Manoa Valley Church
May 21, 2006

Our Core Beliefs

By Kent M. Keith
Manoa Valley Church
May 21, 2006

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 2006

Good morning! It's a beautiful day, and a wonderful time to be together as a church family.

I will be preaching five times in the coming two months. Today, I will talk about our core beliefs. The next time, in two weeks, I will talk about the difference between faith and belief. Two weeks after that, I will talk about the Bible as the Word of God. My fourth topic will be the rapture, and my final topic will be about worshipping Christ and following Jesus. I hope that my words will be of some use to you as we journey together as members of the body of Christ.

Since many members of our church family are on our church retreat, I thought we might do a little retreat of our own this morning. I'd like to review our core beliefs as Christians, as members of the United Church of Christ, and as members of Manoa Valley Church. The question is this: As we gather together as a church family, what are the core beliefs that we share-what beliefs do we have in common?

Each of us will probably answer a little differently. Let me give you my understanding of those core beliefs. We believe in almighty God. We believe he created the world. We believe that he loves us. We believe that he loves us so much that he sent his Son, the Christ, to teach us and die for us, so that we can be reconciled to God. We believe in the Holy Spirit, which guides us and encourages us. We believe that God is manifest as the Trinity-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity gives us a way of understanding three dimensions of God.

We believe that we can be saved. If we accept Christ into our lives, and believe in Him, we will be saved and enjoy everlasting life. We know that we cannot earn salvation. Salvation is a gift, the gift of grace, a gift that comes from God, because he loves us. We gratefully accept that gift, and in our joy, we seek to live the way God wants us to live.

Jesus taught us how to live. He taught us that the two greatest commandments are to love God, and to love each other-to love our neighbors as ourselves. He taught us through the Sermon on the Mount, and parables, and his own example. He gave us the Great Commission, to go out and share the good news with all nations. He taught us that the Son of Man will return, in all his glory.

I hope that I have just described a set of core Christian beliefs. These core beliefs took centuries to develop. Christians, in their communities and churches and organizations, have been on a long journey, seeking to understand God and Christ and the Holy Spirit.

For nearly 300 years after the resurrection of Jesus, Christians were often persecuted, and had to focus on surviving and preserving their knowledge of Christ. During this time there were Christian communities, and there were Christian teachings and traditions, but Christians were not organized the way we are today. They did not have church buildings and national offices and synods and seminaries and ministers and priests and bishops and popes the way we do now.

Since Christians were not organized the way we are today, there was no standard position, no orthodoxy, no statement of faith that was accepted by all Christians. Christians were trying to understand all that they could about Jesus, and they had many different beliefs. When we look back, we can identify the views that were not accepted later in history, and we may label them heretical. But the simple fact is that there were no heretics in those early days, because there was no method for judging any doctrine to be orthodox or heretical.

The early Christians did not agree about many things. They did not agree about the humanity and divinity of Jesus. They agreed that he was divine, but how divine? Was he completely divine, and merely appeared to be human? If he was human, how human was he? What did incarnation really mean? Was he fully human until he was baptized by John, and then became divine as well as human? Or, assuming instead that he was both human and divine at birth, how do we describe his two natures-his divinity and his humanity-and how did those two natures co-exist? These are not easy questions.

There was also a struggle to understand the relationship of Jesus to God. He is the Son of God, but does that mean he is in some way less than God? Or is he equal to God? If he is equal to God, does he have the same substance as God? Has he existed as long as God has existed, from the beginning of time, or did God create him after the beginning of time?

Then there were questions about the Holy Spirit. Where does the Holy Spirit come from? Is it from the Father, or is it a kind of spiritual energy generated by both the Father and the Son?

Debates over all these questions raged for centuries, and not just among church leaders. These different views were argued by the general public. Gregory Nyssa, in a sermon delivered in Constantinople sometime around 380 A.D., regretted the contentiousness of the Christians of his day. He is reported to have said this:

If in this city you ask a shopkeeper for change, he will argue with you about whether the Son is begotten or unbegotten. If you inquire about the quality of bread, the baker will answer, 'The Father is greater, the Son is less.' And if you ask a bath attendant to draw your bath, he will tell you that the Son was created ex nihilo [out of nothing].

Theological issues were important to everybody, and everybody seemed to have his or her own opinion.

There are two creeds that serve as milestones or benchmarks in the early centuries of the Christian journey. The first creed that has been preserved is the Apostles' Creed, thought to have been written within 50 years after the last books of the New Testament were written. That means that it might have been written some time between 100 A.D. and 150 A.D. The Apostle's Creed is on your ivory-colored handout. Here it is:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic [universal] church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

The Apostles Creed is still cherished and followed by many Christians today.

