We get an A plus in the back row? Do we need, does anybody need the handout from last week? Because Karen did not copy more. Does anybody need? Oh, okay, great. All right, good. Well, let's open in prayer this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great privilege of being in your house. Once again, we thank you that it is not in vain that we seek you, oh Lord, for you have made yourself known unto us in the gospel. We bless you for the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ and that we can come and draw near to you in him. And we bless you that we find acceptance, Lord, before you as we come in him. We ask that you be with us this morning. Bless our continued study of the value and the usefulness, the benefit of creeds and confessions. Thank you, Lord, for our church, for our denomination. Thank you for our elders, our session. Thank you for the work you're doing, O God, in this place. And we pray that you continue to grow us in the grace and knowledge of Christ, and strengthen our convictions, Lord, that they may be rooted in your word, and we may be bold and courageous as we hold the faith with a clear conscience. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, open to 1 Timothy chapter one. You may need the handout for this morning. Anybody need a copy? All right. We're picking up, if you remember, we're picking up on letter C, so page two of last week's handout. We have six more points, but the last two are very brief, so really just four to cover that I hope to be able to get through today if we can. I want to remind us, on page one, remind us what a creed or a confession is. Again, drawing this out of Carl Truman's creedal imperative book, by creed or confession of faith, we mean a written exhibition of some great doctrines which the writers believe to be taught in the Bible. All creedal formulations are subordinate to Scripture and subject to correction by Scripture. Thus, Scripture alone is the norming norm, while the Church's adopted creeds are the normed norms. So having established that, and having taken the time in our first lesson to see the scriptural basis for holding to a profession of faith, holding to a confession of faith, holding to some system of doctrine, some understandable faith that is passed on. And again, we not only saw this in the New Testament, remember we saw this in the Old Testament. Remember Psalm 78, that text we always use for baptism of our children. A wonderful statement there and a recognition. that the faith that was given to the fathers was to be passed on to their children's children. And remember even at the Passover, when Moses said, when your children ask you, what does this service mean? So that behind the worship of Israel, behind the Passover, behind the memorials, behind all of the particulars of their worship, Israel was to be able to say, the fathers were to be able to say, this is what this means. So that behind worship, behind the parts of their liturgy, was a confession of faith, right? We do this because this stands for some body of truth, some system of truth, some understanding that we hold to and all rooted, of course, in what God has done, primarily revealing himself to our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Secondarily, wonderful testimony through the entire Exodus experience, God revealing himself as the one who takes a people out of a foreign land for himself and redeems them and brings them to himself to be his own people and then into the land. You see this body of truth this confession of faith that's being passed down from generation to generation and woe to the fathers that did not pass this down. You remember in the reading also when you get to the end of Joshua right becomes clear at the end of Joshua and as Judges begins it says another generation right another generation grew up which did not know Joshua or the elders when Joshua was alive the elders were alive the people did well and they honored the Lord right. Remember Joshua's final challenge, choose this day whom you will serve. You need to make a choice, right? You can't be wishy-washy coming out of Egypt with your idols but going into the land with their idols, right? And there we see, as you move into the book of Judges, you see that this next generation did not know Joshua and the elders, which is the same sort of did not know that we'll see in Hosea chapter 4 this morning. It's a refusal. It's a refusal to recognize. Remember what it says about Pharaoh. And then there arose another Pharaoh that did not know Joseph. Who could not have known Joseph? He was a second in command in all of Egypt. Saved Egypt from its demise. Everyone knew Joseph. But a failure to acknowledge Joseph and his God was really at issue there. And that's the reality when you see that next generation that did not know Joshua and the elders. What are they not doing? They're not passing on the faith. They're not passing on the truth, the revelation of God. which by then, of course, was recorded by Moses in the first five books, but they didn't pass that on. And so you see the failure, right? So, and against that failure, then you obviously see the obligation of the church to have a body of truth that it holds to and passes on. And so then we come to the usefulness and we've gone through a couple of points. So then number three this morning, letter C, we hinted at this last week, creeds and confessions allow for appropriate discrimination between members and office bearers. Greeds and confessions allow for a distinction of expectation, a distinction of understanding, and what it means to be a member of Christ's Church, what it means to be an office bearer in Christ's Church. So, as Truman points out, being an OPC minister himself, typically Presbyterians set the bar for full communicant membership very low. A simple but biblical profession of faith along the lines of Romans 10, 9 and 10 is sufficient. that is a basic trust in Christ and an outward profession that's consistent with that, right? A basic trust in Christ and a life that does not contradict that, right? And if we think about that, you know, why is it so low? Well, it's so low because the Bible sets it so low. Think of what Jesus says, right? That it's, you know, Jesus speaks in the gospels about the faith of a child, childlike faith. And Jesus says, if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, be moved in the sea and it will move, right? We're never told, it's never emphasized at the point of conversion and at the point of regeneration that faith needs to be grand and great, that we need to have this all-embracing, all-encompassing, fully comprehensive faith. Instead, what is pointed out again and again and again, that the faith that saves is not a faith that's great, it's a faith in the one who is great, right? Faith gets its strength and its vitality not from the subject believing but from the one believed, from its object, right? That's what gives faith. That's what makes faith saving. What is so wonderful about faith? And how is it that a man, right, a thief on the cross of some age, right, a man can reach out his hand and say, I believe, and also a child can reach out his hand and say, I believe. And both can come to the same point of conversion. Both can come to the same inheritance in eternal glory. How is that possible? Because it doesn't depend upon the subject as it does the object. It's Christ who is believed in, and that's why the bar is set low for communicant membership, for