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I believe that e = mc² >>>

• every experiment we do verifies it >>>
• … until this week when at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland there appeared to be some particles travelling faster than light
• Whether they did or not will depend on other scientists being able to reproduce the experiment which all depends on the calibration of two atomic clocks
• So here is an example of a fundamental being challenged

That was what gave rise to the Apostles creed. The gospel was being challenged so some eminent church leaders met to settle on a way of understanding the gospel that ordinary people could carry with them. We may re-word and re-apply Christian theology, but the fundamentals remain the same and some of the most significant fundamentals of being a Christ-follower are right here in this creed.

If I asked you to write down some unchanging fundamentals, what would they be? (If I gave you 12 bullet points) That’s where the apostle’s creed began.

It came out of a council of Christian leaders which took place in Milan in 390 AD

• they wanted to provide a brief and understandable summary of what to believe as Christian (simple as that)

This would have two effects,

• firstly it would preserve what was knew about the faith and
• secondly it would give Christ-followers who were being challenged, some fundamentals on which to hang their faith so this way they could respond to people who were trying to undermine Christianity by subtly changing its message

Surely, you may say to me, 4^th century theological arguments are irrelevant for 21^st Century, but in fact, many of the issues they discussed then are still being challenged today.

• So at its heart, the Apostle’s creed is 12 bullet points to help us believe confidently in what God is doing in our lives!

Today – 2 of them -

<ppt> I believe in Jesus Christ God’s only son, our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary

The more we look at the person of Jesus Christ the more we become amazed by the awesome majesty and the profound mystery of his person.

• The more we know, the more we realise there is to know about Jesus Christ, his work, his person and his power today.

When we yield ourselves to him (i.e. we relinquish our power),

• we encounter his awesome power in Christ working in our contemporary circumstances,
• and we become aware of the staggering love of God flowing into us

So let’s unpack these statements about Jesus …

What about his name?

The name Jesus Christ

I want to start with the name

Jesus <ppt>

this was the name commanded by God to his mother Mary to be given to her new baby.

By decomposing the Hebrew syllables we get some idea of what it meant to anyone who used it at the time – God saves.

• This explains what the angel said to Mary “you shall call his name Jesus – for he will save his people from their sins.”

Now there were probably many other little boys called Jesus at time time, it was a relatively common name like Robert or Alex. But Jewish names were often invested with more meaning that our contemporary counterparts.

• It’s as if God is slipping in a piece of profound theology about his son under the radar without anyone noticing, at least initially – you see an intelligent Jewish person could say “wait a minute – only God can forgive sin”.
• So in giving him the name of Jesus, God is prefiguring the major reason for the entrance of his son to earth – to rescue humanity from its sin, One life at a time.

Christ. <ppt>

This was not a surname like White, Jones or Slezacek.

• It’s a office-title – it describes the person he is, the office he holds.

Throughout the OT the prophets predicted the arrival of a messiah and “Christ” is the Greek word that means ‘messiah’

On one occasion when Jesus was talking with the disciples he asked them about what people were saying about him – then he said

Matt 16:15-16 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ (Messiah!), the Son of the living God.”

And almost immediately Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven the early Christians shamelessly used “Christ” about him! Acts 2: – day of Pentecost

Acts 2:36 “… let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

So the name Jesus Christ is enormously significant – <read from screen>

<ppt> I believe in Jesus Christ,

• God’s only Son, our Lord,

• who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
• born of the Virgin Mary,

This gives us four things to believe (to be confident about) concerning Jesus Christ:

He is God’s one and only son

A healthy relationship between a father and a son is one of the deepest that we can experience (IW just come back from seeing son >>>) and in the NT God and Jesus are consistently likened to Father and Son.

• Throughout history there have been people who for a variety of reasons have wanted to down-play the divine nature of Jesus Christ as God’s son.
• Other religious streams and cults will down-play the divinity of Jesus because it is a stumbling-block to them
• Some people say that Jesus was called a ‘god’ as a courtesy title because he was so much greater than ordinary men (Arians in 4^th century and JWs today)

In fact only this week I had an e-mail from a church member asking me to help clarify what John’s gospel said about the divine nature of Jesus – it’s still a very current issue!

So here’s just one example – Jesus was being persecuted by the Jews for healing someone on the Sabbath and a little while later he met the man he healed in the temple.

<ppt> John 5:20-23 … to your amazement the Son will show you even greater things than these (your healing) … so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him.

The Bible uses the term only ‘begotten’ son of the father – not created as a separate person, but actually part of God.

He is our one and only Lord

Here’s what Peter said about Jesus:

John 6:68-69 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

The idea of lord-ship was very clear to the people in NT times. A Lord was someone who had command or control over you. IF your lord said “do this” you did it without question. So to have Jesus as Lord meant that you would be under his leadership and command.

The moment Jesus washed his disciples’ feet he said this to them.

John 13:13-14 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.

<ppt> In some schools in South Korea they celebrate ‘Teacher’s Day on May 15. However the day before (14^th) the teachers was their student’s feet to thank them for showing respect for them during the year!

When Jesus is Lord of my life, my actions and reactions

My life’s ethic is “What would Jesus do?” <ppt>

Back to Apostle’s creed

<ppt> I believe in Jesus Christ God’s only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary

The final two phrases here are statements about how Jesus came to be in this world.

• Conceived by the Holy Spirit – <ppt> this is a statement about his divine nature
• Born of the virgin Mary – <ppt> is a statement about his human nature

Jesus is fully God and fully man at one and the same time

• It’s not that Jesus has two natures, a divine one and and a human one, they both operate at the same time.

He is divine because of his conception

In order to be both God and man Jesus has to have both human origins and divine origins and the Bible gives us both.

It only required God to create or manipulate a single cell to begin the process of coming to earth as a baby and the Bible is very clear about this (although they were unaware of the microbiology of it all)

Luke is at pains to point out that Mary and Joseph did not have sex with each other until after the birth of Jesus.

• In fact Joseph wanted to break off their engagement, and do so in a dignified way, when he heard Mary was pregnant.
• Both of them were mystified by all this – so much so that it was only when an angel appeared to Joseph (as he had to Mary) that Joseph changed his mind and publicly stuck by his future wife.

It is unimaginable, psychologically, for Mary and Joseph to behave the way they did if they knew they had a guilty secret!

But as the truth dawned on both of them that this was God at work – and doing something much bigger than they had imagined, Mary’s heart just leapt for joy!

“My soul magnifies (exalts, commends, praises) the Lord! My spirit rejoices in God my saviour”

>>>

He is human because of his birth

Really, we should talk about the virgin conception of Jesus.

• Jesus was born at the end of a normal 9-month pregnancy and went through all the trauma of birth and childhood, not just (as some people say) so that he could be similar to us but so that he could actually be one of us.

• To be as fully human as you or me, and as fully God as God the Father

How can that work out? It has been a theological tussle for centuries. I find it helpful to think of it using this illustration

• This week I filled my car with diesel – for £86! – and I filled it to the brim
• When I filled it, I filled it to the brim. There was lots more diesel in the garage’s supply, but only so much I could get into my tank.
• In a similar way God invested as much of his nature and power and majesty into Jesus as one human body, one human being was capable of carrying.

There was no more God-ness that could have been placed in Jesus than was actually there in Him. He was fully God!

That’s similar to Jesus being filled with God

And now the wonder of the gospel is that it is this is the person who gave himself for you!

The one we are following and modelling our lives on is the one who was born of an ordinary girl, Mary, but whose father was God almighty.

Pray >>>