All right, so let's open with prayer. Father God, we thank you for this Sunday. We thank you that we can come together as your church and worship you without fear of reprisal. We enjoy many blessings in this country, and we thank you for them. We ask that we would not take them for granted, but that we would be diligent to come and to worship together. We pray that you would bless our time together, you would nourish us and grow us in our union with Christ, through our union with Christ, that you would knit us together with one another in our communion as saints, Lord, and that we would grow more and more after the image of Christ to bring glory to His name, and in His name we pray, amen. Alright, so today I'm gonna, I was talked to the elders when I volunteered for this and found out that they have various things that they teach on, so that when they volunteer to teach, they kind of pick up where they'd gone before. Maybe some of you knew that, but I think Mark is teaching through the miracles of Jesus and Andy had been teaching through the Psalms, so I'm going to try doing kind of the same thing for starters. This will be a short series, but this would be the first in answering the question of what flavor of Christianity we are so that we can share that with other people who are interested and just understand what our church is about and what our denomination is about. When I was at the Air Force Academy, I used to go to a Bible study with an elder in the PCA named, thank you guys, I appreciate it, named Jimmy Covey and he was He actually just retired from about 40 years of ministry at the Air Force Academy. He was a fabulous mentor, but he had a lot of memorable quotes, and one of them was when he would talk to people and find out that they were Christians, he would say, oh, what flavor are you? Which is a fun way to open that conversation. But if you asked Jimmy Covey what flavor of Christian he was, he would tell you that he was confessional, Covenantal, Reformed, and Presbyterian. And those four things is how he would describe what flavor of Christian he was. So for starters, we'll look at what it means to be confessional. So if you have a Bible or an iPhone or a smartphone that has a Bible app on it, go ahead and open it up, get it ready, because we're going to go to a few verses. And the first one is going to be 1 Corinthians 11.23, mainly just 23, actually. We'll cut it short at 23. So, who will do that one? Get a hand. Nate, you made eye contact. Yeah, 11.23. And then the next one's going to be 1 Corinthians 15.1-11. Who would like to do that one? Oh, Owen looks like he's grabbing his phone. Okay, excellent. That's 15.1-11. And then 1 Timothy 3.14-16. He's got it. Okay, we'll start with that. So, Nate, will you read that first verse? It goes on, of course, that's the text we're all familiar with as the introduction to the Lord's Supper, but the key words there are received and delivered. Christianity is a presuppositional and is a received religion. So our presuppositions are that God exists, that he's noble, and he's revealed himself in Scripture, in the Word, and that that Word has become flesh, right? And it's also a received religion. It's something that we receive from those who came before us, but also, Paul says, not only that he received it, but he's delivering it. We deliver it to those who follow after. So there is a continuity And we have a huge responsibility in understanding what it is we have received and in passing it on to the generations that follow. 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 11, from the back. Perfect, thank you. No, that's great. So, again, we see that it's received and that it's delivered, right? And he even goes on to summarize the religion that is received and delivered, which we'll see again in 1 Timothy in what is believed to be either a hymn or an early creed of the church, particularly in verses 16 and on. What's neat about that part is it fits into what we're talking about today and being confessional because you see him transition from telling us that he's passing to us what he's received, right? He's giving us that information so that we'll know in his absence what we ought to believe and how we ought to conduct ourselves in the household of faith. He's also setting up two other things in that passage. One is the part that the church plays in our understanding of our religion and he's passing on what is, in effect, a creed, right? He says, because a creed is, or a confession is, an I believe statement, right? So, he says, we confess, he was manifest in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, and believed on in the world, taken up in glory. So, what we mean, so I want to talk about what it means to be confessional, and to have confessions. Let me look at my notes. So, Michael Horton talks about basically you've got the magisterial word, which is infallible and unchangeable, and beneath that you have expressions like the Westminster Confession that are open to correction by the Word of God, but are nonetheless works that the church has put together and that are trustworthy guides for us. So that's the difference between scripture and doctrine, but a lot of people who don't come from a confessional background are somewhat skeptical of confessions and they want to understand why we have them. And so, what is doctrine and why do we have it, I think is an important