becoming a member of Christ's church, because it is Christ who saves, and not we who save ourselves, nor the strength of our faith, the breadth of our faith, the depth of our faith, all of that. None of that matters at that point, and that is why a child, that is why a child can read the Gospel of John and come to saving faith, and not understand a whole lot of it. but know enough to see his need for Jesus, and Jesus being the one who can answer that as the Savior given by God for sinners. Now, of course, as you know, in our own denomination, as well as in most Presbyterian churches, it would be this way, the profession of faith, where the bar is set so low, the profession, of course, is fleshed out in a series of vows. And in the OPC, of course, we have five vows. And these vows are on essential issues, such as the authority of the Bible, the Trinity and the Incarnation, salvation by grace through faith in Christ, a commitment to follow Christ in a life of obedience, and submission to elder oversight, those being the five issues taken up in the five vows. Now, we could spend a long time on each of those vows, right? There's depth and there's breadth and there's height to these vows in terms of getting into, as we said last week, the doctrine of the Trinity and deity and humanity and the Incarnation, the hypostatic union of the Lord Jesus Christ, all of this. These are great depths. These are deep waters, right? But you don't need to lead someone into the very depths, right, at that point. It's that basic knowledge and understanding of these truths, and we will spend a lifetime continuing to grow in understanding. The overall content, even in those five vowels, the overall content is pretty straightforward and pretty basic, right? This is why, depending on, I've typically done four or five membership classes, a class for each vow. I've done that for many, many years. But there are some classes that maybe run 13, 14, 15 weeks. Thinking of other pastors in our presbytery even, there are some classes that maybe just be an afternoon, going over the five vows very simply, very quickly. It's straightforward. Depending on the situation, depending on the person, from whence they've come, from another church, from another profession, a previous profession of faith. All of that, the content is basic and straightforward. And the reason for that is the finer details of the doctrines of the faith, even those things in the five vows, but of course everything else in scripture, those are the things that the church is responsible to teach its members. Those are the things that the church will spend its lifetime, and that person will spend his or her lifetime under the ministry of the word learning those things. Those aren't the things required before entry. We don't have people pass a theological examination before entry, right? We go to Romans 10, 9 to 10, right? Do you have to have a trust, a saving trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and a life consistent with that? Membership, Truman says, is not a reward for achieving a high level of doctrinal knowledge any more than a high level of personal holiness. Membership instead is the gateway to the means of grace by which we grow in doctrinal knowledge and we mature in gospel holiness, right? Membership is the gateway to the very means by which we grow to those places that we are to aspire to be. And so let me ask you this question here, which I'm pretty sure I printed in your outline as well. Let's take this question. What's wrong with requiring members to hold a particular view of the end times or a particular stance on the use of alcohol? I just take those from any number of issues because they tend to be pretty typical. But what's wrong with requiring someone for membership into their church, requiring someone to hold a particular end times view, and a particular view on the use of alcohol. Jim? You're binding someone's conscience. Right? Well, let's remember, it's true, but remember the church can bind, must bind consciences, what? Where God binds it, right? The church has the responsibility to say, thus says the Lord. Right? So, binding the conscience narrowly isn't the issue. Right? That is the issue here, but in what sense? Right? Why is that a problem here? Right? Where does God's word say that in order to be a Christian, you need to hold a particular end time view? Or in order to be a Christian, right, you need to have a certain perspective on the use of alcohol. Right? What's important, what's What we need to understand is, remember the, and again, this comes out most clearly in Presbyterianism as the three, one of the three forms of church government. You remember the ecumenicity of the church, the unity of the church, right? It's not just our four walls, it's the church of Jesus Christ, period, right? All throughout the world and throughout the ages. For someone to become a member of Christ's church, a member of the OPC, PCCC, is to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ on earth, the very church that will enter into eternity, assuming a true profession of faith, of course, right? To bring someone into the church, yes, you're bringing them into a particular expression of the church, this expression, an OPC, this expression, PCCC. But what's also happening is we're welcoming someone to the Church of Jesus Christ. When we welcome someone to the table of the Lord, we're welcoming them as a Christian, right? And that's why we say to visitors, if you're here today and you're a member of a true Christian church, right, if you're a baptized member of a true Christian church, then you're welcome to come. Why? Because this table is not for PCCC or even OPC, it's for the church, right? Our Father, we're embracing the church as a whole. And likewise, when someone is ordained as an elder, and more particularly, you see it when someone is ordained as a minister, right? To be a minister in PCCC, OPC, is to be a member in the Church of Jesus, or excuse me, to be a minister of the church of Jesus Christ on earth. It's the whole of the church and not just one particular. And so when we say, when a particular church, a particular church says you need to hold this view or that view in order to be a member, what they're saying is, without realizing it I'm sure, you need to hold this view or that view in order to be a Christian. That's what's happening, right? It's not that a church can't have a confession of faith. Right? Obviously we have a confession of faith. We're reformed. We're Calvinist. We believe in the sovereignty of God. We believe in monergism, monergistic regeneration. We believe in tulip, right? For the large, in large part the OPC is amillennial in its end time view. And most of its ministers are. So these things are held. But they're not at the gate, right? They're not at the gate in terms of requirements for membership, right? And the OPC certainly has a view with regard to the use of alcohol and tobacco. But these things aren't at the gate in a way that says, in order to be a Christian, you need to agree to this and hold to that. It's very, very different, right? It's very different. So what's wrong with it is, it's putting the fruit as the root, right? That's what's happening here. Because what we need to appreciate is, a Christian should have, a Christian should have a certain view of the end times, right? Even our confession of faith has a view of the end times. It doesn't pick a millennial view. It just simply says Christ is coming