Does Doctrine Really Matter For The Church?
Text: John 3:1-17
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Today
is Trinity Sunday, and with it being
Trinity Sunday, we confess the words of the Athanasian Creed. More specifically, we confess that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity,
neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. We confess
that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are coeternal with each other and
coequal, so that in all things that we might worship our Triune God in
unity.
Indeed,
today is the one day out of the year that we dust off that third creed that we
subscribe to – the Athanasian Creed.
But
why bother confessing such a complex and seemingly
confusing creed? Why bother confessing
such a wordy creed? Why not just say
that we believe in God and leave it at that?
Everybody knows that details and doctrine divide – right? So, why sweat the small stuff?
Well, no, that is not right. You see, throughout the history of the
church, hundreds of thousands of Christians would disagree with the idea that
doctrine is not important. Yes, there
are hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs that would severely disagree, so
much that they staked their life on the doctrines of the Christian faith.
My
friends, if we look throughout history and spot solid doctrine, we will generally
find suffering and a trail of martyr’s blood.
The faithful Christians of our past were unwilling to compromise the doctrines of God’s Word, and they were unwilling
to settle for vague and imprecise statements about the faith. Those who came before us, such as our
Lutheran forefathers, were quite willing to be burned at the stake for a right
confession – for solid doctrine. We
could learn a lot from them.
But
today it seems that this way of thinking about the Christian faith has come to
an end. Today more and more people in
the church cry out,
“Doctrine
doesn’t matter; just stick with
Jesus. He saves, not doctrine. Just stick with the basics; yes, the
basics. We are Christians after all, and we all worship the same God.”
Now,
while this sounds fairly reasonable, there are many problems in the
details. (As they say, the devil is in
the details.) For example, what are the basics
of the Christian faith? Who decides what
the basics will be? You? Me?
Will someone else decide for us?
Maybe the world will decide what the basics will be? Will the basics of the Christian faith be reduced
to moral stories? If so, we really don’t
need the Christian faith but can instead watch reruns of Mr. Rogers. Will the basics be reduced to simple coffee
mug slogans: keep the faith, believe in God, be still, just keep praying, and
so forth? If so, we really don’t need the
Christian faith but maybe a Starbucks Coffee membership. Will the basics be sticking with Jesus? If so, who do we say Jesus is? Is He a social justice warrior, a therapist,
a political inspiration, a mascot, or something else?
What
does all of this mean, though? It means that we cannot talk about God without
talking about doctrine. Without doctrine,
we are basically making it up as we go along.
In fact, without Christian doctrine,
we can’t have the Christian faith.
Why? Because doctrine is just another word for the ‘teachings’
that our Lord has given us in the Word – that is the Bible.
So, if
we say that we don’t need doctrine, we are essentially saying that we don’t
need the Bible. And if we don’t need the
Bible, we are left with ourselves and our
ideas about God, which are more often than not pagan ideas. Furthermore,
if we attempt to reduce and diminish doctrine for the sake of embracing an
easier life, then in time we will lose the clear confession of who our Lord Jesus
Christ is. And if not careful, we will eventually
lose the Christian faith, as we substitute the doctrines of the Bible with the
doctrines of mankind and culture, thus ascribing us poor souls to hell, while
thinking that we are fine and dandy.
Tragically,
I hear the sad regret from pastors and parents about the children and young
people falling away from the Christian faith after High School. And everybody wants to know why. Why are they leaving!? Well, it isn’t the fault of the Holy
Spirit. But rather, statistics show us two things. First, if parents are not bringing their
children to church consistently in the first place and teaching them at home
about the Christian faith, there is a 1% chance that they will continue in the
church after high school.[1] Secondly, a recent survey of 3,000 Christians
conducted by LifeWay Research found that over half of Christians in America
subscribe to ancient heresies. We are
not talking about minor doctrinal errors, but major ancient heresies that are condemned by the creeds we confess each
Sunday – creeds like the Athanasian Creed.[2] Bluntly stated, Christians in America do not
even know the basics of Christianity and are often embarrassed to admit
it. The average Christian in America has
no doctrinal understanding and is often opposed to learning.
