Please be seated. Our text for our sermon this morning, we'll actually just focusing on one particular phrase in our text this morning, which is the title of this morning's sermon. But our text comes from 2 Timothy chapter 1. And we'll be reading verses 3 through 14. 2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 3 through 14. I thank God, whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. And I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me. in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that we would know the one in whom we have believed, that he is able to guard us in that day. that you would help us to follow the pattern of sound words that you have handed down to us through the preaching of the apostles, that you enable us to guard it in faith and love. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Imagine if you were faced with the monumental task of discipling an entire continent of people who were part of a nominally Christian society, but many of them knowing very little of even the most basics of what the Bible teaches. What would you choose to teach? What would you choose to emphasize so that everyone would know the basics, the most important aspects of the Christian faith? Well, as the Reformation dawned in Europe, the Reformers faced just such a situation. An entire continent filled with many who had been baptized into the faith, but had never been taught, had never really heard even the words of scripture in their own language, much less could they explain the basics of what the Bible taught. And so this posed an immense pastoral challenge. What are the basic things that we want this continent, these people under our pastoral care, to know. What are the basic things that every Christian should know? Well, many of the reformers settled on three things they thought every Christian should know backwards and forwards, from the youngest child to the oldest adult. And those three things were the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles' Creed. And you know this because if you look at, say, the early catechisms, these early documents which were used to help teach the faith to children and to adults, many of them followed this pattern. They go sometimes phrase by phrase through the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles' Creed. These things, if you grasp them and understood them, you would have a good understanding of the basics of what the Bible teaches and what you needed to know to live a Christian life. And as I said, many of the early catechisms, Calvin's catechism, Luther's catechism, the Heidelberg catechism, in fact, Calvin structures his very institution of the Christian religion on these three things. These are the things that they work to convey and teach the people of Europe as the Reformation dawned. And in fact, if you go to a lot of Reformation churches from that era, you will find on the wall plaques with each of these things printed there. If you go to colonial churches around here, like the churches that, say, George Washington worshipped in, you will find they are printed on the walls, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments there prominently displayed because these are the basics of the Christian faith that people needed to know. And so this thought always captivated me as I first read about this and realized that this was kind of what the reformers thought and the church thought was the basics of the Christian faith. And I thought, well, as I became a new minister, where should I focus my own ministry and emphasize from the pulpit? What should be the things I should start doing as I was ordained back in 2013? And I determined very early that I was going to try to preach through these three things, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostles' Creed. So I started with the Lord's Prayer. But I thought to put it in context, I should just preach the Book of Matthew. And so for three years, we spent time in the Book of Matthew so that we could study the Lord's Prayer. And then I thought, well, we should do the Ten Commandments. But to put it in context, we'll do a year and a half long series on the Book of Exodus. And that is what we just completed last week. Well, starting this morning, we're going to start a series on the Apostles' Creed. But in order to put it in context, I'd have to preach the entire Bible. So instead, we will just focus on looking at what the Bible teaches about each of the aspects of the Apostles' Creed, using the Creed as our guide to exploring the basics of the Christian faith. And so this morning, as we begin to look at the Apostles' Creed, this first sermon is an introductory sermon to the creed and to creeds in general and how they should play a role in our lives as Christians. And so we'll have five points this morning, which is, I don't normally, I don't always give an outline, but you have an outline this morning in the back of your bulletin, and it's a fill-in-the-blank outline, an outline for our five points this morning as we begin to look at the Apostles' Creed. And the first point is that creeds are inevitable. Creeds are inevitable. So we first have to ask, what is a creed? Well, the word creed comes from the Latin word credo, which is the first word of the Apostle's Creed, which simply means, I believe. At its most basic, a creed is a statement of belief, normally a public statement of belief, something that you believe. Or, in many ways, that a church says, we as a church are committed to say, this is what we as a church believe. Now in our society, over the past several hundred years, there's been a general and growing rejection of the whole idea of creeds. the idea that I should confess of what some organization or what some people