back as he left bodily, visibly, publicly. He's returning, right? Very simple, without saying, without getting into the weeds of the differences, it very simply says you need a view of the end times that is at least this. Christ is coming back for his church in judgment, right? So a Christian should hold to that view. And a Christian should have a particular perspective on the use of alcohol. Drunkenness is a sin, right? But it's important that we make a distinction between what's required at the gate and what we expect a person to grow to and come to, and particularly now, what's required of elders, office bearers, ministers, right? So when we put things at the gate, when we put things at the entrance into the church, we're confusing the fruit and the evidence of a right relationship with Christ, a growing relationship with Christ. We're confusing that with what's at the root of salvation and what's of the essence of faith. To put something at the gate is to say that that's of the essence of saving faith. You can't have saving faith without this. That's the problem. And when a church does that, it's doing it in a way that sends a message with regard to what it means to come to Christ. You mean I have to believe that in order to come to Jesus? Yes. That's what's essentially being said because at the point of membership, what does it mean? Yes, to join a particular church, but what's happening is we're coming into the Church of Christ. And what does that require? Saving faith in the Lord Jesus, Romans 10, 9 or 10. From that we grow, of course we do. But creeds and confessions then, to get to the point, it allows for this appropriate discrimination between what's required for members and what's required for office bearers. Because the Bible makes it clear then, number two, the qualifications for office bearers are set higher. So we have 1 Timothy chapter one. Paul says here in verses one to seven, or three to seven, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. Now, if you're charging people not to teach something different, then you're obviously assuming they know what is to be taught. Don't teach different than this, right? Again, so notice that entrustment with a doctrine, a trustment with truth. Nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. Again, a stewardship of what? The truth. The aim of our charge, particularly as ministers and elders, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, notice the basics there, swerving from those basics, have wandered in a way into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. And then turn to Titus. Chapter 1, remember what we read here about qualifications for elders, verse 9, an elder must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, there's that entrustment, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it, who contradict that body of truth that has been given to the next generation, given to the apostles and through the apostles to the church. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced. since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. They're teaching error, they're teaching something contrary to the doctrine that you have received. So an elder then, to carry on in our notes here, an elder is to have the maturity and the discernment to know what he's to focus on in terms of his teaching and the knowledge to be able to do that effectively. He's to make sure that his ambition is not to be a teacher, everybody look at me, but he is a means and a conduit for the truth, right? He's to point to the truth and not to himself. An elder is entrusted with truth, but entrusted that he may teach. He's been given something that he may be a good steward and give it away, right? And so an elder is raised to a particular place of maturity and understanding by the grace of God that he might then be a means, as Paul says to Timothy, teach others. Even as I have taught you, so taught others who can teach others. Likewise, in 1 Timothy 2. So it's clear that Paul assumes the teacher is to have a certain doctrinal competence, which typically doesn't mark the church member at his entrance because a non-negotiable qualification of an elder is that he is to be able to teach, 1 Timothy 3, in the qualifications there. So that leads then to letter C, the question of a denomination, and the question of a church then is, what is it that the elders are to be competent to teach? If they're to be competent to teach, and if we see the elders here, Titus and Timothy in particular being entrusted with the body of truth as Paul knows he's dying and with him the apostolic office of those who receive new revelation in order to entrust it to the church, to canonize it for the church. And so what then is the elder to be competent to teach? What is that body of knowledge? What content is it that they're supposed to have sufficiently grasped in order to hold the office of an elder? What more do they need to know than a new Christian who just joined the church? Well, the creeds and confessions of the church provide good answers to those questions, which is why when you look at the elder vows, in particular deacon vows as well, because they hold office in Christ Church, although they don't have a teaching capacity, but they do a lot of counseling and ministry in that way, but particularly the elder's vows and the minister's vows, that's why you have the vow of subscription included in there. Do you subscribe, right? And so there's an expectation then that an elder who seeks the office and to whom God is entrusting the office is a man of knowledge. What knowledge? That knowledge that has been given to the church by Christ through his apostles and entrusted then to Timothy, Titus, and all ministers on down the line. Because this is what we're receiving, the very scriptures of God. The elder is to know that, right? He's to know, He is to have the knowledge of the truth backward and forward. He is to know his confession. He is to know his catechisms. He subscribes and vows to be one who believes them, holds to them, and then that helps us understand and helps us meet expectations, as we said before and we'll look at again, with regard to the elders who hold office for the church. So number three, it's important to understand here that this is not to say that a simple faith is insufficient for salvation. That goes back to the point number one, right? We're not saying that a simple faith is insufficient to come through the doors of the church and join the church of Jesus Christ. It's merely to say that a simple faith is insufficient for the establishment of the church of Jesus Christ and for the well-being of the church of Jesus Christ. That it's insufficient for the establishment and well-being of the church as a Christian community. This is why when the OPC, I would assume most Presbyterian and Reformed denominations, when the OPC plants a church, in order for a church to go from a mission work, right, to a particular church, it needs to have elders and deacons, right, because elders and deacons are necessary for the establishment and well-being of the church. If we don't have elders and deacons, then we either need to borrow some to get the church off the ground and trust the Lord that it will continue to grow, or the church can't be planted. It doesn't transition from a mission church, a mission work rather, that needs continual oversight and provision, not just financial help, right, until the church can grow to afford the pastor's salary, but