What We Believe Matters | Tyrone P Jones | We Believe

Amen. I want you to stand and take your Bible. Now, these three verses I'm going to read are not on the screen. That's why you should bring your Bible. That's why you should bring your Bible. I could say less if you read more. Well, I didn't mean to say it that way, but I kind of like that. Yeah. So, these three verses are not on the screen. You want to bring your Bible because you just never know. Technology, you can't count on this stuff. What if it goes out and you ain't got your Bible? Okay, Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16, verses 16 through 18, three scriptures here. Matthew 16, 16 through 18, then we're going to move to first Timothy, then we're going to move to Jude. Matthew is the first book of the gospels. Matthew 16, 16 through 18. Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It's the first section of scripture. The second one is first Timothy. First Timothy, a little bit further into the New Testament. You'll get through all the churches, Galatians, Corinthians, Ephesians, Thessalonians, and then you'll come to first Timothy. I want to read one verse there, first Timothy chapter 3, verse number 16. This is actually a creed, a creedal hymn in the New Testament. First Timothy 3, 16. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up into glory. And the final one is Jude, which is the second to the last book of the Bible, Revelations is the last, but Jude, one chapter in Jude, so it's chapter 1, verse number 3. Jude 1, verse 3. Here's the word of the Lord. Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once delivered to all the saints. Once delivered to all the saints. All right, so far, the reading of the word, you may be seated. Now, one of those verses I may come back to in this message, those other two may just be kind of foundational over the next few weeks. We begin a series this morning titled, We Believe. We Believe. And the basis of the series will be coming from the Apostles' Creed, which if you know the Apostles' Creed, it starts out with two wonderful and

powerful words, which begin with, I believe. Now, if you come from a church tradition that did not regularly profess credo confessions, or maybe you have no familiarity with them, I believe this will be on the screen. This is a simple definition of a creed. A creed is a formal, concise statement summarizing the core beliefs and principles of a religious group or even an individual. Stemming from the Latin word credo, which means I believe, it acts as a shared declaration of faith. Most churches' doctrine is summarized either in the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed. Most Protestant churches, Anglican churches, even Catholic churches use the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed to kind of define what they believe in a nutshell. In the old days of CTC, we actually would have the Apostles' Creed in our bulletin. If you remember the days of when you walked into a church and they gave you a bulletin, we used to have the Apostles' Creed in. in our bulletin. The Baptists use something different. If you come from a Baptist background, they use the Baptist faith and message. Some of them use the London Baptist confession of faith. But again, the idea is to summarize what they believe in that fashion, in either their confession or in a creed. They're a great way, honestly, when some people, you know, they ask about what your doctrinal belief is. It's a great way just to point to, well, it's the Apostles' Creed that is the basis of what we teach. I'm going to have this on the screen and I'll read this through the Apostles' Creed. And I just want you to think about every line that's in here. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He had descended to hell. The third day, he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there, he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, which I want to pause there because a lot of churches have a hard time with the

Apostles' Creed because of that word, Catholic, in there. It's not pointing to the Roman Catholic Church. That word is catholicos. It means universal. It means as a whole. So it says, I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy universal church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Now, I would say if there's anything in here that you don't agree with, then probably you don't agree with our doctrine. Because every line in here absolutely is what I believe is biblical and believe what we teach. Now, it doesn't cover all the elements of Christianity, but it certainly covers the basis of what we believe the Scripture teaches. I don't think there's a question that, you know, we teach that God, our Father, is the Almighty, that he's a creator. We believe in the Son. We believe, indeed, that he was born of a virgin. And again, there are people who question that, that he suffered, he crucified, he died, was buried, and rose again. There are some people who don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus, seated on the right hand of God because he is, indeed, the Son of God. He's going to return again and judge mankind. We believe in the church universal, that it's not just a local church, but local churches everywhere that are part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We certainly believe in the communion of the saints, us being at one, and the forgiveness of sins, obviously, and the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. So, the Apostles' Creed, again, is not designed to take the place of the Bible. It just summarizes the basic teachings. And this is what I know. When there's a world that makes statements that you can believe whatever works for you, the Christian faith ought to respond by saying, no, the truth is worth believing, the truth is worth guarding, and it's the truth that we stand by, not just whatever works for you. And so, the Apostles' Creed, of course, reminds us that Christianity is not built on some vague spirituality, that what we have been built on is a revealed truth, a truth about God, a truth about Christ, a truth about salvation, and a truth about hope.

