit.

God calls us into the fellowship of the trinity.

This is why we can say everything rises and falls on relationships.

To be Christian is to be pursuing relational righteousness.

Anything that deters, damages or destroys relational righteousness is

sin to we who believe in the Triune God.

II. Jesus Christ

We believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that He was eternally one with the Father; that He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man.

We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that He truly arose from the dead and took again His body, together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven and is there engaged in intercession for us.

(Matthew 1:20-25; 16:15-16; Luke 1:26-35; John 1:1-18; Acts 2:22-36; Romans 8:3, 32-34; Galatians 4:4-5; Philippians 2:5-11; Colossians 1:12-22; 1 Timothy 6:14-16; Hebrews 1:1-5; 7:22-28; 9:24-28; 1 John 1:1-3; 4:2-3, 15)

This belief has two parts telling us who Jesus is and describing His ministry.

The first part tells us that Jesus is both fully God, and fully human, fully both at the

same time.

Technically homoosusion and monogenes which means uniquely of the

same being.

begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father;

Jesus is God incarnate, God with Flesh On.

The second part tells us that Jesus made an atonement for our sins making it

possible for human beings to be reconciled to God,

and then for those who believe,

interceding for them,

praying for believers to become like Him.

Colossians 1:15-20 (MSG)

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross.

The dogma of Christendom and the doctrine of our faith community states

Jesus is both fully God, and fully human.

As such Jesus reveals to us all we can comprehend about God,

While revealing to us what it means to be human.

Only God could make atonement for His creation.

Only the creator could fix his broken creation.

The eternal immortal God died, the only way the path of

righteousness could be opened to us.

Jesus death makes it possible for you and I to become what we were

always meant to be, fully human,

fully in fellowship with God and others.

Jesus is the pattern for being human.

God incarnates and says this is what it means to be real,

To be righteous.

To be Christian is to be like Jesus.

Jesus defines our ethics, our morality, and our character.

His way of doing life, loving obedience, is our pattern for doing life.

Not only are we to live relationally because we believe in a Triune God,

Because we believe in Jesus we are to be the remedy for the suffering of

Others, sacrificially seeking to meet their need, by following the

example of Jesus.

III. The Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Triune Godhead, that He is ever present and efficiently active in and with the Church of Christ, convincing the world of sin, regenerating those who repent and believe, sanctifying believers, and guiding into all truth as it is in Jesus.

(John 7:39; 14:15-18, 26; 16:7-15; Acts 2:33; 15:8-9; Romans 8:1-27; Galatians 3:1-14; 4:6; Ephesians 3:14-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 John 3:24; 4:13)

Person doesn’t mean people like you and I,

It means distinctly knowable.

I like to refer to the Holy Spirit by the old testament name Ruach.

Ruach sounds more like a proper name.

The presence of Ruach means that God is never away.

God is continually here with us, aware of us,

God is within us.

In that presence He is doing four things—

Revealing people’s unrighteousness to them.

Regenerating refers to spiritual birth,

Ruach guides and empowers us to faith in Jesus

Sanctifying is the empowering grace we appropriate which

Continually transforms in Christ likeness.

It is by Ruach that egoism is crucified and we learn

to become victorious over our habits,

attachments and addictions.

Revealing, regenerating, sanctifying and finally

Guiding us into all truth.

Helping us to discern good from evil.

Empowering us to live righteously

It is Rauch who draws us into community with the Trinity,

And with others in the Church,

Making us one with the Father, Son and Spirit who are one.

It is Ruach who gives us life, who speaks to us, inspires us, empowers us.

Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the coming of Ruach:

John 14:15-18 (NIV)

"If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

The very presence of Ruach indwelling you supplies grace.

Grace the desire to be and the power to do.

Ruach gives you both desire and power to accomplish the will of God.

That’s why you can do all things in Christ.

That’s why you can live a holy life.

The choice is up to you.

The presence of Ruach in your life,

Makes it all possible.

We are to live relationally because God is triune

We are to follow the example of the God Man Jesus of Nazareth

We can live this way because Ruach, God the Holy Spirit empowers

us to do so.

IV. The Holy Scriptures

4. We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.

(Luke 24:44-47; John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

Three words need explanation—plenary, inspiration and inerrantly.

Plenary means complete and qualified

So we recognize the 66 books of the Protestant bible to be God’s

revelation to us about life.

The idea of Inspiration comes from 2 Timothy 3:16

2 Timothy 3:16 (MSG)

Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way.

God-breathed, that’s what we mean by inspiration.

God inspired the human authors to write what they did.

Now some brothers and sisters carry this a little too far and believe that

there was a dictation going on.

God dictated every word, phrase, sentence structure, and

illustration to the human author who wrote them down.

And then some don’t go far enough believing the human authors of the Bible

got there inspiration from life in general and not from God

specifically.

We believe that Rauch guided and directed but did not dictate the timeless

truths that come to us as we read the original situations that the

authors were addressing.

Its really one of those fine lines that create differing

doctrine.

Our faith community also has a spin on the word inerrant.

Inerrant means without error.

We believe that the bible is without error when it comes to

anything we need to know about salvation.

In other words we don’t recognize the Bible as a history book,

Or a science book.

“This doesn’t mean that we think the Bible contains errors in history

or science.

Rather, we recognize that science and history represent

the best human understanding available at any

given time.

Science and history develop and change as research continues.