more importantly, that it can have overseeing elders and overseeing officers and overseeing ministers, overseeing Presbytery. until it gets to the point where it can be particularized, self-governing, right? Self-supporting, self-propagating. When it can get to that three-self position, then it becomes a particular church. It's no longer a mission work. It's now an OPC congregation, right? And again, that's the case in most Presbyterian reform circles. Why? Because we see the necessity, because this is what Paul said to Titus and Timothy. I left you so that you can go throughout and appoint elders in every church. Every church needs its elders, why? Because they're the ones entrusted with the knowledge. They're the ones entrusted with the body of truth. They're the ones responsible to teach, to train, to preach, to lead, to guide, right, and to shepherd. You don't have a church if you don't have that. We need proper government. And I don't know if you've, in your own experiences, certainly in my experiences and my upbringing, seeing churches, you know, pop out of the ground without proper leadership, right? Seeing churches, I can think of a particular gentleman, actually not here, in Maine, a particular gentleman that was just surrounded by a bunch of friends when things weren't so good in their church and they came to him and said, why don't you be our pastor? With no formal training at all, right? Why don't you be our pastor? And of course that started, they had some sort of group and they started out in someone's home, but it went nowhere. It's not that they weren't sincere believers and had a sincere desire to see a good church planted. but without proper leadership, without someone entrusted with a body of truth to teach, to lead, to shepherd, to preach, then where does the church go? Again, we're talking about what is necessary and what is then insufficient for the establishment and well-being of the church. The church is to be a place, the scripture teaches us, the church is to be a place where infants grow into adults. It's where novices in the faith grow into elders in the faith. Paul says it's good for a man to aspire to the office of overseer. Every man, every young man in Christ's church should aspire to the office of elder and deacon. He should aspire to be a church officer. It's the church is where one goes from the elementary things of God, think of Hebrews 5 and 6, to the deep things of God. Remember the author there says, let us leave the elementary things. Let us move on, right? Remember Paul to the church in Corinth, you should be off milk. in the sense that that's your diet, right? We always need the basics, but I should be able to give you meat, he says, and I can't. We go from a basic knowledge of the gospel and a basic desire for holiness to a mature knowledge of the gospel and the consistent pursuit of holiness. Churches be a place where we're growing. And as members, what are we growing toward? We're growing to a level where we're aspiring to a level of gospel holiness and doctrinal maturity that is laid out for us. in our creeds and confessions. That's where we're aiming. That's the place we're reaching for. So requiring elders to have a proficient knowledge of the church's doctrinal positions as expressed in its creeds and confessions is a means of ensuring that they have the knowledge and the ability to foster the kind of growth in the Christian community that the Christian community is to be known for. It's a place where people are supposed to grow and if they're supposed to grow, then it's their officers who need to be enabled and strengthened and equipped by God, anointed by God, called by God, to see to that growth, which is why the elders oversee the preaching of the word, the elders oversee the Sunday school ministry of the church, the elders oversee the Bible studies of the church, all the gatherings of the church. Every time anybody gets together to pray and to read and to study, the elders oversee that. Because what are they looking for? They want to make sure everyone's maturing, everyone's growing in the right direction, and there aren't just spurious Bible studies happening here and there, and who knows what kind of teaching is going on, right? That never benefits a church in its unity and its purity. That's how new churches get started. Because a group comes to disagree with everything the pastor says, and they decide they'll break off. Elders are to oversee that. Requiring elders to subscribe to the church's doctrinal standards provides a way for them to hold them accountable for what they believe and teach as elders in the church. Because remember, it's the church, right? Not that ordained them. It's the church that elected them. It's the church that chose them. It's the church that says, I want him to be my elder. I'm willing to submit to him. I'm willing to submit to his teaching. I'm willing to follow him as he follows Christ. That's the church's choice. Church chooses its elders. Elders don't get imposed upon the church any more than pastors get imposed upon the church. That's the Presbyterian form of church government we've already looked at. And so this provides a way for the church to hold them accountable as elders. But it also allows for setting an appropriately different level for members. We don't hold members to the same level of accountability in that sense. And so creeds and confessions recognize on the one hand the seriousness of the office of an elder. He needs to be a man of knowledge and a man able to teach what God has given to him. But it also recognizes the fact that many genuine believers have a very minimal understanding of the faith at their conversion. Again, Romans 10, 9 to 10, basic. This is how our children are allowed to come in and make a profession of faith at some point where there seems to be a genuine work of the Lord Jesus Christ, a genuine understanding of salvation. Our children still need to grow much in their understanding of the faith. But at that point, we welcome them. right, with their childlike faith to lay hold of Jesus Christ and to say yes, right, Christ is my savior and I seek to follow him. All right, make sense? Okay, letter D is short and then we'll get on to E. Letter D now, this morning then, fourthly, creeds and confessions reflect the ministerial authority of the church. I think this is something Misty brought up last week that I refer to. One of the most important aspects of creeds and confessions is that they're corporate documents, right, They're authored and owned by the corporate church as represented by our office bearers. You know, you think of the level of Presbyterian, we have elders and ministers, right? Or even, of course, general assembly. But the church as represented by its office bearers. Think of the Westminster standards, right? The Westminster standards being pinned by the Westminster divines, the theologians, the pastors and theologians who are called together by parliament at that time. Men of the greatest caliber, of the greatest renown, of the greatest respect, Men renowned for their understanding, for their knowledge of the scriptures and their walk of faith. These men called together, right? The church's representatives, the best of the best and the providence of God, come together and to pin these documents. And so these documents are the documents of the corporate church. In other words, this isn't something that your pastor wrote and now entrusts to you and says, this is our faith and