historically confess to believe. This has gone hand in hand with our rejection of an idea of objective truth in favor of subjective truth, your truth, my truth. The idea that there is some form of objective truth, particularly in the area of religion and spirituality, which everyone must believe and subscribe to, is seen as naive at best and oppressive at worst. In general, you could say if our society has any creed, it's that we reject all creeds. Our culture speaks a lot about spirituality, about faith, or belief, but it is generally not, when we say those words, there's generally not much content behind it. You are a person of faith, or you have strong beliefs, or you're a spiritual person, but there's no real content behind those beliefs that we would be willing to say that everybody should believe. because these are just what I regard as important. Not an objective reality, but my own personal thoughts. So in general, I would have said, and I do say, that we are a society which rejects the idea of creeds. But I don't think it's quite true. Because more and more in our society, there's a sense where we see growing creed-like statements and beliefs, which if you are going to be not necessarily religiously orthodox, but culturally orthodox, you must confess in order to not be regarded as a cultural heretic. recently and maybe you've seen some of these signs popping up in people's yards. I've seen a number of them in my neighborhood and maybe you've seen them in your neighborhood. These signs which are written in rainbow colors which are almost a parody of the Apostles Creed. Here's what the sign says. In this house, we believe black lives matter. Women's rights are human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Love is love. Kindness is everything. Now, I'm not trying to dissect the goodness or badness of various aspects of such a secular a creed, which is being confessed by people who put these signs in their front yards, or the parody or the negatives, the photo negatives of these creeds that you often see on both the right and the left. But I do want to note that there is a growing sense that there are certain creedal things that you must confess to be regarded as a part of orthodox, shall we say, society. And refusing to do so puts you outside. Right or wrong, many of these have come to have creedal status in our culture. And this should not surprise us. Because creeds are inevitable. We all have basic beliefs, whether we acknowledge them or not, even whether they're contradictory or not. We all have beliefs that we have that allow us to interact with the world. As one author puts it, we all have creeds even if they are self-contradictory. Creeds, beliefs are necessary. It is how you make sense of reality. The question is not whether you have a creed, but what creed you should subscribe to. So beyond the general culture's approach towards creeds, which is generally skeptical, while at the same time strongly affirming creed-like statements, the church as well has had a mixed relation towards creeds, which mirrors the broader culture. Some of it comes from theologically liberal quarters who think it backward and sophisticated for modern people to continue to hang on to such unenlightened doctrines as things like the virgin birth. In the middle of the century, the famous liberal preacher Harry Emerson Fostick once boasted that he had never repeated the Apostles' Creed in his entire life. So there's that one kind of the liberal aspect of rejecting these doctrines that they see as antiquated and unmodern and unscientific. But also, even often within conservative evangelicalism, there is a general suspicion towards creeds and confessions as well. Many in evangelicalism, especially those with a background in non-denominational churches, often have an instinctual suspicion of creeds and confessions, worrying that they will somehow put themselves and replace the authority of the Bible. You might have heard phrases like, no creed but Christ, or no creed but the Bible. And there's something very good in that impulse and understanding that we want to maintain and assert the ultimate and irreplaceable authority of the Bible and of Jesus Christ in everything that we believe and say. However, there's a problem with that very phrase, no creed but the Bible, which is illustrated in an excellent book by Carl Truman, which I commend to you, called The Credal Imperative. And in that book, Carl Truman argues that, ironically, that very statement No creed but the Bible is itself unbiblical. And as I said, I heartily commend that book to you. And some points in the sermon owe a heavy debt to that book. Because as Truman says, creeds are inevitable. We all have a creed, whether we admit it or not. We all have a way of summarizing what the Bible teaches in our own words. The difference is some people write that down and others don't. Truman writes, a colleague of mine loves to tell the following story about a church he used to visit. The pastor had a habit of standing in the pulpit, seizing his Bible in his right hand, raising it above his head, and pointing to it with his left. This, he declared in a booming voice, is our creed and our only confession. Ironically, the church was marked by teaching that included the five points of Calvinism, dispensationalism, and a form of polity that reflected in broad terms its origins as a Plymouth Brethren assembly. In other words, while its only creed was the Bible, it actually connected in terms of details of its life and teaching to almost no other congregation in the history of the church. Clearly, the church did have a creed, a summary view of what the Bible taught on grace, eschatology, and ecclesiology. It was just that nobody wrote it down and said it