The second creed I want to mention is the Nicene Creed, which was adopted by a church council in Nicea in 325 A.D. While it did not settle the most vigorous debates of its day, it was confirmed by later councils and was eventually accepted by most Christians around the world. You have one version of the Nicene Creed on your handout. It states:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

So we have the Apostles Creed, probably written between 100 and 150 A.D., followed by the Nicene Creed, adopted two hundred years later in 325 A.D. Doctrinal differences continued into the Middle Ages, and played a role in the division of the church into two major segments- the eastern segment, which became the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the western segment, which became the Roman Catholic Church. Historians use the year 1054 A.D. as the year this separation became complete.

The Reformation took place 500 years later. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, protesting the sale of indulgences by the church to raise money so the church could rebuild St. Peter's basilica in Rome. Martin Luther did not set out to start a new church, but rather, to reform the Roman Catholic Church. However, within a few years, he had become the leader of a movement that had political, social, and economic as well as religious impacts. The protesters became the Protestants. The key issues for Luther were salvation by grace, not by works alone, and the primacy of Scripture as the source of religious authority.

We are Protestants, and we belong to the United Church of Christ, the UCC. The UCC describes itself this way:

The UCC was founded in 1957 as the union of several different Christian traditions: from the beginning of our history, we were a church that affirmed the ideal that Christians did not always have to agree to live together in communion. Our motto-"that they may all be one"-is Jesus' prayer for the unity of the church. The UCC is one of the most diverse Christian churches in the United States.

Here is the UCC attitude toward statements of faith:

The United Church of Christ embraces a theological heritage that affirms the Bible as the authoritative witness to the Word of God, the creeds of the ecumenical councils, and the confessions of the Reformation. The UCC has roots in the "covenantal" tradition-meaning there is no centralized authority or hierarchy that can impose any doctrine or form of worship on its members. Christ alone is Head of the church. We seek a balance between freedom of conscience and accountability to the apostolic faith. The UCC therefore receives the historic creeds and confessions of our ancestors as testimonies, but not tests of the faith.

The UCC adopted its statement of faith in 1959. That original statement was later adapted by Robert V. Moss. Manoa Valley Church has adopted the Moss adaptation, almost word for word, as our own Statement of Faith. We added a sentence about the Bible. Here is our Manoa Valley Church Statement of Faith, which is on your handout:

We believe in God, the Eternal Spirit, who is made known to us in Jesus Christ. We believe in the divine inspiration and authority of the Holy Bible.
We testify that:

God calls the worlds into being, creates humankind in the divine image, and sets before us the ways of life and death.

God seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.

God judges all humanity and all nations by that will of righteousness declared through prophets and apostles.

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, God has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the whole creation to its Creator.

God bestows upon us the Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.

God calls us into the church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be servants in the service of the whole human family, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ's baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

God promises to all who trust in the gospel forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, the presence of the Holy Spirit in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in that kingdom which has no end.

Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto God.
Amen.

So that's a quick review of our heritage and where we stand, now, here, at Manoa Valley Church, in terms of our core beliefs.

I think we have a wonderful, inspiring statement of faith. We have benefited from the long journey of Christian searching and debating and praying. But I don't think the journey is over. I don't think it should ever be over. I hope that the journey will continue, so that we may achieve even greater understanding in the years to come. It is possible that, centuries from now, Christians will say that during our time, we were still in the early stages of Christianity. We don't know how many years stretch ahead of us until the Second Coming. What we do know is that every day, we can continue to learn, and grow closer to God, and become better disciples of Christ.

In that light, let me conclude with a statement from the United Church of Christ:

The United Church of Christ is a blend of traditions that are as old as Judaism's proclamation of one God who is the creator and lover of earth and heaven. We are justifiably proud of this heritage, and want to hand it on to our children. But ours is a living tradition: God, in the words of the writer of the Book of Revelation, is a God who "is and who was and who is to come…" [A]ny book about the history of our church must necessarily remain unfinished until our Savior returns to establish for all time God's loving reign among the people God created.

 

Let us pray.

Lord, we are grateful to our Christian brothers and sisters who went before us, seeking to know you and to define their beliefs about you. We ask that you bless us as we continue in that journey, drawing strength from the creeds and statements of faith that we have inherited, and drawing inspiration from new understandings of your love and your Word. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

Manoa Valley Church