To spend energy showing how the Bible “fits” with science or

history can easily distract us from the Bible’s main

purpose:

to bring people into right relationship with God

and each other.”

(Leonard, Gay. Articles of Faith What Nazarenes Believe and Why, Roger L. Hahn, P. 29)

This doctrinal belief is important because it recognizes the authority of the Bible in

giving us everything we need to know in order to establish and cultivate a

right relationship with God, with Others, with Self and with the Earth.

“God brings life, energy, renewal and transformation through the scripture.” (ibid)

We need no other book, no secret knowledge,

no further revelation,

and anything that contradicts what is written concerning

salvation is wrong.

We are to live relationally because God is triune

We are to follow the example of the God Man Jesus of Nazareth

We can live this way because Ruach, God the Holy Spirit empowers

us to do so.

We have a book that reveals who God is, who we are and

how to live as Children of the living God.

Today we examined the first four articles of faith of our denomination.

We believe in the Trinity, in the Diety and Humanity of Jesus, in the Holy

Spirit and in the Bible.

And we learned some important things that apply to our lives right now.

God is Triune, and invites us to join Him in eternal communion.

John 17:22-23 (NIV)

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

That’s why we put such a strong emphasis of the importance of

relationships.

Jesus is fully God and fully human at the same time, and as such is our

example of how we were created to be.

As we become one with the Triune God we become more and

more like Jesus.

He is our model.

The essence of holiness, is being like Jesus, and that’s why we put

such a strong emphasis on the incarnation.

We learned that Ruach, the Holy Spirit empowers us in this transformation

process of becoming Christlike and that everything we need to know

to aide us in this becoming is revealed to us in the Bible.

As such the Bible is our guide to our morality, our ethic, shaping our world

view.

We know that there is a Creator,

We know that there is a Savior,

We know that there is an Empowerer

We know that we have Book that reveals how to live.

Next time we will explore our next four articles of faith dealing with

Sin, the atonement, Prevenient grace and repentance.

Basically how is it possible to be saved.

BACK

Beliefs of Our Faith Community Part #2

Why in the world are we taking time to talk about doctrine?

Doctrine is our teachings on what we believe to be the important beliefs taught in

scripture.

Doctrine is practical, it calls forth a response in how we are to live our lives as Christians.

Doctrine shapes our world view, it helps us see life in a certain way.

Doctrine helps us discern truth from error.

1 John 2:18 (NIV)

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

1. We believe in one God, the Creator of all things, who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Spirit.

___Dogma

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

3. We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is active in the world, bringing us salvation.

___Dogma

4. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, giving us all we need to know about how to saved.

___Nazarene Doctrine

5. We believe that we are all sinners by both nature and act and need God’s forgiveness and cleansing.

___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.

___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.

___Nazarene Doctrine

8. We believe that individually we must repent, turn away from our sins, and trust Christ to accept us.

___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.

___Nazarene Doctrine

power to live victoriously.

___Nazarene Doctrine

11. We believe in the Church, the community that confesses Jesus Christ as Lord.

___Dogma

12. We believe in baptism and urge people to be baptized as Christians.

___Nazarene Doctrine

13. We believe that Jesus Christ is coming again.

___Dogma

14. We believe in the Lord’s Supper.

___Nazarene Doctrine

15. We believe God can heal. We pray for healing. We also believe that God can work through medical science.

___Nazarene Doctrine

16. We believe that everyone shall face the judgment of God with its rewards and punishments.

___Dogma

I. The Triune God

(Genesis 1; Leviticus 19:2; Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Isaiah 5:16; 6:1-7; 40:18-31; Matthew 3:16-17; 28:19-20; John 14:6-27; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Galatians 4:4-6; Ephesians 2:13-18)1

We are here not by random chance, but rather by divine purpose.

The Nicene Creed (excerpt)

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the father; through him all things were made…

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified…

Begotten. (John 3:16) The word means: being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship.

Christians are Trinitarian monotheists

The way God is, is the way He has empowered us to be. communal, thriving in relationship.

To be Christian is to be pursuing relational righteousness. Anything that deters, damages or destroys relational righteousness is sin to we who believe in the Triune God.

II. Jesus Christ

The first part tells us that Jesus is both fully God, and fully human, fully both at the same time.

The second part tells us that Jesus made an atonement for our sins making it possible for human beings to be reconciled to God, and for those who believe interceding, that is praying for believers to become like Him.

Colossians 1:15-20 (MSG)

Only God could make atonement for His creation. Only the creator could fix his broken creation.

God incarnates and says this is what it means to be real, to be righteous.

III. The Holy Spirit

(John 7:39; 14:15-18, 26; 16:7-15; Acts 2:33; 15:8-9; Romans 8:1-27; Galatians 3:1-14; 4:6; Ephesians 3:14-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 John 3:24; 4:13)

John 14:15-18 (NIV)

The very presence of Ruach indwelling you supplies grace. Grace the desire to be and the power to do.

IV. The Holy Scriptures

(Luke 24:44-47; John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

Plenary means complete and qualified

Inspiration comes from 2 Timothy 3:16

2 Timothy 3:16 (MSG)

Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way.

We believe that Rauch guided and directed but did not dictate the timeless truths that come to us as we read the original situations that the authors were addressing.

We need no other book, no secret knowledge, no further revelation, and anything that contradicts what is written concerning salvation is wrong.

John 17:22-23 (NIV)

We know that there is a Creator; We know that there is a Savior; We know that there is an Empowerer; We know that we have Book that reveals how to live.