out in public. Churches and Christians who repudiate the whole notion of creeds and confessions will tend to operate with an implicit creed. So again, if I was to come and ask you, what is it that you believe? I'm sure that none of you would go and pick up your Bible and just start reading at Genesis 1 and keep going until you reach the end. No, you would put in your own words, summarizing what you were convinced were the main and salient features of the Bible that you wanted to communicate to me in a short period of time, what is the fundamentals that the Bible teaches. And that's what a good creed does. It summarizes the teaching of scripture. And that's what the Apostles' Creed does. As you go through it, it's a brief summary of the key biblical foundations about God, about Jesus Christ, about redemption. So the first point that we had is that creeds are inevitable. We all have a creed, either an implicit one or one which is written down, and often a combination of the two. So our second point this morning is that creeds are biblical. Because as I mentioned, Truman argues in his book, and as many others have argued, that this whole notion of no creed but the Bible is itself an unbiblical one because the Bible has creed-like statements within it and encourages people to follow that example in professing their faith. The Bible is full of creed-like statements which summarize its teaching, whether it's the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, or what was probably one of the earliest Christian confessions, which we read in Romans 10, Jesus is Lord, Romans 10, 9. If you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And again, this is probably the earliest Christian confession, the earliest kind of summary of the whole nature of Christian belief, Jesus is Lord. And all Christian theology basically is unpacking of that statement, of the implications of what it means when you say Jesus is Lord. What that means in relation to all the Bible that went before, what that means in relation to all the wider culture, Jesus is Lord. And the Apostles' Creed is itself basically an unpacking of what we mean when we make that profession, make that confession. As we'll be studying in the evening services, we started last week a series on First Timothy, we'll be seeing that part of the task and responsibility of the church and of those called to be leaders in the church is to preserve and communicate these truths to a world and to the next generation. As we read earlier, Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy to follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. And that's what creeds and confessions seek to do. They seek to set out what the Bible teaches in a pattern of sound words that preserves and guards the deposit, the gospel that was handed down. And this is necessary because there are people, even you see in the early, in the pages of scripture itself, there are people who rise up and take the same Bible that you and I hold and seek to twist it to teach a different doctrine. Peter says in 2 Peter 3 talking about the letters of the Apostle Paul. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation. This is 2 Peter 3 verse 15. Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand. I think all of us would sympathize with that as we sometimes read through the letters of Paul. Some of the things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. There are those that will take the Bible and twist it to teach a different doctrine than the Bible teaches. And the pattern of sound words are to preserve and direct the proper understanding of what it is that scripture teaches. And creeds and confessions are the church and seeking to follow Paul's admonition to use sound words, a pattern of sound words, to teach the content of the Bible and oppose error. and the historic creed, such as the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, are time-tested patterns of sound words. However, the creeds and confessions are not authoritative in themselves because they you know, are not scripture themselves. However old they are or however important person said them, that is not what gives them their authority. They're only authoritative and useful insofar as they accurately summarize the teaching of scripture. If I might dare to quote another confession to make my point, Westminster Confession of Faith 110 puts it well. The Supreme Judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the scripture. In other words, the supreme authority must always be scripture, and creeds and confessions are tools to help us summarize scripture, but they sit under the authority of scripture. Historic creeds and confessions are a way of reading the Bible with the church. And the Apostles' Creed is one of the earliest and simplest of the church's creeds, and I hope we will see in this series that it is biblical through and through, and is a helpful tool in helping us read the Bible. It's God-focused. It focuses on God's work and what he is doing. If you read through the creed, there's very little about me in this creed. I say I believe it, but the focus is almost all on who God is and what God has done. Where is your hope? Where is your faith? Where is your belief? It's in what God has done and who God is. And this God-focused of a statement of belief is a welcome corrective to an often me-centered Christianity that is so prevalent in the modern day. It's also Trinitarian in structure. So often we tend to focus exclusively on one aspect of God to the detriment of the others, but the Apostles' Creed is Trinitarian in structure. It follows the God the Father confessing that, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And it follows the pattern and biblical plot line of