thing to understand. So there's a number of notes I took here about what doctrine is. And the first one is that it's subordinate to scripture and it is reactionary. So John Calvin talks about doctrine as being reactionary. It isn't the work of innovation and experimentation. It's actually a reaction to heresy and to necessity that the church is finds itself in, that it then develops doctrine. And so we shouldn't be looking to just go out willy-nilly and try to develop new doctrine. We should be falling back on doctrine, and then when we find ourselves at a loss for words against new arguments, that's when the Church develops new doctrine. It's reactionary. Doctrine is also an act of discovery. in the old sense of discovering or uncovering what the truth is and the truth that has always been. So doctrine isn't adding to Scripture. It is instead uncovering the truth that is in Scripture. It is making explicit what we've always believed implicitly and the truth that has always been in Scripture. Dr. Calhoun makes that point. He was a professor at Covenant Theological Seminary. That's where I borrowed that idea from. Berkoff said, paraphrasing, doctrine is an impulse to reproduce the truth in grand unity. It's an intellectual, moral, and emotional activity. So for him, it's unity and it's truth. And that is over against isolation and lies, right? So the first time you see scripture isolated and lied about is where? Does anyone know? in Scripture. The Garden of Eden, exactly. The snake comes and says, did God really say that you can't touch this tree, right? Satan, we see him several times in Scripture, isolating Scripture and using it to lie, rather than seeing it in grand unity and revealing the truth, which is what Christ does in response, right? So, again, in his temptation of Christ, he quotes various scriptures, and that is I'll say that's the worst kind of proof texting, right? Proof texting can be a dangerous thing because sometimes we want to take a single verse and make it the proof for some idea that we have that may be spurious. And that could be dangerous because we can't isolate Scripture from the rest of Scripture. And that's what Satan's doing when he says, why don't you throw yourself down for it is written that the angels will bear you up and not let you dash your foot against a stone, right? But Jesus says, it's also written, don't tempt the Lord your God, right? So, Berghoff's understanding of doctrine is helpful because it reminds us to take the unity of the whole, to respect the analogy of scripture, which means that scripture interprets scripture, and to see the revealed truth that is therein rather than trying to support our own notions or using it to tell lies like Satan does. Okay, so then the next thing is a doctrine is not the work of the individual. Who would turn to 2 Peter 1.20? So, we've already read a couple of examples from scripture where we see the apostles developing doctrine. And, of course, when they developed doctrine, it was inspired. Nevertheless, the example that they give us is an example we should follow, and we work to develop doctrine as necessary, understanding that it is fallible, while the apostles' example was not fallible. But another thing that we should look at, in contrast to the idea of a private interpretation of Scripture, is Acts chapter 15, where we see the Jerusalem Council. where even among the apostles there's disagreement interpersonally on what the key things were to pass on and to require of the Gentiles. But they organized themselves, they came together in a representative fashion as the church, not as individuals, and they, with prayer and with debate and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they came to consensus on what the doctrine of the church would be, and they promulgated that in a letter that they sent out to the churches to review. And that became the dogma, and that's the word actually used in the Greek, the dogma that the Jerusalem Council provided to the church. So again, we have an example there of what we are to do. By the grace of God in those times, that dogma was infallible. It was stamped and approved by the Spirit as infallible. Sometimes the dogma of the church afterward is in error, but God has mercifully brought us back again and again to the truth of His Word. So, those are some thoughts on doctrine. I'll pause for a moment for any other questions or comments so far before moving on to the next piece. Anyone want to say anything? Questions? William, you have a question? What's your question? All right, you think about what your question is, how to state it, and then we'll come back to it. Again, we're confessional. So doctrine is what we confess. We talked a little bit about what it was, we talked about where it comes from, why it comes to be, how to go about it. Doctrine is what we confess, so we should know our confession. So most of you probably know, I'm guessing everyone knows, this is the confession of our church, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, and we ought to know what it says. That's where we find it. It's our Constitution, and what we believe about the Confession is that it is a faithful expression of the truth taught in Scripture. So when people want to know why do we not just use the Bible, why do we also use this, we believe that this summarizes the truths taught in Scripture, and that we're not going