Sermon Tone Analysis

Let’s Talk About the Church

so we can understand a little more what it means to be “The Church of God”.

There is no such thing as a church that has no set of beliefs, and that is true of us as a movement.

We have called ourselves the Reformation Movement of the Church of God, which is a nominator that means to restore the Church to be a reflection of the church in the first century, founded on Christ Jesus, who is the Rock in Peter’s confession that “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Matthew 16:16,18

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “And I say to you… on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

I want to share today about another important, foundational truth we hold dear in the Church of God.

Last week, I shared that. . .

God’s Church is One Church

And today, I am focused on the truth that

God's Church is Bible-Centered

Next week, the focus will be that

God’s Church is Called to Holiness

Then, on the last Sunday of this September,

God’s Church Lives in God’s Kingdom Now.

So let’s get to the important stuff here:

God’s Church is Bible Centered

and this is important for a lot of reasons.

Our clear understanding is that

We Have No Creed But the Bible

Because we have discovered that every creed ever constructed falls short of the whole teaching of Scripture.

We stand by the statement of Paul the Apostle to his Apprentice Timothy, when he says about the Bible,

The important understanding of those verses are that all scripture comes from the mouth of God, is profitable so that the person of God may be perfectly equipped for every good work.

Why do we stand on a statement of “We have no creed but the Bible?”

It’s because historic Christianity has divided itself by the multiplication creedal statements that have been used to keep one Christian fellowship apart from the others.

There is one early and important creedal statement of Christianity, that was the basic statement of faith of the early church.

Many of you have had the experience of repeating such a creed, sometimes every time you went to worship.

We know it as

The Apostles Creed

which was put together about AD 180:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth;

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

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

Amen.

That, by the way, is an essential statement of the Christian Faith that has no error in it.

It is concise and specific, in order to give the Christian who did not read, who had no Bible, because it was was not even settle on until 325 AD, a statement of what they believed about Jesus before their Baptism, and affirmed week by week.

Some might bristle at the phrase “the holy catholic Church.”

but please understand that this creed was written 700 years before Rome was the center of Western Christianity, and catholic is a word that means “universal” or that refers to the whole church, to God’s One Church of All the Redeemed.

Creeds began to be used as weapons of one movement against another, forming and establishing denominations that divided the church.

So Many Creeds

were produced over the years, that no one can really keep up.

Wikipedia lists a collection of creeds of the Christian church.

Creeds of the early church (11)

Interdenominational creeds (7)

Ecumenical creeds (15)

Denominational creeds (23/115)

Adventist, Anabaptist/Mennonite Anglican Arminian Assemblies of God Baptist Catholic Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Congregational Eastern Orthodox Huguenot Lutheran Methodist Moravian Pentecostal Presbyterian Puritan/Congregational Quaker Reformed Salvation Army United Church of Canada United Church of Christ Waldensian

Creeds of specific movements: Neo-Evangelical (4)

Jesus is Lord

The very simplest of creeds is the basic creed of faith in

All Scripture

Can I Have a Witness?

We Believe.

Anderson School of Theology, 1979.

We believe in the principle of openness to all affirmations of the Christian faith which are expressions of the biblical revelation.

The intended unity among Christians is not based on the achievement of full agreement on all theological questions.

Rather, it is based on a common membership in the church through the grace of God and is anchored by a common commitment to the centrality of Christ and the authority of the Word of God.

We Believe

Anderson School of Theology Faculty and Staff, 2003,

We believe in one eternal, holy, and loving

God who calls us to respond in faith.

We, therefore,

give the following testimony of our faith, realizing

that for testimonies of faith to be Christian they

must conform to God’s revelation in the Holy

Scriptures.

Although we can never put into a short

document all that we are taught in the Bible, we do

affirm the following:

REVELATION

God is revealed generally in the created

order and in the human conscience.

This Living

God, however, has spoken especially to us in the

covenantal story of the whole of Scripture and

definitively in Jesus Christ.

The Bible

We believe in, treasure, and cherish the Bible

as the written Word of God, and hold that the

sixty-six books of the Protestant biblical canon

constitute the Holy Scriptures.

We believe that

both the Old and New Testaments are necessary

for understanding God’s revelation in Scripture,

both of which are to be interpreted in light of the

revelation given to us in Jesus Christ.

The Bible

is inspired by God and is fully authoritative and

sufficient for Christian life and practice.

We further

believe that the Bible is historically reliable and

that its message is faithfully preserved in the textual

tradition.

We rejoice that the biblical gospel is the

good news of God’s love to our world!