And so, every person has a set of doctrines that you believe in. You may not have them written down, and I'm not even talking about just from a Christian faith. You've got a set of doctrines that you believe in that guide your life. If you believe that your children should be homeschooled, it's because there's a set of beliefs that you have that have brought you to that conclusion. If you believe that there's certain manners of how finances should be handled and how money should be saved... or how money should be invested. There's a set of beliefs, there's a doctrine, there's a system of how you process that that causes you to make those decisions. Are you following me? So everyone lives by doctrines. Again, you just may not have them written down. And usually, you'll know that you got a set of doctrines when people make decisions and you look at them or question them and say, why did you do it that way? Because you have a way that you've already processed of how you would do it or how it should be done. Again, those things may not be written down. But that's your eternal framework. Whatever your doctrines are, whatever your personal beliefs are, whatever your principles are, whatever your worldview is, that defines how you determine what is truth or what is moral or what is of God or not. That's the eternal framework. That's how individuals interpret life. That's how people make decisions. That's how people interact with the world.

And so essentially, a person's doctrine is their foundational belief system. And so whatever your doctrine is, whatever your beliefs are, that will determine what you do. Doctrines are beliefs. Doctrines are the thing that proceeds and determines your activity. So I think I've covered that. But I'm gonna give you actually just four broad doctrines that have determined things and maybe you'll kind of understand where I'm coming from. Let me just say this from a geopolitical side. If any of you stay in touch with politics, even through the years, you've heard the term the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine that he established in 1947, President Truman, of course, at the time. And he made a switch on how the US deals with foreign affairs. His big concern was communism coming in, subverting in other places. So he wanted to, I guess the word would be, contain the expansion over the Soviet Union. So Truman started pledging money to other countries, particularly Greece and Turkey, which were the greater concerns at the time, so that they would be more proactive in resisting communism. Everything shifted for about 40 years on how we saw the world,

which led into the Cold War with China and Russia, Cuba, et cetera. Everything shifted on how we look at the world, what the responsibility is of the country, and how we are to be the leaders in helping subvert this Soviet Union infusion or growth. That was called the Truman Doctrine, and our country was under that doctrine for a few decades. It changed the whole trajectory of what we do as a country politically. I can look at it ethnically, and please don't think that I'm picking on anyone when I do this, but Native Americans, particularly Navajo and Apache, whenever a person deceases, they take their belongings and they burn them with them. Sometimes, some of the practice even is to burn their home. And this is why they do that. On the one hand, they wanna protect the living from the ghost of the person. And if they believe that the person's belongings were still there, then that person would wanna come back and return to the things that they had. So if they burn this stuff, then they take this stuff with them in the journey of the afterlife by burning their possessions, and they can use those items, whether it be blankets, household items, et cetera, as they go through the spirit world

and use in their next life. That's a doctrine that causes them to practice a certain way when it comes to burying the dead. You can see it culturally when statements are made about certain things. You see it culturally when you recognize the amount of criminals that are released or not kept in jail or prison. There's something behind that. And you don't have to go too far, but when you hear congresswomen make statements like just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn't make them a criminal. Now, what that means is. This is their truth. If they are not criminals, then they don't belong in jail. They don't belong in prison. It would be unjust to keep them in jail and keep them in prison, therefore they should be released. That's a doctrine. That's a belief. Are y'all following me? That's a belief. I can go even further. Even when the fellow from UnitedHealthcare was shot, allegedly by the fellow that they now still have in custody, one senator said, violence is never the answer, but people can only be pushed so far. That's a doctrine.