scripture, creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. So while the creed itself is of human composition, as we'll look more at in a second, human composition and arrangement, most of its content is actually direct quotes from scripture. It is truly a form of sound words which summarizes the gospel of Christ. So we've seen that creeds are inevitable, creeds are biblical, and third, I want us to look at the Apostles' Creed itself, how it is historic and ecumenical. So where does the Apostles' Creed come from? The Apostles' Creed is historic and ecumenical. So where does the Apostles' Creed come from? Well, the name itself is actually a bit of a misnomer. Despite a later myth which said that it was composed by the apostles themselves, with each apostle kind of contributing their own line to the Apostles' Creed, the Apostles' Creed did not originate in that way. But rather, it is a summary of what the apostles believed. It's a summary of the apostles' faith. And while the text that we use today did not reach its final form until, say, the middle of the latter half of the first millennium, its origins go right back to the early part of the second century, and possibly before that. It seems to have originated as a baptismal confession of faith. In other words, when we have somebody who's coming for an adult who becomes a Christian and is coming to the church for baptism, we have the membership vows that they take. We're going to have next week, we're going to be receiving the Samuelsons as members of the church. And they will repeat the membership vows that's declaring publicly what they believe. And in a similar way, the Apostles' Creed was basically like early membership vows. It was a summary of the faith which somebody coming for baptism would confess as they were being baptized. An interesting picture of this. Well, before that, that's partially why it's structured as it is. How it's structured following belief in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It's following the pattern of Jesus' command in Matthew 28 in the Great Commission to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's modeled and follows that order because of its origins as a baptismal confession of faith. An interesting description of how this would have worked we find in the early church father, Hippolytus, who describes what baptism looked like in his church, Rome, in the early second century. And listen to how what he says here is almost verbatim of the language of the Apostle's Creed. He says that the person coming for baptism shall stand in the water naked. I'm glad we don't do that anymore. But she'll stand in the water naked and a deacon likewise will go down with them into the water. And each of them, to be baptized, when each of them had to be baptized, has gone down into the water. Again, the picture here is you're standing in water, and I believe the most likely way this is practiced is the person was then pouring water on top of their head while they're standing in running water. Almost all early pictures of baptism kind of picture it this way. So they go down into the water, and the baptizing one shall lay hands on each of them, asking, do you believe in God, the Father Almighty? And the one being baptized shall answer, I believe. He shall then baptize each of them once, laying his hands upon their heads. Then he shall ask, do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and died and rose on the third day, living from the dead, and ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, the one coming to judge the living and the dead. When each is answered, I believe, he shall baptize a second time. Then he shall ask, do you believe in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Church and the resurrection of the flesh? Then each being baptized shall answer, I believe, and thus let him be baptized a third time. So you see here, this is again from the early, as far as we can tell from the early second century, how this language of the Apostles' Creed is originated as a confession of faith as people were coming for baptism. And over the years, the creed was continued to be used in that way, but it also became to be part of the church's worship. As they were joining for worship, many churches would use the creed to confess their faith publicly in their worship. And it spread throughout particularly the Western church, not just as a teaching tool and a baptismal confession of faith, but as part of their worship. And before long, it had pretty much universal use in the Western church. and continued to be so after the Reformation, as the Reformation churches continued to use the Apostles' Creed as a summary of the Christian faith, and often using it in their worship as a confession of faith. The church historian Philip Schaff says of the Apostles' Creed, it is by far the best popular summary of the Christian faith ever made within so brief a space. It is not a logical statement of abstract doctrines, but a profession of living facts and saving truth. It is a liturgical poem and an act of worship. Like the Lord's Prayer, it loses none of its charm and effect by frequent use, although by vain and thoughtless repetition, it may be made a martyr and an empty form of words. It is intelligible and edifying to a child and fresh and rich to the profoundest Christian scholar who, as he advances in age, delights to go back to primitive foundations and first principles. It has the fragrance of antiquity and the weight of universal consent. It is a bond of union between all ages and sections of Christendom. It can never be superseded for popular use in church and school." You see what Shaff is saying here. This is one of the benefits of a historic creed. As one of my professors was