Freshbrook Church Podcast | 13Sep26 | The Apostles Creed | Phil Bailey

Good morning.

Our reading is found in First Corinthians chapter fifteen.

First Corinthians fifteen.

We'll start reading from verse one.

Uh if you have the church Bible, it's in page one thousand one hundred and fifty-six.

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.

By this gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you.

Otherwise you have believed in vain.

For what I received, I pass to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Kephas, and then to the twelfth.

After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

For I am the least of the apostles, and do not even deserve to be called an apostle.

But I persecute because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.

No, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Whether then it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believe.

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.

More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God.

For we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.

But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.

You are still in your sins.

Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people the most pitied.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.

The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Thank you, Hannah too.

Thanks, Hassan.

Morning everyone.

Really good to see you.

If I've not met you before, my name's Phil, so I'm one of the pastors here.

It's been a little while since I've been up here, but it's good to be back.

As Hassan said, we're beginning this new series on the Apostles' Creed, which I will introduce today, starting with the question, why bother?

Why bother with creeds at all?

And then next week we will sort of begin to get into the creed itself, and we will then continue it on a monthly basis on Communion Sundays, looking at a little bit each communion Sunday until we finish it somewhere in the middle of next year.

In between that, we will also be starting another new sermon series in 2 Peter.

We did 1 Peter back in the summer, it was really helpful in lots of ways.

2 Peter has lots of really helpful stuff in as well, and it kind of just makes sense to continue with it.

So that's what's coming up.

If you're wondering what a creed is, the word creed comes from the Latin word credo, which simply means I believe.

So a creed is a summary of what we believe.

And the Apostles' Creed is the it's the oldest Christian creed outside of the Bible that has gained acceptance across all the main Christian denominations, whether Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, whatever we disagree on, we can at least agree on the things in the creed.

We're going to begin looking at it shortly.

I wonder if first we could say the creed together as it's written on the handouts that have been given out.

You'll see it's actually the order is slightly different to the song we sung earlier.

There are lots of some versions of the Creed.

The musicians always have to tweak it or adapt it slightly to make it fit to the music.

This is the order it actually was originally written in.

I'm just going to grab the cop.

I think I'm hurt by memory, but I don't quite trust myself.

So if you consider yourself a Christian, please read this with me.

If you don't, that's fine.

You don't feel like you have to claim to believe something you don't believe.

But do listen and just see what it is that is central to our faith.

Let's say together.

I believe in God the Father Almighty.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his Holy Son and the Lord.

It was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

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.

And one thing, one more thing I will just say before we pray and go into the sermon is one of the one of the reasons for thinking this would be a good time to preach through the Apostles' Creed is that a lot of the young people, particularly in Generation Z, who are exploring church again at the moment, seem to be gravitating towards the more traditional, the more obviously historically grounded expressions of church, either in Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism or High Anglicanism.

And there are pros and cons about that.

There are some things that I'm glad about with that, some things that slightly concern me.

But what they seem to be looking for at heart is a faith, a worldview, something to anchor their lives in, that clearly has those deep and solid historical roots, something that is bigger than themselves and their lives.

And in a culture where they just feel utterly dislocated, where we're told that we have to create our own meaning for our own lives entirely by ourselves, which is utterly bewildering.

And I want us to understand and to show as well in this church, no, we have a faith that is utterly faithfully historically grounded, not just in church history, but in God's word, in the Bible.

And we might not sing entirely old hymns, we might not recite liturgy with these and thous in it every week.

Our rituals might not be particularly old-fashioned, though probably more old-fashioned than some churches.

That does not mean our faith is not 100% historically grounded.

And I hope that that's what we're going to see and not just understand, but really enjoy, appreciate more over the coming months.

So let me pray, and then we'll get into it.

Heavenly Father, Almighty God.

We love you because you are awesome and unchanging and faithful.

And you have spoken so clearly in history, in time and space, and through your Son Jesus Christ, to make yourself known to us.

And we pray that today, through the rest of our time together, through this sermon series as well, would you show us more of your goodness, your glory?

And would you encourage us with the most wonderful good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ your Son, and all the wonderful things that flow from his life and death and resurrection.

Amen.

Now we do have 1 Corinthians 15 open.