That's a belief. No, they shouldn't do that, but if they do, it's because of how they've been pushed. So again, no responsibility for the murder. Let's just go to the church world. I come up from, I was raised in an apostolic faith, and among apostolics for years in our church, the old church I came out of, women were not allowed to wear makeup or jewelry. Not at all. If you wore makeup or jewelry, basically, you were just sinning, which would send quite a few of y'all to hell, actually. But you were sinning, and that belief was based out of 1 Timothy 2, verses nine and 10, which says, in like manner also, women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which cometh women professing godliness with good works. So the idea was, you don't reflect yourself with what you're wearing or what you put on or how you make yourself up. You only reflect yourself with your good works. That was the doctrine. 1 Peter 3, three through four. Whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and the wearing of gold or putting on apparel, but let it be

the hidden man of the heart. So the doctrine was that women don't wear jewelry and makeup. I can go further. Women weren't supposed to wear pants, and I can go right on and on. Those were doctrines based on beliefs, and so those were taught to, carried out and expressed by the church. So here's the point. Everybody has a doctrine. Everybody does, and the belief you have will determine your actions. Whatever you believe, that's gonna determine your actions. And so the reason that we're doing this series is to absolutely establish, A, what we believe and why we believe that what we teach is biblical. So I'm gonna give you three things. I don't think the message will be very long, but that always depends upon you. So actually, it's on you. Here's the first one. What we believe matters because truth matters. What we believe matters because truth matters. Here's John 8, 31 through 32. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. Hear this. You heard the connection. My word, disciples, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. So Jesus is clearly saying truth liberates.

Everything else will enslave us. No matter what the doctrine is, if it's not truth, it's enslaving, if it's not based on the word of God. And so it's important. I mean, can you imagine, again, going to see a doctor, and the doctor diagnoses your condition, and doc, what should I do? And the doctor says, well, take whatever feels right to you. Take whatever feels right to you. First of all, you know that ain't true. Second of all, it's honestly malpractice. But the church is not free to prescribe to people whatever they think is comfortable for them. That's not the responsibility of the church. Truth heals, and falsehood harms. Can you say amen to that? Truth heals, and falsehood harms. So sound doctrine is important because our faith is based on a specific message, a specific message. The overall teaching of the church has a whole lot of elements. But here is what's explicitly defined of what the bottom line of what our preaching and teaching should be. First Corinthians 15, one through four. Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the good news. I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it.

It is the good news that saves you. If you continue to believe the message I told you, unless, of course, or should you believe something that was never true in the first place? So here's what Paul says. Listen, the message matters. And the message for us, the bottom line, is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if you change that message, then you're shifting the basis of Christianity as a whole, entirely, if you change that message. Sound doctrine is important because the gospel is a sacred trust. We've been given a responsibility. Now, when Paul says this, one of the ways he said it, which is not on the screen, he said it to Timothy. But it wasn't just to Timothy that that message is for. Every one of us have a responsibility to take the gospel with a sacred trust. Every one of us do. That that message is so critical and so important that we know people's lives are depending on the liberation of the Lord Jesus Christ. I made the statement last week, there is no way anybody can consider themselves pursuing happiness if that pursuit of happiness does not include Christ and eternal life with him. And the only message that does that

is the liberating, freeing message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And every one of us should guard that with a sacred trust. It's our responsibility to deliver that message, not to change it. Jude conveys such an urgency in this. In Jude three, he says, beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, hear this, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints, to contend for it. That means that's carrying a strenuous fight that we're contending for this. We're not allowing any other message to be the message we preach. We're not allowing any other message to be the message that's given out to people for any kind of hope. We are contending for this message. We clearly understand that you can't add to the Bible and you can't take away from it. Rather than alter the gospel message or the apostles' doctrine, we receive what's been given to us and we pass it on, as the scripture says, as a pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus. So we guard this thing with a sacred trust. Sound doctrine is important because what we believe affects what we do.