beyond Scripture. It's laid out in a systematic way, which can be very helpful, because it points us to the main things. Another fun quip that I think is useful is that we can kind of go down rabbit holes in argumentation, especially in our world of Facebook and blogs and whatnot, of perhaps dark matters or disputes over words, but we have to remember that for Scripture, in Scripture, the main stuff is the plain stuff and the plain stuff is the main stuff. That's something that's good to remember And as you look at the table of contents in your confession, you have a guide to what is the main stuff and the plain stuff, right? Most of us struggle with either a lack of interest in knowledge or else a curiosity that's in overdrive, right? And so I commend the confession to you as your base of knowledge. It is what you should know and you should not know less, right? But I would also commend to you that you probably don't need to go very far beyond it until at least you've mastered its contents. It can be a very good guide. You can go too far to the left or to the right and you'll still fall off the dock and get wet, and so it's helpful to stay within these bounds here. Dr. Calhoun also gave, I think, a helpful illustration about good doctrine, that it's like the lights light up a runway. You have the lights on the left-hand side and the right-hand side, and as the pilot comes in to land, he just needs to stay between those bounds, right? And he might be a little bit off to the left or a little bit off to the right, but he's got to stay between the lights. And that's what good doctrine provides for us as well. There's a little bit of wiggle room in there, but we want to stay between the lights. Let's turn to Deuteronomy 29.29. Who would like to read that? Nate, while Nate's looking that up, what was your question? What does doctrine mean? Darn, I thought I'd answered that question, but that's a fair critique. So doctrine is the teachings of the church that seek to explain what the Bible is teaching us as a whole. Which is anybody else, there's a lot of capable people here. Does anybody else want to try to give a good definition of doctrine? The scriptures teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man. Oh, very good. So doctrine is what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man. And that's from the catechism, right? So that's a great example of using doctrine. Okay, did you have Deuteronomy? Right, so that's Moses. That's me using Moses to try to bolster what I said there. There is a basis of knowledge that we are responsible to know and to live out. And we are accountable to search the scriptures and to know our doctrine and to live in light of these things. But there is also a limit to what God has given us to know. Let's look at Psalm 131. We can read the whole Psalm, because I think it's only three verses long. So I think this is, oh yes? 131? I think that this is a wonderful expression of humility. We can rest in Christ, we can rest in the Word of God as sufficient and complete, and we can also find rest in the work that the Church has performed over the past two millennia, not having to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but instead allowing ourselves to be guided and to be taught and instructed by the Church that has gone before us and has left a wonderful depository, repository, whatever the word would be, of knowledge about what God has taught. So I'll finish with pointing you to a couple of resources that I've found useful. Obviously, you have your Westminster Confession and Catechisms. That's something that you should have on your bookshelves and go over with your children, if you've got your Bible. If you don't have this, this is the Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes by G.I. Williamson. This is an excellent resource for learning about it and for teaching your family. In case you didn't know, your new Trinity Psalter hymnal includes a number of confessions in it, to include some historic confessions, the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, as well as songs like the Gloria Patri, which is a confession too, right? I'm trying to see if there's any other ones I missed there. The Athanasius Creed. The three forms of unity and the Westminster Standards are all in these hymnal psalters. This is one that I think is really cool. Joel Beakey and Sinclair Ferguson put it together. It is a side-by-side harmonization of the Reformed Confessions from the Swiss family, the Dutch-German family, and the Scottish-English family. You've got the Helvetic Confessions, the Three Forms of Unity, and then the Westminster Standards, all side-by-side topically. That could be a really useful resource as well for all of you nerds out there. Unless there are any questions, I think we have used up all of our time. So we will close in prayer and move to coffee and pizzles in the back. All right. Father, we thank you for this time to come together. We thank you for the work that the Church has done for us in the past. We ask that we would approach with humility our own history that we find first in Scripture and then in the Church. And we ask, Lord, that we would read your word with the church and that we would find you in it, find the righteousness of God revealed in it, and that it would impact the way that we live our lives. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.