We're going to be referring to that quite a bit.

That was page 1156, if you closed your church Bible.

Okay.

Don't worry about it, Hasn't you?

If we want to know the truth about God, surely all we need to do is read our Bibles, right?

After all, historic Orthodox Christianity teaches that the Bible contains God's own words to us, because his Holy Spirit directed the human authors to say exactly what God wanted them to.

As it says in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

2 Timothy 3:16

So if the Bible is a reliable record of God's words to humanity, why do we need the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed or any other creed to tell us what to believe?

It's not in the Bible, so it doesn't claim the same level of authority as the Bible.

And if every true follower of Jesus has the Holy Spirit in them, they have God's own help to understand what the Bible says.

So again, why do we need creeds?

That's an important question, especially in Bible-loving churches like ours.

To answer it, I want to share a little of the history of the Apostles' Creed and particularly to illustrate its origins from 1 Corinthians 15.

And then we will think partly as we go, and then more at the end, why it remains so helpful for us today.

So firstly, it's called the Apostles' Creed because of the legendary story that Jesus' 12 apostles each contributed one of the twelve statements when they were gathered together in Jerusalem before they left to go and preach the gospel about Jesus all around the world.

Now, the apostles, if you're not sure what that means, they were Jesus' special messengers who were commissioned to lay the foundations of his church, to spread the good news.

And the story goes that they wanted to safeguard that good news.

They wanted to agree a definitive summary of their message to ensure that they were all preaching the same thing as they went.

Now, not many scholars today believe that it exactly that it happened exactly like that, but I think there is clear evidence in the Bible that the apostles were using simple, memorable summaries of the Christian faith from the very earliest days.

And 1 Corinthians 15 is a very clear example.

And I want to draw out four points from there.

So, Steve, if we could have the first slide, please.

So, firstly, Paul received his gospel from others.

He didn't invent it.

Paul wasn't one of the original twelve apostles.

He didn't meet the risen Jesus until later on.

So he was keen to ensure that his message was consistent with that of the twelve.

And he verified that with them as he records in Galatians chapters 1 and 2.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

We also see that in Acts chapters 9 and 15, where he goes up to Jerusalem.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

And so he says back in 1 Corinthians 15, in verse 3, what I received, received from Christ and received from the other apostles, this I passed on to you.

And so clearly it was also important that the Corinthians could verify his claims, because in verses 5 to 7 he then lists many witnesses who saw the risen Jesus and were still living.

So Paul's gospel was received and verified and not invented.

Secondly, the apostolic gospel was clear, fixed, and memorable.

Now, if you've read things like the Da Vinci Code, you'll know that there are all sorts of really daft, unhistorical conspiracy theories about the Christian faith being kind of in flux for the first three or four centuries until Emperor Constantine called the council and then they decided what do we actually believe.

That's nonsense.

In verses three to four, Paul identifies what is of first importance, the truth at the heart of the good news.

And he's writing probably no more than 20 years after Jesus rose.

He says, verses three to four, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures.

And I think it is remarkable that the same truths that he's just listed are in the heart of the Apostles' Creed, if you see on the screen, the bits highlighted in yellow.

That Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah, he died, he was buried, he rose again on the third day, and his death had something to do with our sins.

So clearly, at least that much of the creed dates back to the time of the apostles themselves.

And we see other examples of apostolic summaries in places like Romans 1, verses 1 to 4, Philippians 2, verses 5 to 11, or 2 Timothy 2, verse 8, if you want to look those up later.

Romans 1:1–4 Philippians 2:5–11 2 Timothy 2:8

So the apostolic gospel had a clear, fixed content.

It was not constantly changing.

And therefore, as Paul says back in 1 Corinthians 15 in verse 11, whether it is I or they, the other apostles, this is what we preach, this same gospel, and this is what you believed.

So the apostles preached one gospel and they summarized it in simple forms that believers could remember.

But why, next question, why was it important to have a simple memorable summary?

That's because only the apostolic gospel can save.

So in verse 2, Paul is adamant, by this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you.

Otherwise you have believed in vain.

Only the apostolic gospel can save because there is no other Saviour than Jesus Christ.

No one else lived the perfect life of love for God and love for neighbor.

