In this sermon, the speaker discusses the early church and how they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. He also mentions a man named Joshua who is preparing for a trip to China to teach guitar and perform at a music school. The speaker emphasizes that God continues to send messengers, such as pastors and preachers, to speak directly and indirectly to people. He encourages the congregation to support Joshua while he is away and mentions other missionaries who have been commissioned to different countries.

have someone that we want to pray for and commission this morning and that is Joshua Fritz, if you'd come and join me. And so as he makes his way here I want you to guess which country we're commissioning him to. Any any clues? Pardon? Oh, he did, sorry. He looks fantastic. I'm just hoping I'll blend in really well with this costume when I get there. Possibly. It's really nice to to pray for Josh this morning. I had the pleasure of traveling with him to China five years ago? Five years ago, I think it may be on his first trip. And I went there to support it. He was looking at different business ventures and as you know I really believe in people in our congregation that have a business call. So I said, Lord I just come with you and carry your suitcases and pray for you. And someone had a lot of travel points and was able to help me go along. And it was fantastic because to watch him in action there, he was like a magnet for the Chinese people. He took, he takes quite easily to the language, which isn't to say he doesn't work hard at it. And and to watch people, you know, walk by me like I wasn't even there. And everybody wanted to talk to Joshua. And to see him there in that element was wonderful. And so we've talked through the years and he's been numbers of times about what what that represents and how God seems to to give him that kind of favor there. Well he's preparing for another trip, a little longer trip, and I'd like to maybe to tell us a little bit about it. And then we'll pray for him. And I want you to know this, that when he is gone that we can have him on our hearts and minds and offer him support in many ways. We had a great time. I think it's 2005. We had a great time there. And this time I'll be going back to teach guitar at a music school, English school. And I'll be teaching there for six months and performing there. Hopefully, you know, get lots of opportunities to perform as well and meet people. So that's what I'm doing. It's called the New Channel Music School. And I'll be there for six months in the city of Nantong, which is north of Shanghai. Now you can't get a missionary visa to China, but Josh through his talent has has his own way of relating to the people there. And just wonderful. How many people have kind of heard Josh sing in one setting or another? Realize got a beautiful look. That's a lot of people. It's kind of almost like fans. And one orangutan. He said he's not too picky. And and it's just so fun. We commissioned a family just a couple weeks ago to a country and and now to Dominican and now Josh to China and next week's team to the Philippines and a week or two following that to Kenya. That's not bad. Four countries in five weeks. You almost think we loved our world or something. And so it's it's just really important that we pray for Josh and support him. And he's just gonna go and see what the Lord opens up. And funny, just just him being him. You know, the Bible says to the holy all things are holy. I remember praying that over someone a couple couple weeks ago. In other words, you know, to a person set apart from God, anything you do is holy. You carry God in you wherever you go. And and you it's the ministry. You make it a ministry. And so it's fantastic to be able to pray. Also asked Alan if if he had a word of encouragement just for for Josh this morning. Thank you, Father. Josh, I feel the Lord says to you, for surely you are one who knows what it is to walk a rocky path. And you are one who knows what it is to walk an uphill path. For surely you have walked that path and you've walked and had that uphill struggle. But Lord wants to say to you, Josh, that he is proud of you. He is proud of you because you have not fought it. And there have been many difficult days when you struggled and wondered why you've had certain enemies pursuing you and certain things and obstacles to overcome. But the Lord has watched you. And the Lord wants to say to you today that he is proud of you and that the Lord is bringing you out into a new place. So surely this is a time of transition, a time where they can open new vistas, new horizons and new opportunities for you. The Lord has gifted you in the natural that he might open doors in the spiritual. And surely this is a time when he is broadening and expanding those opportunities and those horizons. And there was a couple of scriptures, Josh, the Lord laid on my heart. One is in Corinthians to 520 where it says, for we are ambassadors of Christ. The Lord woke me up two mornings ago with that scripture. I've been praying for you the night before and the Lord woke me up with that scripture. And the Lord wants you to know that as an ambassador, not only are you sent, but you have great authority. You have the full authority of the one who is sending you and the empowerment of the one who is sending you. And there was another scripture in Isaiah that I wanted