you need to subscribe to this. And because these documents have been adopted by those called to hold office in Christ Church, right, again, recognizing that while the church chooses its elders and its pastors, it's God who sets them apart, it's God who ordains them, it's God who anoints them and pours out his Holy Spirit, it's God who calls them, right? So recognizing that they're called by Christ to hold office, the default position of the church should be one of trust and obedience, right? This is why elders and pastors being set up over you in the church of Jesus Christ. This is why Paul, or the author of Hebrews anyway, says to submit to them, to respect them, to honor them, right? They're worthy of double honor and et cetera, right? Because these men have been placed over you by God, right? Doesn't make them infallible, doesn't make them perfect, doesn't make their theology perfect and without error or without need for correction or growth or maturing. It's a recognition of the office. You remember how David regarded the office of Saul? Saul was a terrible king, right? The people's choice, not God's choice. And that became very, very evident what kind of king he was. And Samuel told the mayor of the town, this is the kind of king that you've chosen for yourself. But David refused to take his life, right? Why? Because he was the Lord's anointed, his office. David recognized that office and he submitted to it and trusted God to vindicate him. And of course he did. And so the default position of the church should be one of trust and obedience toward those men its office bearers and representatives who have either written its confession of faith or in our day received it and subscribed to it, right? Our denomination has adopted these doctrinal standards, the Westminster standards, and so we should have a default position of trust and obedience. Number three, though, remember this, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't search the scriptures, right? We should all be Bereans. That's your responsibility, my responsibility, even as a minister, right, to search these things that this denomination holds, right, that this denomination has adopted as its confessional standards. I'm also responsible to search the scripture. So we're all to be a Berean and see if these things are so, right? The individual conscience is not removed, right? However, it does mean that we should be less confident in our private judgment. and more inclined to trust the church's office bearers called by God to help and lead us into maturity. It's very, very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely that any one of us is going to come up with a doctrine the church has never heard of. It's very unlikely that any one of us is going to study the scriptures and come to a particular doctrinal understanding that the church of Jesus Christ has never seen. It's very unlikely, right? Instead, what we're going to find As we make ourselves students of the scriptures and we study the word and we read, we're going to find that what jumps off the page, right, what we begin to discern and understand as we submit and we pray to God for understanding, we're going to see that we're able to hold to some confession of faith that the church has always made. Again, you remember when the followers of Arminius came and said, we want to teach this, the five points of Arminianism. The church said, actually, no, we're not going to teach that. We're going to continue to teach what we've always taught, what the church has always believed, these things, which became the five points of Calvinism in response. So what we find is that the church has confessed these things from the beginning. And this is just anecdotally, this is one of the ways in which the Lord really grew me coming out of my background and my Pentecostal and dispensational understanding. The more I studied the Bible, the more I read scripture, the more Presbyterian I became. And the more I read the Bible, the more Westminster I became. And I was able to find in my own journey that what I was seeing that the Bible taught, actually someone else had saw before me, many people had seen before me, and it was best expressed in the Westminster standards. And those standards were most faithfully held in a Presbyterian church. So that's kind of how the Lord brought me along, and that's what we come to see. None of us is going to come to some particular understanding at this point, 2000 years after the cross, something that Jesus entrusted to the church as necessary to know, and no one's ever seen it but you. So we put less confidence in our private judgment, and we're inclined to trust our officers, our church officers, to help lead us into truth and lead us into maturity. Society, of course, tells us to distrust traditional authority, to doubt all leaders, to dismiss the past, to cut yourself off and start over. But this is not the New Testament view of the church. The New Testament view of the church, as we've seen, is that the church has been entrusted with the truth, right? Paul calls to Timothy, he calls the church the pillar and buttress of the truth. Not that the church creates the truth, but rather that the church has received the truth from God. And the church is entrusted to steward that truth and the particular ones who are entrusted to see to its stewardship is its officers. Training and teaching and seeing men and women grow in the faith and men particularly be raised up to office and to ministry. All right. I was thinking this morning when I was going over this looking at, you know, society telling us to distrust traditional authority, doubt all leaders and dismiss the past reminded me of, maybe you remember, maybe you never even heard of it, The Emerging Church, early 2000, right? The Emerging Church came out and Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, a lot of these names, right? Followed this Emerging Church and the point of the Emerging Church and it came out with such a flame, right? It came out with such suddenness and all of a sudden it was the bandwagon everyone should be on. But particularly what they did is to cut themselves off from the past, right? And they were countering and questioning and they were troubled by certain things in the church and things maybe that need adjustment. The church always needs to be reforming. We always need to be growing as a church, not just a denomination, but the church. We need to be growing and maturing. And so they were reacting to certain things that maybe we should think about. However, their reaction was, let's just cut ourselves off, right? And he had this emergence that took place. Where is the emerging church? It's gone. It's absolutely gone. It died in 08, 2010, maybe 2012. And what happened? Some of their greatest leaders turned out to be heretics. Think of Rob Bell. If Rob Bell continues to hold what he holds, he's going to go to hell. He's holding error, right? And these were some of its leaders. But you see what happens when you cut yourself off and you just fly and say, okay, we're just going to go and land wherever, right? When you cut yourself off from the, benefit the usefulness of a creed and a confession, right? It's not that the confession, even the Westminster, it isn't perfect, right? It's fallible, right? It's written by men, mere men. It's not inspired. But it's a good place to start. It's a good place to start for understanding our faith, and if need be, growing in our faith. But we don't cut