No one else could die as the perfectly innocent substitute in the place of sinners, bearing God's righteous wrath at our sin, rescuing us from eternal judgment.

No one else has risen from the dead, winning victory over sin and death and the devil.

No one else has opened the way to eternal life like Jesus, and no one reigns at God's right hand as his chosen forever king for the whole universe.

Jesus Christ is the one that we must believe in and honor and obey.

So it's essential that we know the truth about him.

Otherwise, we risk creating a Jesus of our own imaginations, a false Christ who cannot save.

As the second of the Ten Commandments makes clear, this is idolatry to make God in your own image, misrepresenting him by picturing him in the likeness of his creatures.

If I may be so bold, that is a little like a husband fantasizing about another woman while pretending to be intimate with his wife.

It is spiritual adultery.

And it is deeply dishonoring to our incomparable and unique Creator.

And he will not tolerate rivals.

So the truth about God and the gospel must be safeguarded.

To protect us from worshipping lies, to save us from forfeiting our salvation.

And this is where a simple, memorable summary of the truth comes in very, very handy, which brings us to our fourth point.

The faithful summary exposes lies.

Now, many Christians in Paul's day were illiterate, probably more than half of them.

They couldn't read the Bible for themselves, but they could still memorize something like the Apostles' Creed, which is no more than a hundred words in the original language.

And that gave them a reliable framework against which to test the preaching that they heard.

Does this teaching fit with the apostolic gospel?

Or does it contradict it?

They could ask that question as they listened, confident that they had a faithful summary.

And Paul demonstrates in 1 Corinthians 15 why this need was so urgent.

Already in the first two decades after Jesus rose from the dead, so-called Christians had started preaching that there was no resurrection.

It's a heresy called Gnosticism.

It was influenced by Greek philosophies which saw the material universe as inferior to the spiritual realm.

And some of them even saw the material world as evil, made by the pagan gods to punish those who displeased them, imprisoning them in human bodies.

And myths like that still go around today in various world religions, some mystic forms of Judaism, even.

For people influenced by this philosophy, their highest desire was to escape their bodies and to be reunited with their gods in the spiritual realm.

Clearly, some of them were still attracted to Christianity, but they took the bits that they liked while denying the unpalatable things like the resurrection.

And if you think that we would never fall for that today, think again.

Something similar has crept back into our culture.

Many people today see the inner self of the mind as the true self, and when the physical reality of their bodies does not match their internal sense of identity, they sometimes speak of feeling imprisoned in their bodies.

And then the body becomes a mere shell to be changed through medical intervention.

Now hear me rightly, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have compassion on people who really struggle with their sense of identity.

For now, I am just making the point that these ideas are very much alive in our culture.

Similar thing is going on with transhumanism and the desire to escape from the limitations of the body by uploading human consciousness into cyberspace.

Thankfully, no one's managed to do that yet, but some people are spending a heck of a lot of money in trying.

Basically, Gnosticism is alive and well, it's very close to home, and yet Paul is absolutely clear in verses 12 to 20 that the apostles always preach that Jesus was raised from the dead and that we will rise too.

This means that our bodies are an essential and eternal.

Part of our identity.

And God cares very much about what we do with our bodies.

Anyone who has memorized the Apostles' Creed would be much more likely to recognize that.

It was a safeguard against deception.

And we clearly still need it today.

And finally, the truth of the bodily resurrection could not matter more, as Paul explains in verses 16 to 17.

Because if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.

You are still in your sins.

Why would we still be in our sins if Jesus hadn't raised from the dead?

Well, because the resurrection was God the Father's vindication of Jesus, proving that Jesus was indeed innocent, that he was paying the price for our sins and not his own when he died on the cross.

And that his sacrifice was accepted by God the Father as sufficient payment for all the wrong that we have done.

If Jesus did not rise, then our sins are not forgiven, and he cannot save us from hell.

So can you begin to see how important it is to know the truth about Jesus?

And can you begin to see how a simple summary of the apostolic gospel is so useful?

It helps us to recognize false teaching, helps us to interpret the Bible faithfully, and it saves us from believing in vain.

This was the purpose of the Apostles' Creed.