to read to you because I just feel that in my heart there's been concerns about how you're going to cope and just having the strength. And also the Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary. And in his understanding, no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. So Father, we send him. We ask for your empowerment. We ask that he will continue to be reminded by your Holy Spirit that he is being sent as an ambassador. And that Father, your plan and purpose in him goes beyond his understanding. For you're able to do more than we can even dare ask or imagine according to the riches that are in Christ. So Father, may he go with your strength. May he go with that sense of well-being. May he go with that sense of your divine, heavenly approval and the knowledge that you're with him, that you love him, and that you will open those doors of opportunity to him. Father, we ask that you will bless him and we bless him. We command a blessing upon him. In Jesus' name. Congregation, if you're comfortable with the practice, would you extend a hand toward Josh? The Bible says, cast your bread on the waters and not many days hence it will return to you. And Josh, we see the the great support that you have been to people with an interest in missions. You have used your gifts and talents and energies, your whole heart, to support those who are investing themselves in missions. And so Father, now we pray that as he's cast his bread upon the waters, Father, we pray that it would return back to him in many ways. Lord, many people would want to support him and in many and varied ways. And even as we're gathered today in your presence, listening to your voice. So if anyone in the congregation just feel the Lord saying to you, just speaking in, and you, there's a question in your heart, how, wonder how I could support him. And you may not be able to go directly to China. And, but when we, part of our church, send someone, then they also are an extension of us. Maybe you could talk to Josh afterwards with that question, Josh, how could I support you? And Josh, that you would not be abashed in receiving support. You wouldn't have to be hesitant about that because you've been just a fantastic supporter of other people. And so it's our delight as your church family to pray for you, to bless you, to support you, to endorse you, to lay hands on you, and in Jesus' name, to send you for this time to China. That you would go with all the presence and endorsement and the authority of the Lord on you. And that, that the Holy Spirit would lead you in remarkable and distinctive ways. And that you would have an experience there that would seem to be a continuation of the book of Acts. And bring back many stories of faith and of God's power to share with us. We send you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Just at the end, I just asked Joshua after communion if he would just come out in front. If you just feel like you've got a word of encouragement for him. Or maybe the kind of what could I do to stand behind you question is in your heart. You always want to come up and ask him that. Then he'll just have a little bit of time there, make himself available for that. Okay? Well, I'd like us to take a look at the Word of God this morning, the book of Genesis. Chapter 15. I'm very thankful to Pastor Bill for providing us an introduction to the Apostles Creed series last week. And so I'd like to head into the the Creed in proper. And just before I do, I want to say a happy birthday to Joe Witowicz. Joe, Joe, maybe you could wave. He's turning 90 this week. So you have to wave a little higher, Joe. Yeah. And so again, maybe after service, go greet Joe personally. And we really love him. And so maybe get a chance to go and shake his hand and congratulate him. So let's read Genesis chapter 15. One of the chapters that's very pivotal in Abraham's relationship with God. Remember, at this time he's still called Abram. Same person. And then later through God's intervention, his name has changed and he's called Abraham. After this, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision. Do not be afraid, Abraham. I am your shield. I'm your protector. I surround you. And I am your very great reward. And I love that thought. God says, I'm your reward. You want a reward? I'll give you me. Because he's the greatest reward that we could ever have. But Abraham said, O sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless? And the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, you have given me no children. So a servant in my household will be my heir. Then the word of the Lord came to him, this man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. You'll remember many years prior to this, God promised that he would be a father, that he would have children. They were physically, biologically unable to have children. They've been waiting for many years. And so God is confirming his promise to them. So God took him outside and said, look up at the heavens. Count the stars, if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And Abraham believed it. Abraham believed the Lord. And God credited it to him. He charged it to his account as righteousness. May God add his blessing to this public reading of his word. Before Christmas, you might remember when we were doing our first cycle through the five passions, I took a look at the book of Acts chapter 