2) WHAT WE BELIEVE

This is the second in a series of talks that I just gave at SGA's Crossroads Summer Camp.

Holy Spirit guide us. May we think about these things long after this weekend. Teach us. Make your truths to dwell in our hearts and minds and help us to persevere in training ourselves. Move us to action.
This talk is called What We Believe. After having learned about what faith is and at least one clear reason to believe, it will be prudent to talk about what we believe. The substance of this talk will focus on some main points of our faith. There might be a chance for a question and answer afterwards. Even feel free to ask questions during the talk. If it gets too cumbersome, I will say that we should refrain from questions until later.
We need to be reminded much more often than instructed. Have you ever thought about those stubborn Israelites, traveling from Egypt to the Promised Land? Not long after they had been miraculously delivered from Egypt, they began to complain and to lose faith in God. It’s almost unbelievable, until I think how I similarly forget how good and important God is; there is so much that I have to get done on any given day. We need constant reminders of God’s truth and His goodness.
The content of today’s talk is both revolutionary and millennia old; it is sometimes boring and always fresh; always alive and often difficult to understand. We must be reminded what we believe often, lest we forget.
Even in the New Testament, it was easy to forget. Paul writes, “Remind them” (Titus 3.1), and Peter wrote his second letter to “refresh your memory” (2 Peter 1.13). One of the most helpful talks I can give is simply a reiteration of what you – most likely – already know about the Christian faith.
Often these important, extremely valuable beliefs lose their importance in our lives because we forget about them, or because we don’t really understand why they are important. It is my goal to both state some of the core Christian beliefs and to deepen our understanding of them. I also want to open up these topics so that you will be interested enough to look into them for yourself at some point in the near future.
Can anyone offer up some suggestions about what Christians believe? I will be sharing six of the core beliefs of the Christian faith with you. There are other really important beliefs that I will not be getting to.

First and Second, we believe that God exists and that He is good. The whole Bible teaches and presupposes this. In Genesis, God makes everything good, it is only afterward, when Satan and Adam and Eve exercise their free choice wrongly that things go badly (more on this later). In Job and many of the Psalms, the writers are trying to come to grips with how there can be such suffering in the world with such a good God governing things. We would not be able to question why there is suffering in the world unless there is a good God.
The author of Hebrews puts it this way: Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11.6). How can we approach God if we don’t believe that he exists? We will not because the idea will make little sense to us. And why would we seek Him or love Him unless He were lovable, unless God rewarded those who seek after Him and love Him. That God rewards for honest seeking shows His goodness. If He were not good, he would probably ignore us.
God exists. Recently, there have been a few prominent atheists writing books and proposing atheist summer camps, not unlike this one. Atheists do not believe that God exists.
The Christian faith affirms not only that God exists, but that He makes everything else to exist. We affirm this for at least three reasons (by no means is this exhaustive):
1. As we learned in our last talk, God has revealed Himself in history to certain people. They have seen His miracles. This means that there is some outside power. We can trust these people because of their character. This is an argument from authority. We rely on the testimonies of reliable witnesses.
2. An argument from reason: Even little children know how to appeal to something beyond them: “that’s not fair.” This means that there is an idea of “fairness” among all mankind, an idea that could not come from nature. Also, consider truth, beauty, and goodness. Where do these universal ideas come from?
3. From experience. If miracles have happened to us, and also the H.S. working inside us.
God is good. This is the most important belief for us who know that God exists, that He is real. This is important because if God were not good, we should not love, nor trust, nor obey Him. We will see specific instances of His goodness in the four remaining core beliefs. Keep in mind, though, that if God is not good, we should not believe any of it. In fact, however, the following points will prove that God is immeasurably good!
This idea that God is not good is often expressed like this: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, or “Why does God send people to hell?”, or “Why are Christians so stuck up?” All of these are challenges to God’s goodness. This is a frequent subject in the Bible. Job. The psalmist. Ecclesiastes. Revelations. All the N.T. epistles. The answer to such questions as these are found in a few of the other core doctrines to be discussed. The basic answer is this: Jesus came and revealed God’s goodness, and we rely on his coming again to set everything right. We long for Him to come and make all things new. This is the promise of God in the New Testament.
There are clues to God’s goodness that we can know right now. For instance, that we rejoice in life: a baby being born, a person being saved from trouble, etc. This shows us that the God who created us is interested in life as well. Also, even during hard times in life, the people who go through these hard times with humility, love, and courage a.k.a. those with good, godly characters have a sense of peace and they learn from their experiences. Therefore, even the bad things in life are seen to be opportunities for those who are following God; this is what the New Testament teaches. (James 1.2-4; Phil 1.27-30; 1 Corinthians. 4.17; Romans 8.18.) There is a certain type of pleasure to be had and goodness to be gained even in difficult times.