It developed fairly organically in the first three centuries of the church history for that purpose, as a rule of faith, a faithful summary of the teaching drawn from Scripture and receiving its authority from Scripture.

But perhaps you're still wondering.

That's all very interesting.

But do we really need the creed today?

Again, most of us can read.

Unlike the early Christians, why not just read our Bibles more?

And the answer is yes, we should certainly read our Bibles more.

The Creed never replaces Scripture, it points us back to Scripture.

But the Apostles' Creed remains valuable for at least two reasons.

So, firstly, we are limited and we are fallible.

As we said, most of us can read, unlike in Paul's day, but it remains the case that many of us don't know the Bible very well.

And even those of us who have read it for decades are not equally familiar with every part.

I wonder who here would consider themselves an expert on Leviticus or Ezekiel or the minor prophets.

And nor do we understand every part of the Bible equally well.

For example, I did a degree in theology and biblical studies, and I still don't know which of the many interpretations of the book of Revelation is correct.

I am mystified, and I haven't really had a chance to get to grips with it.

Even more than that, we are fallible, we are prone to error.

Yes, Christians have the Holy Spirit available to us to help us understand the Bible, but we can easily read it or listen to sermons without asking the Spirit's help.

Or we fail to hear what the Spirit is saying to us for several reasons.

Perhaps through sin, because we're just too fixated on what we want to hear.

Perhaps through ignorance or carelessness because we take verses out of context.

Like John 14, verse 28, where Jesus says, the Father is greater than I.

John 14:28

Now some people have taken that to mean that Jesus is less than fully God.

But they forget or they ignore how many different times Jesus stresses his equality and his unity with the Father throughout the rest of John's gospel.

Perhaps more subtly, we sometimes fail to hear God's voice correctly.

Because of the worldly influences that have formed us, maybe the most impactful voices on your life have been harsh, demanding, or critical voices.

And so that's your default way of hearing God's voice, even though he so often speaks with gentleness and compassion and with love.

You don't hear it because it's not what you've been trained to expect.

Or finally, sometimes we are blind and deaf to what the Bible says because it is so different to our culture's way of thinking that it seems utterly implausible to us, and we just instantly reject it out of hand, as people were doing with the resurrection in Paul's day.

Our bodies are second rate, our bodies are evil, of course we wouldn't be resurrected.

That can so easily happen with all sorts of bits of the Bible.

So, in short, our understanding is limited and we are fallible, and memorizing a simple summary of the apostolic gospel, the Bible's core truths, is a valuable way of putting guardrails around our interpretation.

Also, as the Bishop of Lyon, Irenaeus put it in the second century, the Bible's truth is like a huge and elaborate mosaic.

One of those Roman pictures like this one of Jesus on the screen, made up of lots of little coloured tiles, very carefully placed in order to create a beautiful whole.

And it is very possible to piece together the individual tiles of the Bible's story in a mixed-up way.

And then you end up with a distorted picture of who God is, a distorted picture of what he's done for us.

But the rule of faith, the apostolic creed, gives us the correct arrangement of each tile.

Because it is a faithful summary of the big picture.

It's a bit like the complete picture that you have on the front of the box of the jigsaw puzzle comes in, a photo of what it looks like when it's finished, so that you know what you're aiming to reproduce.

And then last of all, the Apostles' Creed keeps our faith from becoming unbalanced.

So in the last 60 years or so, many accusations have been flung around that some churches are too focused on God the Father and God the Son, but neglect God the Holy Spirit.

And on the other hand, some churches are accused of being so focused on the Spirit that they've almost separated him from the rest of the Trinity.

Now, I'm not convinced that those accusations are always justified, but there is sometimes truth in them.

And it reveals that we can fail to honor God as Trinity.

Similarly, we can also be so focused, particularly as evangelicals, on the glory of Christ's atoning death that we forget the significance of his incarnation, of the resurrection, and of his present reign at God's right hand.

And as a result, we miss out on much-needed encouragement and comfort.

Or we focus so much on Jesus' first coming in mercy to save us that we forget his second coming in judgment to judge the world.

And then we can lose our zeal for holiness and for evangelism.

In short, our faith can easily become lopsided or impoverished.