2 and verse 42. And I said that, I'll get it maybe put up on the screen, I said that we would make reference to it a fair amount through the course of this year. And can I get that put up on the screen please? So just to jog your memory a little bit. No, sorry, it's the Acts chapter 2, the verse. There we go, thanks. So you might remember we took some time looking at this. It says they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching. It's a summary verse capturing what life in the early church would have been like. They devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. So you may remember a couple months ago us talking about how that the early church devoted themselves to fellowship. And I talked a little bit about that word devoted. It means to give unremitting care to something. To care about something and to keep on caring for it and never to stop caring about it. And that's the kind of attention and attentiveness that they gave to this thing called fellowship. Well I want to take the same verse this morning and talk a little bit about the devotion they had to the Apostles teaching. The early church were devoted to the Apostles teaching. If you use an older translation of Scripture it says they were devoted to the Apostles doctrine. Now that turn of phrase might be unusual to you because today we tend to think of doctrine as something that divides. But here in the early church they thought of something of doctrine as something that unites. So notice in the same verse they were devoted to the Apostles teaching or doctrine and to fellowship. They fellowshiped around certain commonly held beliefs. And so maybe we ought to rethink that. That essential doctrine doesn't have to be something that divide. It's meant to be something that unites. Number two in our day and age we tend to think of doctrine or essential Christian belief as something that is dry and lifeless. In the early church they thought of as a matter of enormous devotion. So just again think of that word a little bit. They were devoted to the Apostles teaching. If you said to someone I'm devoted to you that's heart language. Devoted. Or you have devotion to this or devotion to that means you've given your heart to that or you've given your heart to that person. And so far from being a matter that was dry they felt that they had this enormous devotion for the Apostles teaching and for their doctrine and it really stirred their hearts. And then number three we tend to think of it as something of relative unimportance. That I guess for a theologian somewhere if you're a Bible college professor somewhere someone has got to know this stuff but it's of relative unimportance. But to the early church it was of enormous importance. And so if there is any sense of at all that there is a divine order to this list please notice that it comes first. It couldn't come trailing behind where they talked about all the things that were important to the early church and then there's no kind of yeah but oh yeah and then once in a while we showed some attention to this. It doesn't have that sense about it that the Apostles teaching they were devoted to it and it had a place of great centrality. The subtitle for our series is what what we believe and why it matters to the early church having beliefs really did matter to them. Today we're going to look at the first two words of the Creed which is I believe. And before we look at what we believe all the things that we believe we must first look at what it actually means to believe. So when we say we believe what do we mean by that? What does it actually mean to believe? When we talk about having faith what does having faith mean to us? What are we doing when we're exercising faith? There are many these words are used in the English language in many ways. So we hear phrases like this we hear phrases like blind faith but is that what we mean when we talk about faith in Christ? But it is one of the ways in which that phrase is used in the English language. We hear about the phrase faith in your fellow man but is that what we mean? We hear a phrase called the leap of faith. And again is that what we mean when we talk about the faith that we have in Christ? So when used in these ways faith is thought of as the antithesis of reason. You either have reasons for something or you just believe. And yet that's not the way that we're using the word faith. So sometimes used in these ways faith is thought of as akin to wishful thinking and it's thought of as a matter of personal opinion. If you ask for for someone's reasons for holding something they say no I don't want to tell you my reasons or I don't have reasons I just believe it. Meaning that it's something that they hold to but can't explicate and don't have reasons for. But the truth is that is not what we mean by faith. So those are legitimate uses of it in our culture. Legitimate uses of it in the English language. It just happens to be a word that is used in many different ways but it's important for us to say what we mean by the word faith and what we mean by the word belief. And I think that the best way to explain faith is to look at a great biblical example of faith whose name is Abraham. He is called in the New Testament the father of all who believe. So in what way is he our father? In what way are we meant to mimic or to follow his example? I've got other questions like how did he come to be