fond of saying, we do not reinvent church every Sunday morning. And confessing something like the Apostles' Creed is a way of reminding us of that, that we are united to the historic church. While we don't have to use it, and we're free to write our own creeds and confessions and summaries of faiths, which we do, there is. which might address some of the unique questions of our own day. There is a great benefit in using a historic creed, like the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, which have proven themselves over the centuries to be a pattern of sound words. And it helps raise our heads above our cultural moment and connects us to Christians throughout the ages. When we confess the creed, we join with those who were in that second century baptism, confessing the faith that they believed as they faced persecution and death for that confession that they made. We join our voices with the martyrs who proclaimed that Jesus is Lord by refusing to offer worship to Caesar as Lord. We join with those who gave praise as Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire. We give praise and join with those who were huddled in churches worshiping as the barbarians sacked Rome. We join our voices with those that filled the Gothic cathedrals of Europe and around the world. We join our voices with the Reformers as they taught and sought to return to biblical faithfulness and as they taught children and adults what the Bible teaches. And we join our voices with every nation as Chinese, Korean, Indian, Mexican, and Brazilian confess the one in whom they have believed. So there's a great benefit in using something that the church broadly has recognized as being a faithful summary of teaching. So it shows our unity. with churches around the world throughout time, and also other denominations. As I said, all major faithful denominations, and even some unfaithful ones, recognize the Apostles' Creed as summarizing the Bible. Whether it be Anglicans, or even Roman Catholics, Presbyterians and Lutherans, they all recognize the Apostles' Creed. And so we are, in a way, by using it, we're showing, while we have many important disagreements, about what the Bible teaches. Here is where we confess our points of agreement, and there's a great benefit in testifying to the Catholicity, the universality of the church around the world and throughout time, even as we will note there are other things that divide us. This is one thing that unites us. So the Apostles' Creed is historic, and it is ecumenical. Fourth, the Apostles' Creed is countercultural. As we mentioned earlier, confessing a creed and saying that we are putting this content to our faith is something that must be believed and that is objectively true and that all people should acknowledge as objectively true runs against the grain of our culture. We're not just saying that we are people of faith or that we are spiritual in some vague sense, but we are putting content to our faith. This is what we believe. This is who we have believed. We don't just believe in God. This is the God in whom we believe, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We're testifying not just to some vague sort of spiritualness, but to a faith that has a historical reality. As we'll look, this is one of the profound natures of who suffered under Pontius Pilate. Why does Pontius Pilate get dragged in every Sunday when we confess our faith? Because we're testifying that this is a historic reality. We're grounding it in history. That Jesus, in the flesh, who suffered under Pontius Pilate. So in doing so, we're running against the general stream of our culture, which wants to make everything vague and not put too much grounding to it. We're saying this is the God in whom we have believed, and the one in whom you should believe as well. and we're denying the authority and the reality of all other religions, all other conceptions of the divine or authority. Karl Truman puts it well. Corporate reading of a creed or confession is a kind of rebellion. Because the great creeds and confessions summarize so wonderfully important aspects of the Bible's teaching, not least the sovereign kingship of God, which relativizes the claims to kingship of all creatures. Their recitation is an act of defiance and an insult to all creaturely claimants. As soon as the congregation says, we believe in one God, which is the opening words to the Nicene Creed, all other pretenders to the divine throne have been put well and truly in their place. Neither sex, nor money, nor power is God. There is only one God, the God whom the creed proceeds to describe. Far from being a staid piece of outmoded traditionalism, such a corporate action is a devastating blow against the cultural conformity that demands that the church be just like the world, accept the same criteria of relevance, truth, and aesthetics as the world, and offer a gospel that accommodates, at least in some way, to the claims of the world. The recitation of a creed makes it very clear that whoever and whatever the attitude of the heart of an individual church member, the church as a whole looks to God as king, not some creaturely pretender. So every time you stand up in this church and confess what we believe in our confession of faith, whether it be with the language of the Apostles' Creed that I see in Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, or whether we're using one of the biblical statements of faith, and I try to rotate them to try to help us get a broad range. Whenever we do that, we are not just saying some vain words. We're not just muttering words because that's what you're supposed to do. But we're making a statement of belief. We are offering an act of rebellion against the spiritual powers of this