So, if
our children and youth are not going to church and not learning at home about
the Christian faith, and if the average parent does not even know the basics of
the Christian faith, it should not be a surprise to us at all why so many youths are falling away from the church.
O Lord
have mercy on us. God forgive us. Yes, God forgive
every one of us.
So,
where do we go from here?
Dear
Baptized Saints, before we can begin to teach our
children, we must know what we believe
and why we believe it. We must learn the
doctrines of the faith. And most
importantly we mustn’t scoff at things such as the Athanasian Creed. We mustn’t
role our eyes at doctrine but in humility treasure and take up the teachings
of things like the Athanasian Creed. We
must never settle for the blandness of vague Christian slogans on coffee cups. We must know what we believe and why we
believe it.
Dear
Baptized Saint, faithfulness of a church is not measured by numbers, emotional
hype, or finesse. But rather, the faithfulness
of a Church is when we pass down the Christian faith – with all of its precious
doctrines – to our children and grandchildren.
But if we are going to pass it down, then the time is now to be prepared
to believe, teach, and confess the doctrines of the faith handed down to ‘us’
from our Lutheran forefathers – from the Christians who have gone before us.
We must
also be prepared to stand as a church.
Not as sticks in the mud or arrogant jerks, but as steadfast Christians
anchored in Christ’s Word – ready to graciously reject errors and affirm
truth. But be warned, we will not be liked for being steadfast to God’s
Word. The devil hates those who refuse
to join him in the bath of lukewarm indifference.
Dear
Baptized Saints, doctrine divides, there is no way around it. We cannot have it both ways. Either it will be the Holy Christian faith
drawn from God’s Word, or it will be a
generic-meaningless-empty faith of somebody else’s opinion or fad.
Now, if
you think this all sounds too harsh, listen to our Lord Jesus and the way He
speaks to Nicodemus in the reading from the Gospel of John. Jesus does not give a watered down generic answer to Nicodemus’ questions. But instead,
Jesus says,
“Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus
goes on to say,
“We
speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not
receive our testimony.”
Our
Lord is clear here. He is specific. There is one doctrine, one teaching, one way
– His way. There is no compromising.
Jesus does not water down His teaching
or bend it towards mankind.
The doctrine and teaching of Jesus will not compromise and accommodate to
our ideas of easier paths or mushy
indifference.
So,
today we confess the Athanasian Creed. Today
we confess the doctrine of who God is in
detail. We confess it not as some dry religious exercise, but we confess it so
that we might continue to stand on what we believe from God’s Word.
Yes,
we confess the Creeds and we learn
doctrine because in so doing, we not only learn about our sin but also hear
about our forgiveness, life, and salvation.
Indeed, Christian doctrine points us away from ours opinions, thoughts,
and assumptions, to Jesus and what He has done for us. And when you and I hear and learn about
Jesus, we are given faith and assurance and confidence that we are Jesus’ now
and forever.
May
God grant us the steadfastness of faith to cling to Jesus and to His Word.
May
God grant us a hunger for His doctrine – His Word.
May
God Grant us boldness to confess Him – today, tomorrow, and forevermore.
In the
name of Jesus. Amen.
[1]
Matt Richard, “A New Discovery on how to Keep Youth in the Church,” PM Notes, http://www.pastormattrichard.com/2015/02/a-new-discovery-on-how-to-keep-youth-in.html
(accessed May 26, 2018).
[2]
LifeWay Research, “Americans Love God and the Bible, Are Fuzzy on the Details,”
https://lifewayresearch.com/2016/09/27/americans-love-god-and-the-bible-are-fuzzy-on-the-details/
(accessed May 26, 2018).
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