the father of all who believe? How did he come to be an example of faith? Because he wasn't always an example of faith. Do you know how Abraham started out life? Well Joshua 24 says that he lived beyond the river and worshiped other gods. So before Genesis 12 before God spoke to Abraham he was a guy that was on the other side of the rivers kind of like being on the other side of the tracks and he was a complete pagan idolater. So how did a guy start life as a complete pagan idolater who's kind of from the other side of the tracks kind of like them guys? And he ends life as being one of the greatest examples of true faith. How did he travel that distance? What happened in his life that moved him from one to the other? The answer is this, that one day God spoke to Abraham. God spoke to him. He could have attributed to something he ate the night before. He could have found some other reason to dismiss it or to be lighthearted about it. He could have hardened his heart. The book of Hebrews says today if you hear his voice do not harden your heart. That was a choice. He could have hardened his heart, choose to decline, not accept what was being said to him. But he didn't do any of those things. When God spoke this man listened. So that's what changed his whole day. He was just going about his normal life, part of his family, pagan idolater from the other side of the river and one day the true God of heaven and earth spoke to him and it changed his entire destiny. Not only did God speak to him once but God spoke and kept on speaking again and again and again and as God kept on speaking Abraham's faith kept on growing. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing the word of the Lord. So if you look in the book of Genesis you'll find in chapter 12 God spoke to Abraham. You'll find again in chapter 13 God spoke to Abraham. Again in chapter 15, again in chapter 17, again and again God keeps pursuing this man. God keeps initiating toward this man. God keeps speaking to and revealing himself to this man whose name is Abraham. In addition to speaking directly to Abraham God also spoke indirectly to him which is to say God sent messengers to speak to him. God sent other people, angels, to speak to him. In chapter 18 of Genesis God even appears to Abraham in the form of a man and they sit down and share a meal together. Talk about a faith builder. Just like sit down and have lunch with God. That's a good faith builder. God actually took the form of a man, sat down and had dinner with him. So if you said to Abraham you believe in God you know but you don't have any reasons Abraham would look at you like you came from another planet. What do you mean I don't have any reasons? Like God spoke to me. Like isn't that reason enough? In fact God spoke many times to me. God came to me in bodily form. I had lunch with God. I think I have a few reasons for believing. But we live in a world where that is discounted. It's not thought to count. And yet it's one of the greatest things in all the world to have God himself speak to you. And whether you can explain that, explicate that, or prove that to anybody else, there are few things in all this world more compelling than having God speak to you. In each of these counters God wasn't just speaking, God was revealing himself. He was unveiling himself. He was showing Abraham his true nature, what he was really like. And these revelations of God were utterly convincing to Abraham. They were utterly compelling. They caused him to believe. And they caused him to believe with the highest level of certainty. It's not like he went away thinking oh what was that? Do I really want to believe that? He went away struck. Impressed. Just like if you were to take a die, something with a symbol, and stamp it onto a log. Impress a mark onto the log. You've made an impression. So long after you're finished that thing, the log carries that impression. It carries the stamp. When God reveals himself to a man or a woman, it leaves us an impress, a stamp, a mark. You are indelibly marked by the force of that revelation. Every time God revealed himself, Abraham accepted what was said. There was a yes in his heart. And he accepted him who said it. Every time God revealed himself, Abraham trusted what was said. And he trusted him who said it. Every time God revealed himself, Abraham committed himself to what was said. He didn't just hear it for the moment and walk away as though the experience had never happened. These weren't just random encounters. When God spoke to Abraham, and Abraham thought that's my God from now on. Interesting, it affected him so much that even though he grew up as a pagan idolater, when Abraham had a series of true and impressive encounters with God, all of a sudden everything he believed up to that moment went out the window. None of it seemed true. When he had an encounter with a true God, suddenly all of the paganism that he was immersed in up to that point just seemed so flimsy. There's just nothing to it. There was just words and rituals, but there was no substance and reality to it. And so a man was raised a certain way, but one encounter with the real God, one encounter with ultimate truth, one encounter just had so much truth and veracity to it that everything he believed at that time just seemed so less real. It couldn't stand up to one true revelation from God. And so I'd like to impress this point on you, his