I Believe in God

Belief in God

Fifteenth after Trinity

Collect: O Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Text: I believe in God.

First in Series, The Faith of the Church, on The Apostles’ Creed.

Jane Froman had a television show in the 50s. Troubled by the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, she asked a group of writers to compose a song that would give hope. Their song was I Believe. Here is part of their faith:

I believe for every drop of rain that falls

A flower grows

I believe that somewhere in the darkest night

A candle glows

I believe for everyone who goes astray, someone will come

To show the way

…

I believe that someone in the great somewhere

Hears every word

Everytime I hear a new born baby cry,

Or touch a leaf or see the sky

Then I know why, I believe

It was not only a hit secular song; it was often sung in churches. Is that what we mean when we say in church, “I believe in God”?

1. I Believe

People believe in all sorts of things - tolerance, capitalism,  AA, psychology,  ghosts,  science, themselves. But what do we mean by “I believe” when we say the Creed? What is Christian believing?

Christian believing is both corporate and personal.

• We say the Creed together in church. It is a part of our worship. Believing together is a bond of our unity and creates fellowship with one another. It is the faith into which we were baptized, and it is our living faith which we we frequently reaffirm.

• We hold and confess our faith with the church of history. Our faith is contemporary; it is the faith we believe today. But is is also ancient; when we say the Creed, we say that the Christian church has always believed. There was a need  for statements of faith from the very beginning of the church. Creeds say positively what we do believe; they also negatively say what we don’t believe. We are not Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Mormons, or Unitarians, or Oneness Pentecostals. We are Christians who believe what Christians have always believed.  

• We hold and confess the faith with the church all over the world. The church has always had to set itself apart from unbelief. What does the church believe? The church believes at a minimum the Creed. Anything calling itself the church which does not sincerely confess the Creed according to its historic meaning in the ordinary sense of its words is not the church. We are a part of the worldwide fellowship of those who confess the true Christian faith.

• While we believe corporately, we also believe personally and individually. We say “I believe.” You believe with the church and in the church, but the church cannot believe for you. Nor can anyone else believe for you. You either believe the Christian faith or you don’t, and that is a personal matter for each individual. Is the Christian faith your personal faith?

• Christian believing is not believing in believing. We often hear today that what matters is not what you believe but that you believe something. That is not true of Christian faith in the Bible. You can believe something that is untrue with all your heart, but your believing will not make that belief true. You need true information; you need true content to your belief. That is what the Creed does; it teaches us what the Christian faith it. The Creed instructs us in the truth to believe. But just knowing and understanding the truth is not by itself true faith.

• Christian believing means agreeing with the information. You believe it is true. I once needed surgery, and a very nice Christian woman did not want me to have the operation. So she invited me to her home, and she gave me a lot of information about what she believed about my condition and the way to treat it. I understood it, but I did not believe it. Knowing the historical facts of the life of Jesus, the content of the Bible, and and the meaning of the Creed does not mean anything if we do not believe it is true. But knowing the truth and agreeing with it is not true faith.
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• Christian believing means committing yourself to what you understand and believe. More it means committing yourself to a Person, the God of the Creed. You entrust yourself to the God and Christ of the Bible, saying, as it were, “I give up false belief and belief in myself; I put my trust in you, Lord for this world and the world to come.”

• Suppose you were on the fourth floor of a house on fire back in the time when fireman used life nets. They shout to you that the net’s purpose is to save people in your predicament and, if you jump, your life will be saved. They ask if you understand; you say, “Yes.” They ask if you believe what they told you;  you say, “Yes.” But you really believe what they said? Only if you jump, if you act on what you know and believe - only if you trust the fireman. So with Christian believing.

• There are people who understand the Christian faith, go to church, and say the Creed, but lack true faith. There are those who are convinced of the Christian faith, and say the Creed believing it is true, but they too lack true faith. Those who have true faith understand and believe the truth of the Creed, and they entrust themselves to the God the Creed proclaims. Do you have a true and living faith?

2. I believe in God.

When we say the Creed, we say, “I believe in God.”

• That sets Christians apart from atheists. Atheists have always been with us. The Psalmist said of atheists of his day, “The fool hath said in his day, “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps. 14:1). It  sets us apart from agnostics who say they neither believe, nor don’t believe; they just don’t know. Now, neither atheism nor agnosticism is the same as doubts that come to true Christians. True faith can from time to time wrestle with doubts about God. But the doubting Christian, even in his doubts, clings to God saying, “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.”

• But the big difference in the Bible, as well as today, is between those who believe in the true God and those who believe in some other god. The vast majority of people are believers; they believe in some god. But being a theist, a believer in god, does not lead to salvation. The question is whether you believe in the one, true, living God. The only true God is the God the God who makes himself known in his written Word, the Bible, and in the living Word, his Son, Jesus Christ. The true God says through the prophet Isaiah, “I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God besides Me” (Is. 45:5).

• The Creed teaches us that the true God is one God who is three Persons, the Father, the, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We say, “I believe in God the Father; I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, I believe in the Holy Ghost.” Jesus himself taught us this. He told us to make disciples of the nations, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” There is one name - the noun “name” is singular, not names, but name. But this one name, this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” In the  old Anglican catechism person recites the Apostles’ Creed. Then the catechism  asks: “What do you chiefly learn in these Articles of your Belief?”  The person responds, “First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world. Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind. Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifies me, and all the people of God.”

• But there is more than belief in the God who is One in Three.  In our Offices of Instruction, it is not just theory, or doctrine. The members of the congregation, having confessed belief in the Trinity, make it personal with a personal response to a personal God: “And this Holy Trinity, One God, I praise and magnify.” Is this your life and my life - to praise and magnify the Holy Trinity, One God?

• This is the faith of the Christian church.
• This is the faith of every Christian.
• This is the faith in which and for which Christian martyrs have died.
• This is the faith for us to live and die believing and practicing.
• This is the faith we come to our Lord’s Table confessing with a true and lively faith.