ourselves off from the church and say, we're just going to start all over. We're going to wipe the board clean and start all over. Because you don't know where you're going to land. You could land anywhere. And for Rob Bailey, land in a place of heresy. This is what happens. So it just made me, I think about, I was struck by that. I was like, yeah, this is exactly what happened. Not just society telling the church not to trust traditional authority, but even those in the church said the same thing. Break off. We need to start over. We need another reformation. This is how we're going to do it. When you think about the reformation, what was the reformation? A return to the past. Right? Chiefly, go back to Augustine. You realize St. Augustine was the number one person that Calvin quoted? Calvin quoted no one more than he quoted Augustine. And as great as Calvin was, and as necessary and important as Calvin was for the Church of Jesus Christ, even continuing today, especially as institutes of the Christian religion, he just went back to Augustine. But he went over the dark ages and over the errors and the falsehoods, particularly of the Roman Catholic Church, back to St. Augustine and said it was right then. Right? This is what the Church has always held in the fourth century so close to the apostles. And he went back to where we always were. Again, going back to what? A confession of faith, right? The body of truth that Augustine held so well. And of course, he wasn't infallible, but bringing that truth back and saying, this is what the church has always believed. We've lost our way, but we need to go back. But for the emerging church, we've lost our way. Let's go find it. And nothing good comes of that. All right, letter E this morning. Creeds and confessions represent the maximum doctrinal competence that can be expected from a congregation. We talked about this a little bit last week as well. For a church to hold to a creed or to hold to a confession and to require subscription from its office bearers, not from its members, but from its office bearers, is to send a signal to the congregation about what the church considers to be important to her doctrinal life. If this is what we require our office bearers to subscribe to, this is the OPC's way of saying to its members, We value the knowledge of church officers, right? For requiring ministers to go to seminary, right? There's a number of churches that don't require any formal training for its ministers, right? But for the OPC to require formal training is to place a high value on the knowledge, the truth with which the man of God to lead the church, pastor and elder, that which has been entrusted to them is so critical, right? What hangs upon the knowledge that has been given to the church? Your eternal salvation. So for a man to preach or teach heresy is to lead you into eternal perdition, if you believe that. And so the Lord has entrusted to the church his truth, and for a denomination to say, yes, we have a body of confession, and we compel our ministers and elders to subscribe to it. That sends a signal to the church. This is important. But it also sends a signal telling you that this is important for your doctrinal life because we want these men chosen by God to be your leaders. We want them to be entrusted with and committed to this body of knowledge because these are the things that we believe they should be teaching you. These are the things we believe he should be preaching to you, right? This system of truth that has been given and passed down. So the church's creeds represent its doctrinal aspirations for its members. I think it's a really great point, right? This is why a confessional church has somewhere, right, in its toolbox, a catechism, right? A catechism by way of question and answer so that we can teach our children, right? Whether our young children, the children's catechism, or our teenagers, the shorter catechism, or even the larger catechism. Whatever it may be, we have a catechism by which to instruct. That's the pedagogical tool because it's not just we want the elders and ministers to hold these things. We want them to teach these things. We want you to aspire to this knowledge. So we want church membership to be as inclusive as the Bible makes it. Romans 10, 9 or 10. But we want to send a signal to the church that its members should, that we don't want to send a signal to the church that its members should be satisfied with an elementary understanding of Christianity. Romans 10, 9 or 10, that's it. You don't need anything more. Just come in and relax. We'll take you across the threshold. We'll get you home. No, instead, holding to a body of truth as having confessional standards is to say to the church, this is what we want you to know. This is what we're committed to teach you. This is what we want you to study, to read. We want you to examine these things according to scripture. We want you to aspire to this understanding. So membership then is not the end of the pedagogical, the teaching process. It's the beginning, right? You got your whole life now ahead of you as a Christian in the church of Jesus Christ to grow and to learn. That takes us back to Hebrews 5 to 6, right? That we need to move on. from elementary things, move on from milk to meat, that we need to discern the truth, understand the truth, and live according to it. Number three, as the confession sets out what the church considers to be vital, as well as the parameters of the church's pedagogical power, it also represents the maximum that can be officially expected of church members as they grow and mature. And so in this context, Truman says, a good confession becomes not an overbearing rule. A good confession is not something you beat people over the head with. Rather, it is an exciting map of doctrinal knowledge, right? It's an exciting map of the territory, he says, of biblical truth that you can expect from your church's ministry and ministers and elders and something to which you can aspire as a church member, right? And I just want to challenge you, right? Value the Westminster Standards. If you've not read them through, read them through. You don't need to rush, take your time, read a question a week, a question a day, whatever it is, but read through the confession for yourself, read through the shorter catechism for yourself, and finally, read through the larger catechism for yourself. Take your time, appreciate the doctrinal standards of your church and your denomination, and appreciate those doctrinal standards that are held not just by us, but by all Presbyterian churches, and appreciate that from 1640s, they're still here, right? largely untouched and untampered with because they're so good at getting to the basics, professing the basics, and getting past all of the other stuff. And that leads into the next one, creeds and confessions relativize the present, right? They've proved useful over the centuries. And in that sense, they're immune to the passing fads and taste of the present. Think again of the emerging church, right? Something new is seen and something new needs to be done. The old isn't sufficient. And the emerging church had this idea that creeds and confessions, all the stuff entrusted to us from our fathers, they're not sufficient for today. So we need to break our ties from all that stuff because there's something in the present that needs new attention that the old fathers haven't considered. Well, creeds and confessions are immune to