What We Believe

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

February 5, 2017

What We Believe

Selected Texts

Jesus was dead – everyone knew it.

His body had been taken down from the cross so carefully,

so lovingly;

carried gently to the tomb,

laid on the rock slab inside,

washed and then wrapped in linen,

all before the sun went down.

That was on Friday.

So, how could anyone have seen him then on Sunday?

Seen him alive?

Seen him in a room with his disciples?

Seen him walking on the road to Emmaus?

Seen him even later preparing breakfast on a beach…

preparing breakfast!

Jesus alive!

Jesus had been crucified;

he was dead, and buried.

Now Jesus was alive?

The idea was preposterous.

The idea is preposterous.

And yet, this we believe.

And what about Mary,

a young woman of no particular distinction.

Are we really to believe

that the angel Gabriel came to her,

to tell her that she – she of all women –

would give birth to the Son of God?

that she would conceive

by the power of the Holy Spirit?

This too is preposterous.

And yet this too we believe.

We began our service this morning,

as we do regularly throughout the year,

by saying, “what we believe,

using the Affirmation of Faith

printed in your bulletin.”

Among the words we said were,

“In life and in death, we belong to God.

Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God

and the communion of the Holy Spirit,

we trust in the one triune God,

the Holy One of Israel,

whom alone we worship and serve.”

This we believe.

We said as well, “In gratitude to God,

empowered by the Holy Spirit,

we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks

and to live holy and joyful lives,

even as we watch for

God’s new heaven and new earth,

praying, Come Lord Jesus!”

Do you hear:

We are watching for

God’s new heaven and new earth,

and praying, Come, Lord Jesus!

This too we believe.

The words we say together when we affirm our faith

come from our Book of Confessions.

The Book of Confessions is part of

the constitution of our denomination,

the Presbyterian Church, USA.

The other part, our Book of Order,

has our Rules of Governance,

Directory of Worship,

and Rules of Discipline.

Our Book of Confessions has

12 confessional statements and creeds,

statements and creeds that span the centuries,

each an effort to try to put into words,

each an effort to try to articulate,

what we believe as children of God;

what we believe as disciples of Christ

within the Reformed Tradition;

what we believe as Presbyterians.

Three weeks ago when we ordained our new officers,

among the constitutional questions

asked of them was,

“Do you sincerely receive and adopt

the essential tenets of the Reformed faith

as expressed in the confessions of our church

as authentic and reliable expositions

of what Scripture leads us to believe and do;

and will you be instructed and led by those confessions

as you lead the people of God?”

I recall responding “yes” to those questions

two different times:

first when I was ordained as an elder

almost 30 years ago,

and then a decade later

when I was ordained as minister of word and sacrament.

The first time I said yes to those questions

I have to admit,

I was not at all familiar with our Book of Confessions.

I knew the Book of Order,

with its rules for governance,

but not the Book of Confessions.

As part of my preparation for ordained ministry,

I read and studied the various Confessions.

I learned from them,

learned what treasures they are –

learned that within them were words

that helped me to articulate my faith,

helped me to understand my faith,

helped me to live my faith.

Our Book of Order tells us that

“The Presbyterian Church states its faith

and bears witness to God’s grace in Jesus Christ

in the creeds and confessions

in the Book of Confessions.

In these statements the church declares

to its members

and to the world

who and what it is,

what is believes,

and what it resolves to do.”

There, in 52 words,

we have what our Confessional statements do:

they declare to you, me,

and all the world

who we are,

what we are,

what we believe,

and, …what we resolve to do.

The Confessions help us to understand

that we begin with belief,

but then we are called to act,

to do,

to work.

As our Lord taught us in his Sermon on the Mount

“Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”,

will enter the kingdom of heaven,

but only one who does

the will of my Father in heaven.”

(Matthew 7:21)

The earliest confessions—

The Apostles’ Creed and The Nicene Creed—

both from the formative years of our church,

seem so simple, straightforward,

and yet both were subject to great debate,

argument, contention

as they were shaped before they were accepted.

The words, for example,

that we say in the Nicene Creed,

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father,”

those words were the result of more than 300 years

of debate, questions,

prayer, discernment,

and, yes, argument.

The Protestant Reformation 500 years ago—

an anniversary we’ll mark come Fall—

gave us The Scots Confession,

the Heidelberg Catechism,

and the Second Helvetic Confession.

In these confessions, among other things,

we defined the marks of the church

as a place where there is,

“true preaching of the Word of God

and the right administration of

the sacraments of Jesus Christ.”

(Scots Confession, 3.18)

It is through these Confessions

that we determined that Scripture leads us

to observe just two Sacraments

rather than seven.

The turbulence in this country in the 1960s

with the Vietnam War and racial struggles,

led to the Confession of 1967,

a Confession that took as its theme Paul’s words

from his second letter to the Corinthians,

“So if anyone is in Christ,

there is a new creation:

everything old has passed away;

see, everything has become new!

All this is from God,

who reconciled us to himself through Christ,

and has given us

the ministry of reconciliation.”

(2 Corinthians 5:17-18)

As the Confession acknowledges in its introduction,

“God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ

and the mission of reconciliation

to which he has called his church

are the heart of the gospel of any age.

Our generation stands in peculiar need of

reconciliation in Christ.”

(9.06)

Are we any different?

Doesn’t our generation too stand in need

of reconciliation in Christ?

Listen again to the words we spoke this morning

from the Brief Statement of Faith,

“We trust in God the Holy Spirit,

everywhere the giver and renewer of life.

The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith,

sets us free to accept ourselves

and to love God and neighbor,

and binds us together

with all believers in the one body of Christ,

the church.

The same Spirit who inspired

the prophets and apostles

rules our faith and life in Christ

through Scripture,

engages us through the Word proclaimed,

claims us in the waters of baptism,

feeds us with the bread of life

and the cup of salvation,

and calls women and men

to all ministries of the church.”

“In a broken and fearful world

the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing,

to witness among all peoples to Christ

as Lord and Savior,

to unmask idolatries in church and culture, 

to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,

and to work with others for justice,

freedom,

and peace.”

“In a broken and fearful world

the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing,

to witness among all peoples to Christ

as Lord and Savior,

to unmask idolatries in church and culture, 

to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,

and to work with others for justice,

freedom,

and peace.”

This we believe.

This we resolve to do.

AMEN