Third, humans are sinful and aren’t righteous on their own. There is something wrong with humankind and it hinders them from being with God. God made things perfect in the beginning. There is no way that a good God would make things badly, especially with His wisdom and His power. God gave us the ability to freely choose what to do, but at the very start Adam and Eve sinned and the rest of humanity have been “born in sin” (See Romans 5.12-21). It is not that we wouldn’t have done the same, but that Adam and Eve actually did it. And because they were the first humans, the disease spread to all their children. And we see the consequences: corruption, murders, hatred, desiring the wrong things, considering ourselves Gods, etc. The consequences are all around us and are evident.
Because we stopped obeying God – Who is wise and has ordered all things well – we have brought evil to the world, and we always set ourselves against God. “I am the king of my own life” is a common thought for all.
We need to realize our sinfulness. Often though, it is difficult for us to see the problems of sin clearly, for sin is a perversion of what is good. Of course, we often – though not always – feel guilty when we sin, but we soon forget our evil and we fall into the same old vices, the same bad habits. This shows both how we tend to not want to think of our own sins (they show us how weak we are) and how sin weakens us so that we will continue in sin if we do not continually check ourselves. Perhaps this is partly what Jesus was alluding to in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) when he said that misplaced anger is murder and that lust is adultery. Serial killers have started out looking at pornography; hardcore drug addicts began with lesser drugs. Most “big” sins have their beginnings in something small.
Those who reply by saying that they are not murderers or adulterers, etc. mean that sins often do not escalate. First, I would disagree. Second, even if we “maintain” a certain level of sinfulness without becoming murderers, etc., we are making our souls ugly, we are offending God, and we are going against our better judgment. In effect, we are killing ourselves and killing our communities. Committing sin is essentially an assault on the goodness of life. If God is good and has ordered all things well, when we sin we are breaking that good, life-giving order, and we are encouraging death. Perhaps this helps us make sense of that famous verse from Romans 6.23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God is good and he orders things well. He even offers Himself up to erase our sins. He is that good. In contrast, sin is a harsh master. Whenever we sin we are incurring a type of death, however covert and hidden it may be. We all feel that when we feel guilt for our sins.
I offer two helpful thought experiments to help us think about the serious problem of sin more clearly: First, I like to think about how my sins might affect my (future) children. If I am constantly angry without reason, chances are that they might be as well. Then they will have kids and pass this unreasonable anger on. Imagine this goes on for hundreds of years as my family continues to grow. Imagine how this anger will continually break apart the family, causing quarrels and bad blood. Imagine how my family will affect and be viewed by outsiders. The results won’t be pretty.
Our second thought experiment comes from one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books: The Great Divorce. The book is a picture that C.S. Lewis wanted to give of what hell, and heaven might look like. The main point of the book seems to be that the decisions we make on earth really matter towards our eternal life. The book begins with a quote from George MacDonald. Part of that quote is this: “…no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets.” This means that God will not accept any of our sin in heaven, that our bad habits on earth will hinder us from heaven. In the story, the main character gets to see how peoples inability to be rid of their sins make them reject heaven. One woman learns that a man who sinned against her is in heaven and she cannot forgive him, her hard heart keeps her from heaven. Another believes so strongly that miracles and God are not real and so he simply rejects all that he sees and hears.
Personally, I wonder about those Christians who were racists. If they see that there are black people and Asian people are in heaven, will they say, “this cannot be heaven; I reject this place”? Or what about those people who live as though God is not good, who hate and live their lives in mediocrity? Are they really showing that they reject God by not believing that He can and wants to change them, that He is really good?
Often the results of sin are difficult to see in the moment. Thought experiments like these that help us to see the long-term and eternal effect of our sins and our bad habits are helpful. They make things more clear for us.