faith. How did he get his faith? How did he come to be a man of faith? His faith was a response to revelation. So I have a PowerPoint I want to put up because there's a phrase that I'd like you to take home with you. So it's to kind of lock it in your heart, and it's one that you may have to think about from time to time to kind of unpack it, but it's a simple phrase, and that is faith is a response to revelation. When God reveals himself, it produces faith in the person. Faith is a response to revelation. And that faith has at least three constituent ingredients. So if someone says to me, you know, explain, give you one word that'll explain what you mean by faith, I'm not sure if there is one word. Christian faith is more multidimensional than that. So there's at least three constituent ingredients in what we mean by the word faith. Number one, there's acceptance. As I said, Abraham could have hardened his heart, he could have said no. There has to be some point where we say, I choose to believe or accept this. Number two, trust is something that grows over time. Okay, so yes, he chose to accept it, but through these numerous encounters, Abraham saw something in the God that was revealing himself to him. He saw that this God was trustworthy. That he meant business. That he didn't lie. That he wasn't of a misleading nature. That he wouldn't say something to him at one time and then completely change his mind or contradict himself. That God was completely an integrous person. And just something about these experiences conveyed that. God didn't say to Abraham, hey, you really should trust me because I've got quite a lot of integrity. Just encountering God itself conveyed the kind of person he is. He's full of integrity and worthy of trust. Abraham even went beyond that. He committed himself after one of their very first encounters. The Bible says Abraham just built an altar and he sacrificed to the Lord. So the effect of that is he said, I'm in covenant with you. You're my God, I'm your people, we're going to do this thing for all of life. So it wasn't like he had a revelation that had a large wow factor and then Abraham afterwards said, well, that was kind of fun. And then just went back to his old way of life. Christian revelation, there's an acceptance, there's a trust in our heart, but there's a deep covenantal side of faith. When we say I have faith, I'm part of the Christian faith, I'm a believer in Jesus. Part of what we mean by that is I have completely accepted his love for me. I'm giving my love to him on a permanent, ongoing basis. I'm committed to him. I am in covenant with Jesus the Christ. And that covenant is not only lifelong, it is eternal. And I'm not turning my back. I don't just do it when the weather just happens to be perfect. I don't happen to carry out my Christian faith just when the sun is shining just right. Just when the wind is blowing in my direction. Because there's something of deep covenant and commitment. So long after these experiences, Abraham was to see some rocky roads. But at no one point did he go, well, I don't know if I really want to follow this God anymore and throw it over his shoulder. Because he made a covenant. He made a commitment. And he made sure that he followed through on his commitment. You know, our journey is not unlike Abraham's. I'd like to put the other PowerPoint up if you wouldn't mind. So let's remind ourselves a bit about Abraham's journey. This is how he journeyed into faith. It's not unlike ours. So God spoke to him. It was utterly convincing. God kept on speaking. God sent messengers. God came to him in bodily form. Now let's talk about our journey a little bit. What is the Bible to us? It is the historical record. The written record of the instances over time in which God spoke. God spoke and he kept on speaking. He revealed himself. And so when it came to Abraham, it wasn't in written form. God actually spoke to him. But when it came to be in written form, it carried the same objectivity and authority as when God spoke to Abraham and David and ongoing and Moses and all of their successors. And so we have the written record of God speaking. And when we take this book seriously, through it, revelation happens again. Revelation happens to us. And so I remember reading the Bible as a new Christian and hearing it preached and it having the same effect on me as Abraham. I was utterly persuaded. I was drawn into it. The truth is there's very little that I understood, but I had never read anything like it in all my life. And so revelation was happening through the Scriptures. God spoke and he kept on speaking. And we have access to that. Number two, God sent messengers. In the Old Testament, those messengers were called prophets. In the New Testament, those messengers were called apostles. And still today, God continues to send messengers. Messengers, pastors, preachers, godly parents, people at work, people at university. God continues to speak directly and he continues to speak indirectly. So somewhere along the line, you became acquainted with the gospel. Somewhere along the line, the revelation of God, directly or indirectly, came to you and it had an effect on your heart. And you know what it produced in your heart? It produced faith. That's why you're here today. That began your journey. It produced faith. God came to Abraham in a bodily form for a moment, for the length of a dinner