What we believe affects what we do. Behavior is always an extension of your theology. It always is. People that don't even say they, people that say they don't believe in God, believe me, that is a theology. Everything that we do and believe is based on God the creator. You cannot make statements or take actions that has nothing to do with God because he is the father of all and everybody is responsible to him. I never get shook up by folks who say I don't have a belief in God so all this stuff that you're talking about judgment don't apply to me. I said just wait and see. Just wait and see. He is the father and he is the creator and all of us have a theology. And so there's a direct correlation between what we think and how we act. Even Christians, there's a direct correlation. If two Christians believe that it's okay for them to have sex outside of marriage because they're adults, that's a theology. That's a doctrine. That's a belief. Now it's wrong. I don't need to tell CTC it's wrong.

You know it's wrong. Nope, not enough response. Not enough. Nope, I gotta take a minute on this one. You know it's wrong. Why? Because biblically it's wrong. So if it's biblically wrong and you confess to be a Christian, then how do you fit that into what you call biblical theology or biblical worldview? But you've got a doctrine that says because I'm an adult, it's okay. Y'all with me? If you terminate a fetus in the womb, because your doctrine is my body, my choice, that's your theology. That's your belief. That's your doctrine. And you're gonna act upon that doctrine. And so the scripture is clear. True teaching will promote. Righteousness, when sin flourishes, sound doctrine will oppose that. So sound doctrine is important, and we must ascertain this truth in a world of falsehood. First John 4.1, hear this. Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see

if the Spirit they have comes from God, for there are many false prophets in the world. There are people clothed behind a pulpit, behind a TikTok, on a YouTube, Facebook, clothed behind a whole lot of things declaring that what they're teaching is of the Word. Even when I talk to people and I ask them about their church, and I say, well, just tell me some things about your church, and they say, we teach the Bible. That don't move me. That don't move me, because folks can come up with all kind of stuff and say it's the Bible. I mean, they could take scriptures and just knock them out of context. Just knock them out of context. I know this may seem a little heavy for you, but this is usually always what happens when I take a week off. I got a whole lot of time to think, and I just throw all that into the message. You know, I got time off to think about it, so here it is. Anyway, so I don't get moved by that, because people say, people will teach false doctrine. They will teach things that's not biblical, and Paul links life and doctrine together. What you believe shapes how you live. Right belief fuels right worship.

Wrong belief eventually will reshape your image of God. If you believe wrong, you're gonna reshape your image of God. I just, and I just hate to pick on folks today, but I'm going to, and I know Tyrone touched base on this, but I was appalled when Don Lemon called himself a Christian and yet went into a church and caused all that nonsense. Totally reshaping the God of Christianity. Totally reshaping. Jude, verse four says this. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied the only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. And so a Christian pastor's responsibility, according to Titus 1.9, is he must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught. Then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it where they are wrong. And so that's the first thing there, indeed, that what we believe absolutely matters. Here's the second thing. What we believe unites us with the church across time and space. Every Sunday, in some cases, of course, people have Saturday night service, et cetera. When Christians come together, yeah team, you can come.

When Christians come together, they're joining their voices together with ours. And when we come together, we're joining our voices together with Christians around the world. We're not just a church. We're a church of the church. And when we come together and sing, when we come together and preach, when we come together and teach, it's yoking us and binding us together as one. As much as I would wanna believe this, that CTC is the most holiest people on the planet. When Jesus come to take this church home, he gonna take some folks from other countries. It ain't just coming back to CTC. It'd be beautiful. I'd love to have heaven with just us. Get up there and we got all this room, Jesus. Boy, this is wonderful. Is it just us? Oh yeah, Tyrone, y'all the only ones that made it. Wow, that's a beautiful thing. But no, no, no, that ain't how it is. He getting folks from all over the world who confess Christ. Ephesians four, four through six says this. For there is one body and one spirit, just as you've been called to one glorious hope for the future. There was one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and father of all, who's over all, in all, and living through all. Every time I just, I think, prayed with you about the local pastors that we'll gather with this week. We don't agree on every matter. We certainly don't. But when we come together, we absolutely consider ourselves one church, proclaiming the gospel, giving the people the hope of the world that we may encourage people in our community to be transformed into Christ. Not in the same building. Have the same God, same father, same hope. And hopefully preaching the same gospel. When V and I go out to other countries, I've shared this with you. We go to church in those countries. I don't understand, most of the time, a word they're saying. But there's something about being united with believers even when you're not the spirit of God makes you feel that one It's ain't that right baby makes you feel that communion that community because you're with others Alistair McGrath He said this that the Christian doctrine is the church's way of preserving its identity without shared belief Christianity dissolves into personal opinion Doctrine is not the enemy of unity. It's the foundation of meaningful unity And here's the last thing what we believe shapes discipleship and formation for generations And I really do want you to catch this What what we what we confess on? Sunday It absolutely must shape what we do on Monday It absolutely does if our confession is unto Christ if our life is unto Christ if our doctrine is