Fourth, Jesus, Christ is the affirmation of all we have said so far and all we will have to say. He is at the very center of our faith.
In regards to God’s existence, Jesus proved this through miracles, and by his own character and commitment to what he said was true even during the great trials of his life. If there has been one person who has known the Father, it is certainly Jesus.
In regards to God’s goodness, we know that Jesus was and is God. Colossians says, “For in Him al the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (1.19); and, “He is the image of the invisible God” (1.15). So, if there is any visible example of what God is like, we believe that Jesus showed us exactly what God is like. So, if we see that Jesus is good, we know that God the Trinity is good. When you look at Jesus’ life you are struck with his wisdom, love, mercy, goodness. God’s goodness is especially shown in that Jesus gave his life so that we might find life in Him. He did this while we were still sinners.
Jesus Christ was the answer to the problem of suffering and evil in the world. To those who believe in Jesus, asking for forgiveness, he has mercy, and Jesus suffered so that we would not have to. Jesus’ answer to those who believe in Him is: mercy, a giving of His life for us. He shows Himself to be both good and just. The answer for the problem of suffering in the world to those who choose to continue in evil is this: They must suffer the just consequences of their actions and live eternally apart from Him, in hell. But even to the “perishing”, God waits patiently, and holds back judgment so that they have time to repent (See 2 Peter 3.9 and Romans 2.4). God’s answer to those who accept Him and reject Him is the same on two meaningful levels: mercy and justice. But isn’t God sending people to hell unjust, something archaic, not to be believed anymore? More on this later.
Therefore, in regards to sin, Jesus is the answer. No man could save the world from sin, but only man can suffer for man for justice to be paid. So God came as a man to mankind. He did not despise us, considering us as dirt, much lower than Him, and worthless. Instead, He showed His goodness ultimately when the Son became man. Even though man had been defeated by sin and even though everyone deserves death, Jesus came and overcame sin. We would not be willing, or able to undertake such a project.
Jesus saving us from sin is also just because He did not force us from sin, apart from our own choosing, but He has let us choose freely. This again shows God’s goodness along with His justice, which is an expression of His goodness. Jesus also revealed God’s wisdom in dealing with the fundamental problem in the universe: sin. In taking our sins upon Himself, Jesus has been both supremely merciful and supremely just (sin was punished, and man is set free).
We have not addressed the next two topics, but Jess is the key to these as well. In regards to the Trinity (which is our next core Christian belief), Jesus opened us up to know God as Trinity, which we would have never known on our own. We need God to reveal this truth to us.
Last, in regards to the last things, Jesus gives us hope, because there is life after death with God. We know this because Jesus rose from the dead, as a type of proof that there is life after death and vindication for the righteous (see First Corinthians 15.23, Colossians 1:18, Revelations 1.5.)

Fifth, is a particularly unique and often puzzling belief: God is a Trinity. Christians are monotheists (that is, we believe in one God), yet we believe that this one God is Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I enjoy remembering how belief in the Trinity came about. First, the disciples, who were strict monotheists, who prayed to Yahweh, cam into contact with Jesus. Having lived with Jesus for three years, having hear his teachings, witnessed the miracles, death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the disciples began to worship Jesus as they had only allowed themselves to worship God. They had such an experience of Jesus that they were compelled to praise Him, not as a good man, or as an angel, but as God! This must have been very strange for strict Jews! It must have been a strong and real encounter with Jesus that they had, not something fake, dreamt, or simply hoped.
The disciples then knew God as Father and Son. They also knew that Jesus had taught them about the Holy Spirit. All three were mentioned in the great commission: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). In other words, baptize them in the name of God, which involves all three of these names: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It took about 350 years for Christians to come to an understanding of their tendency to worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The issue was terrible complex and confusing for early Christians and it can be the same for us, even after 2000 years. However, it is just as true today as it was in Jesus’ day, and, in fact, for all eternity.
It might be helpful to talk for just a moment about each Person in the Trinity. We know the Father as Creator. We know Jesus, the Son, as the one who was sent to reveal to us what God is really like (as we mentioned earlier). Jesus, the Son, died, and was raised from the grave so that we might die with Him and rise with Him in newness of life.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, to be at the right hand of the Father, He sent the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, so that Christians would be instructed, unified, and love and obey God. The Holy Spirit has come to teach us all truth (John 16.12). The Holy Spirit illuminates us to know what we do not know on our own. He inspires and equips us with the tools to live a holy, God honouring life.
Here is a quote from a very wise man who lived at about the time when Christians were trying to better understand the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here, Basil of Caesarea explains a little bit about the Holy Spirit to us:
[The Holy Spirit is] wholly present to everyone [that is, as individuals] and wholly everywhere at the same time. He is shared without being affected [unlike cake]; He remains whole and yet gives Himself in the sharing, like a sunbeam whose warming light shines on the one who enjoys it as though it shone for him alone, yet it also lights the land and the sea, and mingles with the air. (From “On the Holy Spirit” or de Spiritu Sancto)
As important as this belief is, I wonder how important it is in our lives and churches?
So much for our discussion on the Trinity and on the Holy Spirit in particular. Now let us move on to the last of the core Christian beliefs that we will be addressing.