world and the attitudes of this world. We're acknowledging Christ as our king. And that brings me to the last point this morning, point number five. The Apostles' Creed is personal. The Apostles' Creed is personal. First and foremost, it's personal because it professes belief in a personal God. In other words, this statement of belief isn't just acknowledging facts. It's not just saying, I believe 2 plus 2 is 4. And maybe actually we need to confess things like that these days. But that's not the kind of faith that it is. It's not faith in abstract facts. It's faith in a person. three persons to be exact, one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's a trust and belief, and we'll look more at the nature of what belief is next week, but it's a trust and belief in someone. I trust, I believe, I rest, I put my hope in God, the Father Almighty, and in His Son, and in the Holy Spirit. And it's personal also because it is I who am the one who is believing It is interesting that the creed begins this way, I believe, which is a little unusual for corporate confessions of faith. You look at a lot of other corporate confessions of faith that are used in church or worship, frequently it'll begin with the word we, because it's expressing that we as a body are the ones confessing this. But the Apostles' Creed starts with the word I. As an individual, granted, A we is just made up of a bunch of individuals, right? We is us, collectively. But I like how the Apostles' Creed starts with that word, I. This probably owes to its origins as a baptismal confession of faith. This is when each individual had to confess this before they became part of the church. As they became part of the church, I believe. And that makes me part of the we. But it's personal because I am the one who confesses my faith in this. I'm not relying on what somebody else has said. I'm not relying on somebody else's faith. I am professing my belief, my resting in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Again, reminding us that it's not just that we say words with our mouth. but we have to believe them in our heart. This is the two aspects of the Christian confession as we read in Romans 10. What does it say in Romans 10? If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, confess with your mouth. You gotta say it. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Christianity is a public faith, but it's also a private one. Public confession that we make is rooted in the heart. You must believe, each of you individually here, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Children, I know many of you have memorized the Apostles' Creed, and I encourage you to do so. Parents, I hope that you will teach your children the Apostles' Creed. I think it's part of our memory challenge. I hope you say it with us as we worship. But more than that, you need to believe it. You may here have been reciting the Apostles' Creed your entire life, or maybe this is the first time you ever said it out loud as you came into the building this morning. But if what you confess with your mouth has not taken root in your heart, then they are merely empty words being spoken into the air. However, when we recite the creed or any other biblical statement of faith, flowing from a heart that says, this is the one in whom I rest. This is the one who I acknowledge as Lord. It's a call to further belief. When we confess the creed, we're calling ourselves to believe what we believe. And we're calling everybody around us to believe what the Bible says is true. And I pray that as we confess our faith, as we use this ancient catechism to delve more into the basics of what the Bible teaches, I pray that you'll be more firmly rooted in your heart, that you'll have the content in your mind, but more than that, it'll be firmly rooted in your heart, who Jesus Christ is, who God is, who the Holy Spirit is, and what he's done for you. I titled this series, I Believe, with an exclamation point. Because that's what I want us to be able to do when we come out of this, that every week as we confess our faith, that we will be able to confess it boldly with an exclamation point because I am the one who believe it. I put my faith and trust in what God has done and what he is doing. I pray that we'll be able to either for the first time or for the 10,000th time be renewed in our belief in our hearts, in our confession with our mouth, in the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we thank you that you are the creator, that you are the redeemer, We thank you that you sent your son, our Lord, that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that he was born of the Virgin Mary, that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, that he was crucified, that he died and was buried, that he descended into hell, that he rose again from the dead on the third day, that he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty from where he will come to judge the living and the dead. Lord, may we believe these things. Lord, we believe in the Holy Spirit. May you send your Holy Spirit to be with us. May you be with this local church as we confess that we believe that you are the one building your universal church. We confess the communion of saints, both in this building, around the world, and across time. Lord, we thank you for the forgiveness of sins. And Lord, we look forward to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, which you have purposed to make possible in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and to accomplish it through the work of your spirit. So Lord, these are the things we believe. As we confess them with our mouth, may we believe them in our heart. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.