Based on what we believe about Jesus that should absolutely Shape what we do every day of our life It was Michael Horton who said that the Christian faith is not built on inner feelings, but external truths real events real promises a real Savior the creeds our doctrines our faith and what God has done is not just how we feel and So that should be Expressed in all things that we do doctrine Again will determine what we do Here's what Colossians 2 6 and 7 says and now just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord You must continue to follow him. Let your roots go down into him Let your lives be built on him Then your faith will grow strong and the truth you were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness I'm telling you when when life is unstable When you go through some challenging things in life You got to be reminded of the unchanging truth of God's Word That God is the Creator That Christ is my Redeemer That the Spirit is the giver of life The church is God's people that there is a resurrection and eternal life that I can hope in and that should be lived out for the next generation The next generation should receive these truths that we believe it should be passed on to them They're being discipled by everything else out there that they got access to My pastor Dave Patterson I came back from Washington, Idaho was home a day and then went up to be be there at the at the church and He gave a statistic That the algorithms are showing That the majority of people are on their phones Seven to eight hours a day I'm not talking about on the phone making calls and texting Screening and looking and what seven to eight hours a day do that do the math on that

that's 49 hours a week and We get you for one hour and 15 minutes one hour and 15 minutes You see what's being worked up against you're you're you're seeing reading hearing everything else People's lives when you see stuff on TV. Those folks lives have been shaped by somebody's doctrine and they're carrying that out and they're living that out and Nowadays, you know most of all your children's got phones and I don't know if you monitor them or if you don't monitor them and I'm not here to tell you how to parent your kids But just think about that if you don't pass on what you believe Where do you think they're gonna get beliefs from? Where they're gonna get them from if you don't take the time To express to them what the Bible teaches and you live that out and you walk them through doctrines They're gonna have doctrines, but it won't be what you taught them Y'all follow me on this. I'm doing fine. I don't know what's going on with y'all. I'm doing great And so we want our children to experience we want them to experience God we want them to embrace this truth We want the next generation to know who God is and what God has done and why it matters and so over the next coming weeks we're gonna be breaking this stuff down and Hopefully some of it will just Remind you or ask you what is it that you believe about God? And what did you teach about him in the scripture? And how does that shape your life today is just a simple message what we believe matters in the shifting world I'm telling you. I love to be able to say I believe in God the Father Almighty I believe in God the Father Almighty and it's that that truth that leads me to the Savior and what he does Now we have to take communion Not have to sorry about that But we get to, so I want you to stand, if you would, as we close out with this. And knowing this, that the truth is worth confessing together.

There's one last verse on the screen, and this may be a reminder to you, or it might be a statement to you that you may need to respond to. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That's a truth. That's a confession. That's a belief. That's a doctrine that I hope that everybody here will embrace. If Christ is not your Savior, if you haven't confessed Jesus Christ as your Lord, then you got two options here. One is, whatever you were given, you set that back down because you just told me you don't believe it. Just set it down. Or if you've never made that confession, but today you want to make that confession, then you pick that thing up. You pick it up with joy, you pick it up with anticipation, and you pick it up with faith because you have just become part of the communion of the saints by declaring Jesus Christ as your Lord. Father, I thank you for this time, this time to minister, this time to share, this time to be with the family, and this time to, once again, Lord God, to publicly declare that Jesus Christ is my Lord as we eat the bread and as we drink the wine. Let's eat together and let's drink together. Can you shout hallelujah?