It's not that we're denying anything, but we fail to enjoy the fullness of it.

Like having a roast dinner and only eating the carrots.

Learning the Bible, learning the simple biblical summary of the Bible's message, helps to keep us balanced by reminding us of the full story.

And it even reminds us of things that modern evangelical Christians are often unfamiliar with, but which our forebearers thought were really important, like Christ's descent to the realm of the dead and the communion of saints.

I wonder how many of us could give a good explanation of what those phrases mean, or where we would go in scripture to back it up.

I don't think I could have done it until I started preparing for this series.

Rather than dismiss these phrases because we don't understand them, let's remember that the church has had the Holy Spirit and made careful study of the Bible for almost 2,000 years before us.

Faithful interpretation does not begin with us.

And so let's humble ourselves to learn from our forebearers and from the Spirit's work through them in statements like the Apostles' Creed.

Each generation has its blind spots and its understanding, don't we?

But earlier generations had different blind spots, and they can help correct us or fill in the gaps in our understanding.

That's even true in the local church today.

That's why teenage Christians should be hanging out with and chatting to 70-year-old Christians and vice versa.

Now none of this means that creeds and church tradition are our final authority.

Scripture alone holds that place.

Every creed must be tested against the Bible.

But the Apostles' Creed has been tried and tested and proven faithful and useful for almost two millennia.

That's why we're pressing into it.

And we're hopefully going to be starting to recite or sing it a little more often, at least on communion Sundays.

So just to reflect as we finish.

Firstly, I'd encourage you to begin learning the Apostles' Creed for yourself.

Take away the handout we printed.

There's more at the back on Dave's table.

But don't simply memorize the words.

Reflect on each line.

Ask where it comes from in Scripture and consider why the church has treasured this truth for so long.

It may reveal areas that you need to grow in your understanding.

And if that's the case, then pray about it.

Ask God to reveal it to you.

Then commit to reading his word more often or with greater care so that he can increase your understanding.

Perhaps you could use one of the many Bible apps like UVersion to help you.

And if you're struggling to understand what you read, you don't even know where to begin in the Bible, please don't just jump to the internet for answers.

Ask someone at church who displays godly Christ-like character.

Christ-like character is perhaps the single most important indication that someone has really taken to heart what the Bible says.

It has shaped and moulded them.

They may not understand all of the Bible, none of us do, but they've clearly understood the bits they know at a much deeper level than mere intellectual ascent, ticking a box.

It's similar to a concert pianist who's learned to play a piano concerto for memory.

They have a far more intimate understanding of that music than someone like me who simply heard it on the radio.

And we see proof of their understanding when they give a beautiful performance.

And in the same way, we see proof of true, beautiful biblical understanding in the lives of those who have become more like the Bible's author.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.

It's very, very difficult to get that proof of godly character from preachers, bloggers, and influences on the internet.

Even less so with AI, because it has no character.

Not that God can't work through it, but we need to be very careful with it.

So let the creed provoke you to seek deeper understanding of God's word.

And don't just rely on the internet for answers.

Rely first on God in your Bible and second on the local church, on godly people around you.

And finally, most importantly, let the creed provoke you to fresh thankfulness and worship for the beautiful truths that it contains.

Because our object here isn't merely to memorize an ancient statement for the sake of it.

Our goal is to know and love and worship the God to whom it points.

Let's just take a couple of minutes.

You can either reflect in quiet on these different applications that I've listed, or you can chat to the person next with next to you what struck you.

And then after a couple of minutes, I'll lead us in prayer.

Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for some of the things that you've been impressing on my heart this week and the creed that you as the Almighty God, and through your Son, who is seated at your right hand, the highest place in all creation and over creation, you will build your kingdom.

Whatever the odds seem to be against your church and its growth or survival, however broken we seem to be a lot of the time, it doesn't ultimately rest on us because you are the Almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth, and because Jesus is reigning and building his church.

I thank you that there is so much to rejoice in in the creed.

And that's at the end of the day, that's because there is just so much to rejoice in in your word, the Bible.

Oh Father, please move our hearts to deeper worship.

Deeper joy.

Would you comfort us?

Would you encourage us?

Maybe provoke and challenge us in the ways that we each need.

And we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.