these passing fads. They speak to issues which the church has found to be important through the ages, right? Your fathers, fathers, fathers, fathers are in heaven today, right? Believing, having held to the basics, and not having seen what we've seen in our day, some of the new concerns and the new challenges that we're facing. Is the confession sufficient? It's proven to be sufficient, and I think it's sufficient today. Number two, if we find ourselves faced with new concerns, however, which the confession doesn't fully address, we need to remember that confessions are normed norms, right? We can adjust them, we can revise them, Right? But if a confession is found to be inadequate, the inadequacy is with the confession, not with scripture. Right? When all of the LGBTQ stuff started coming out years ago now and still presses upon us with all the transgenderism and especially, but there was a lot of discussion, right? Westminster confession doesn't address this. Oh no, what do we do? How do we as an OPC respond to this new concern of our day because the Westminster Standards, they didn't see this. They didn't know about homosexuality and transgenderism and so we need to change. We need something in addition to, we need an addendum as it were. But it's interesting, if you go to the confession and you read the very short chapter on marriage and you really consider the foundation that's laid in that confession, right? That doesn't necessarily take into account the passing fads of the moment. Instead, it lays the foundation and says, this is what the Bible teaches about marriage. This is the plumb line for whatever you need to do, right? Whatever you need to test, here's your plumb line. Doesn't matter, right? So what the confession is saying at that point, and this is what a good confession does, What it's saying at that point is, whatever you guys deal with, whatever our children's children's children's children deal with, you can bring it right to this plumb line. Because this is what the Bible teaches about marriage. This will be enough by way of criticism of what you may face down the road, which they did not face. What we need to appreciate is that's why, in part, why the standards, the Westminster standards in particular, but others as well. Think of the reform standards, the Belgic, the Canons, and the Heidelberg, and such forth. But that's why the Westminster standards are still around. That's why they're still good. That's why they're still adopted, and still held to, and still subscribed to, and still professed. Because they do such a good job of not getting caught up. Think again of the final chapter on the end times, right? Where the confession doesn't take the time to say, OK, let's just go ahead and just settle the question between pre-mill, post-mill, all-mill. We're just going to get this out there. What they say is these are things you need to wrestle with. But as you wrestle with those differences, you wrestle with those good questions. Here's the plumb line. Here's Acts chapter 1. Jesus is coming back visibly, bodily, publicly. Just as he left, the angel said, he will return in like manner. Work with this and make all your adjustments accordingly. So the confession is a wonderful plumb line. So again, go back and read the chapter on marriage. Take your time reading through it slowly and just see what it says and realize that what it says is so foundational that it can help us answer. Now, more can be said, more needs to be said relative to the things we deal with, but we can answer the pressing concerns of our contemporary era, even in the language of the Westminster standards. That's what's so amazing. And that's what a good confession does. relativizes the present it sticks with the basics that will be sufficient because what we're trying to pass on to our generate what we're trying to pass on to our children's children what the confession is trying to pass on to the church is the principles right and not a particular view of the end times or a particular view of the use of alcohol or tobacco or a particular view of the dress codes right what the confession is trying to pass on is the principles of scripture by which you are going to need to wrestle with those questions. And the questions will be different in some respects for each era, right? And how you address the issue of sexuality and how you address the issue of marriage. They address the same questions, but a little different, obviously, right? But we're addressing the same basic concerns. This is why Genesis 1, 2, and 3 will always be so foundational for the church. And that's what the Confessions chapter on marriage does. It goes back to Genesis. Okay, let's start with that. Everything has to be balanced according to that. Everything has to be plumbed against that. That's it. Letter number three there, also the advantage of creeds and confessions is that they are profoundly countercultural in a biblical way. By reciting a creed in the worship service or adhering to a historic confession as part of the church's identity, both of which we do, the church makes a powerful statement in relationship to our relationship to our contemporary culture. We realize that we live and breathe in the present. We live and breathe facing real life issues of today. We're not ignorant of that. We don't ignore that, right? But the creeds and confessions of the church connect us to the past. And they indicate to us, and they indicate to the world in which we live our present lives, that our identity is not rooted in the present. Our identity is rooted in the past. Rooted in what Christ has done. What we've been talking about on Sunday nights, that gospel event. That's what we're rooted in. What Christ has come and done and finished and ascended into the heavens to accomplish. Number four, to subscribe to and adopt a confession is to say that the church is bigger than our day and our generation. Value that for a moment. This was part of the folly of the emerging church. To subscribe to and adopt a confession is to say that the church is bigger than our day, it's bigger than our generation. The church's foundation does not lie in the present, right? We're not starting over. We don't break ties with our forefathers and break ties with our standards, right? That body of truth and say, we're just going to start over. We're going to reinvent the wheel. We don't trust anything. We don't trust the past. Tradition is being imposed upon us. Our parents' religion is being imposed upon us. We're gonna break from all that and start over. The church is a fool when it does that, right? Because that's never the way it's been done, even in Genesis, right? Adam lived long enough to pass on the faith. And then that faith was passed through Noah to Shem, and through Shem on down to Abraham. And the Lord called him out of darkness, but what did he teach him? The very same revelation he had given to Adam, I am the Lord. And that gospel then is entrusted to Abraham, but particularly beginning with Abraham. Remember when the Lord says, I will not withhold from Abraham what I'm going to do in Sodom and Gomorrah. Why? Because he, the Lord says, because he will teach his children after him. Abraham has been given the body of faith, Abram, and he will entrust those things to his generations. And so we don't begin anew. Our foundation is not in the present, right? This is why when people are trying to, and this happens all the time, right? Everybody wants to start a new church. And