Sixth, and lastly, let us discuss an important Christian doctrine that is often neglected these days: Heaven and Hell. The big truth for us to understand about life after death is that we must understand that our decisions in life really matter. We addressed this earlier when we talked about the impact of sin.
Here are the basics of Christian belief on heaven and hell: Those who have faith in God will have eternal life with God. Those who reject God will have eternal death, which is separation from God.
But there are some big questions about this. One important question goes like this: “How can a good God condemn people to hell?” I think that Christians can answer the question – as Jesus might – with another question: “Why have certain people chosen to go to eternal punishment? Why have many people consistently chosen bad thoughts and actions?”
Like I have said: Our decisions matter. To think that God will smooth everything over at the end of time, despite some people not wanting God, despite that people have lived lives that reject God in words, action, and thought. Our decisions matter. This means that two things are very important:
1) Our minds and thoughts that help us to know the truth and therefore inform our decisions.
2) Our wills and actions, for we must act out what we have decided is the best to do.
In his book, James V. Schall writes: “The criteria given at the final judgment are mostly ones of relation to others – feeding the hungry, turning the other cheek, even sacrificing one’s life for one’s friends, though in other places we are admonished also to know the truth to be free” (p.198).
Therefore, us believing the truth that Jesus Christ is God and our acting out our beliefs by leading virtues lives in the Spirit, modeled on Jesus’ life, are both important. This helps us to answer another, yet similar, question: “Why does God send good people to hell?” Here is a clue: both knowing and doing are essential. Both knowing the truth and doing what is good are essential.
Here are some quotes that might help, on Hell, from Josef Pieper’s book The Concept of Sin:
When discussing “eternal punishment” one must clearly distinguish the images that are meant to make the essence of the matter visible to the imagination form the essence of the matter itself. But if the essence of damnation is rightly characterized as separation from the infinite Good, which God himself is, then the punishment only consists in not possessing what one has already expressly renounced. “Hell” should not be thought of as a dungeon inside which one has been forcibly locked up against one’s will. The bolt on the door that seals off the way into the open air is not located outside, but inside, the person. It is the stiff-necked will of the damned person himself, a will that turns away from God, which has closed the gates of hell in on itself.
…
Hell consists in man being taken at his word when he refuses to love.
…
Dostoyevsky: What is hell? I think it is the pain of no longer being able to love.
…
C.S. Lewis: In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: “What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.
…
Forgiveness can be vouchsafed only to the one who wants it, or at least is willing to accept it, [this] is perfectly obvious to everyone.
On this topic of heaven and hell, there are many books. For a fairly quick, quite insightful book, read C.S. Lewis’ The great Divorce, which I spoke of earlier when I was talking about the consequences and deadliness of sin. The book really helps us to see how decisions made in this life might affect you in the life to come.\
There are those who like to do evil, who will reject God. This means that eternal death, a.k.a. hell is for those who have chosen to hate God, through how they have lived and acted. God will punish evil, will vindicate the righteous, and will “make all things new.” We will see, especially in the end, that God is good and just. We believe this in faith, believing that Jesus is God and that He showed His goodness in His life and death.

In summary, I have tried to bring light to our faith, by highlighting six core Christian beliefs: 1) God’s existence, 2) God’s goodness, 3) Humanity’s great sin problem, 4) Jesus as the key to all Christian belief, 5) The Trinity, especially the Holy Spirit; and, 6) Heaven and Hell.
There are many important beliefs in the Christian faith, but we must know and understand at least these core beliefs to have a coherent faith. I encourage you to take one of the points that interests you, or which you do not understand very well and to do some praying and some research. Read some books; ask pastor ken about it, etc. Know what you believe, why, and what it means.

Applications:
1) Rejoice.
2) Research and contemplate.
3) Share with others.

Prayer
See if anyone has questions…or perhaps it would be better for some songs of response.
Hand out discussion questions. Point out Apostle’s Creed.



The Apostle’s Creed


1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and the life everlasting.
Amen.
2) Discussion Questions: WHAT WE BELIEVE

• Do you understand the importance of God’s goodness in all this?
• Which of the points did you not know about before, if any?
• Which of the five points impacted you the most?
• Which do you struggle with or still have questions about?
• Was this helpful for you to understand the faith a little more? How so or why not?
• Do you feel more comfortable with your faith after having heard the talk?
• Which point would you like to focus your prayers and thoughts on over the next few months? What are some steps you can take to understand more?