time. But that encounter in the Old Testament was prefiguring or foreshadowing the incarnation when God would once again come in a bodily form and whose name was Jesus. Interesting that the exact same thing happened. The disciples sat down and had dinner with him. One of the very first things that happened, one of the earliest instances, was the wedding in Canaan of Galilee when people sat down and had dinner with God. And it's also one of the last things that happened when the disciples had forsook him and fled and kind of lost faith there for a minute. Jesus met them on the bank, never rebuked them, but he asked them if they'd come and have a fish dinner with him. Once again, the gospel starts that they had dinner with God at the start, they had dinner with God at the end. And he still invites us. This is what this is. This is called dinner with God. Not just dinner with God, here I actually feed on God. I mean, the bread and wine are just symbols of that. But here I don't just eat with him, I eat of him. I actually consume, I take in God into my heart. What's for dinner? He is. Believing upon him is feeding on him. Taking him into my inner being. And it's produced the same three things in you as it produced in Abraham. The reason you're here today, at some point, you accepted that God was speaking to you. You accepted that God was pursuing you. You accepted it. Now, did you have full trust at that point? Probably not. But it has to begin with the great iron doors that are our will, where we open those doors and we choose to believe. And then begins a lifelong relationship where we learn trust. Someone said something years ago, and I love this phrase. They said that every circumstance in your life, God is employing to bring about two ends. That you might trust him, and that he might trust you. I think there's some truth to that. I think recently my trust in him is growing, but I think recently... You ever had a couple weeks where I think, I don't know if I'm that trustworthy? Oh boy. So God uses everything in our life to teach us those things, to convey those two things to us, that our faith would grow, our trust at a heart level would grow in him. And also where his trust in us can grow. And that brings us to the third point. That we have an eternal commitment to him. We are in covenant with God. I remember hearing years ago, I wish I could recall the details of the story. I know there's people here that actually do know the story, because that's who told me. Of a great rancher in the Medicine Hat area. In a time of desperate drought in that area. Stood onto his land and said, God, I'm in covenant with you. That means everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine. Somehow this rancher had this deep and profound understanding of what covenant was. It's not mine, it's yours. All that I have is yours, and all that you have is mine. So I give you back your land, and I need you to do something about it. And then the rest of the story conveyed about just how then a weather pattern formed over just his plot of land. You can almost see the drops of the rain following on the line of the fence. Because when we understand covenant, and when we live according to that covenant, we step into a new place in God. There are things that are unlocked. And this man, this rancher, had some profound understanding that I'm still trying to catch up on. Everything he has is God's, but everything God has is his. He offered God back his land, God offered him the reins of heaven. And so when we're walking in and out of relationships, we never get to enjoy those kinds of things. And we're like that in the Western world. I mean, we're like that in our relationships. We're like that in our relationship with God. And so sometimes it helps us just to push everything aside and say, this is not an off again, on again kind of relationship. This is me and him for life and eternity. We are in covenant, and I will not break covenant. Opens up for us new realms. I just wanted to introduce this today. I'm going to springboard off of it next week. Because I'd like to move to communion. As we do move to communion, maybe I could ask a couple questions of your heart. Like, how's your faith? As we go on in the Christian life, life has a way of doing damage on our heart. And the problem is, the Bible says, with the heart, man, believe it. So somehow deep down on our inside, that's where we believe from. And so when our heart is damaged, faith doesn't come as easily as it used to. So it doesn't come so easy to accept. And maybe trust. God has never given us a reason to not trust him. But maybe it doesn't come as fluidly as it used to. And maybe there was a time of our life where we never questioned his commitment to us or our commitment to him. That was never brought on the table. And now we find ourselves in a time of tribulation, questioning things that we never once questioned. That we have come to adopt a Christianity of convenience rather than a Christianity of covenant. This is a place where we go back to the purity and the originality of our faith. A table where our faith is restored as a plumb line brought up before us. My prayer for you this morning is just like God revealed himself to you and faith was created in your heart, that God would continue to reveal himself to us. That revelation from heaven would continue to flow. And that our faith would be built this morning.