unfortunately, part of the impetus in the starting of new churches is, let's start something new, something contemporary, something relevant to today, something that people really connect with. Because if we keep going back to the past, we're gonna lose the present. That's the thinking. And so you have all this newness going on in churches that break with the past, and we have a situation then in which it's no creed but the Bible. Because you have a man who holds to certain things, You don't know what they are necessarily, but that's what is the foundation of the church, his own perspective. And what that church is saying is that they're going to lay a new foundation in the present. They're going to start something different, something new, something big and grand, and we're going to have lots of people. What the OPC does, what Presbyterianism does, what confessionalism does, is to recognize that we are stewards of the truth that has been given to the church since the beginning. since the Old Testament come through to the New Testament and then finalized with the Apostles in the Canon, right? The truth neither begins nor ends with us. We're stewards of what we've received, which we believe to be ably expressed in the Westminster Standards. And we're stewards to see that these are the things taught to you and your children and your children's children so that when we die, we've been faithful to take the truth and to pass it on, that it may continue and that there may be a church here when Christ comes. Again, this kind of counter-culturalism is important. Truth is not relative. Truth doesn't need to be modified in the present against present concerns, which is what the emerging church thought. It doesn't need to be modified to be relevant. The truth will always be relevant because we're all sons of Adam and we're all the same. As different as each culture and age and era may be, We're all sinners in Adam and need to be saved in Christ. The gospel is the same from the first to the second Adam, the fall and the redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ, right? So the preaching of the gospel, what we've been talking about on Sunday nights, the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ will always be relevant, will always find a home in the hearts of those who have ears to hear, always, right? We don't need to change it, modify it, make it relevant. It is relevant. Now, we need to be able to preach it to our contemporary era, We need to be able to connect with people, not minimizing that reality, but we don't need to make the truth relevant somehow. It's relevant because we're offering hope to sinners. That's always been the case since the Garden of Eden. That's the case today, and that'll be the case when Jesus comes back, when we'll be preaching, offering hope in Lord Jesus Christ to sinners. Always the same. This is what we recognize when we have, this is one of the things we say when we have a confession or a creed. We're saying that truth is absolute. It transcends all the shifting sands of the cultures of the ages. Our identity is in the past, not in the Westminster Confession. Let's be clear here. Our identity is not in the Westminster Standards. It's not in John Knox and Calvin's Presbyterianism, right? Not in Augustine even. Our identity is in the gospel event of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the church has, by remember proven vocabulary with proven documents, tried and tested and held over time, maintained over time, the truth has a way, the church has provided a way by which that truth is housed and communicated and taught and stewarded throughout the ages. And we as a denomination and we as a church have landed on the Westminster standards as an able body of truth, as an able expression of the body of truth found in scriptures and which has been entrusted to the church. It's not to say that nobody else has it right. The Heidelberg is wonderful, the canons of Dort, all those things are really good as well. But we've chosen this one as a church and a denomination because we believe it's good and it's one in which your elders can, in good conscience, say yes, that's my faith. If you want to examine what I believe, if you have questions about what I believe, Go home and read the Westminster Standards. That's my faith, right? You can hold me accountable to that. I'll always come to you with that. You can always expect that to be preached. You can always expect that to be taught in this church, over which I have been made an overseer by God. That's the faith. That's wonderful. That's so encouraging. So encouraging, so healthy, so blessed, right, to have that, rather than, in my experience, and maybe yours as well, going to a church and never knowing what a Sunday might bring, never knowing what a sermon might bring, never knowing what a new pastor might bring. You have no idea until it happens and falls upon you and you find yourself like, how did we get here? Oh, we have a new pastor and the church took a left turn, the church did this, we adopted a new this, we changed our name here, all sorts of adjustments and changes, right? Because it's continuing to mold. The great thing about An OPC is you could lose your elders and get new elders and they'd stand in the same doctrinal place. You can lose your pastor and get a new pastor and he'd have the same doctrinal stance. The faith is not going to change in an OPC. That's an encouragement. And that's why you can come faithfully and come, as we've been saying since the beginning, by way of conviction and thank the Lord. So now with that this morning, we've covered thinking of the catechism, the Presbyterian government, and now this, we've covered what was on my heart, what it means to be Reformed, Presbyterian, and confessional. So I pray these three series will really be dear to your heart and you'll spend time looking over them again and again and appreciate the blessing of the Presbyterian Church of Cape Cod. We're about to celebrate our 50th anniversary. Appreciate the blessing of the Lord establishing this church on the Cape, those who have labored in this church over the years to see that it is still here, and the great privilege of being here and being members of this church today. and raising our children in this church. And the prayer that this church, this church and this denomination might ever be faithful to the Lord until he returns. Realizing that you will never have an elder or a minister who isn't like you, a sinner saved by grace. But it's Christ who upholds this church. And it's his truth that preserves the church. And it's his truth that we want to persevere from one elder to the next, from one pastor to the next. May the truth be upheld because that's what it's about. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for this time, this class. Thank you for Carl Truman's book. We so look forward to having him in November speak about these things as well as some other matters and even in particular, Lord, applying these realities and these concerns, even to concerns pressing us in our contemporary season of life right now. And so we pray, Father, for your blessing upon him as he prepares. And may you bring out your blessing upon that conference for us and for all who would attend. Be with us now this day. Bless our worship. Bless the services before us. Encourage us. Build us up in our faith. May you appear to us in the preaching of the gospel today and pour out your spirit. We pray in Jesus' name.