I Believe – those are powerful words to say and mean. To be a follower of Jesus requires believing things that you have accepted as being true based on compelling evidence that supports the Bible’s claims about them. The term ‘believer’ is used to describe someone who is convinced that God is the Creator of the universe who has revealed himself to mankind to save us from our sins and its effects.
Last Sunday Bjorn did a great job of highlighting reasons why we can trust God’s word. The prophecies about the Messiah fulfilled in Jesus are numerous, and serve to encourage our faith in Christ as God’s one and only Son. It was the kick off to our Easter series ‘I Believe’ which will look at several Biblical truths that serve as foundations for what we actually do believe. The Apostles Creed is not the Bible. It is a document written by church leaders a few centuries after Christ was on earth. Its purpose is to affirm essential truths that followers of Jesus agree on to be essential for our Christian doctrine. My hope is that you will be encouraged by knowing what you share in common with millions of believers around the world.
This Sunday is the beginning of what is called Passion Week. It starts with Palm Sunday and moves toward Good Friday and Easter Sunday. As you come to church this weekend I want you to be thinking about what Jesus did during his last days on earth to complete his mission to save us. Read the story in Matthew 21:1-11 about the triumphal entry, the time that the people in Jerusalem treated Jesus like a king for a day. Through that experience, Jesus continued to fulfill more prophecies that had been spoken about him hundreds of years before. Even though the praises of the crowds were short-lived that day, the picture of celebration serves as a reminder that Jesus will be acknowledged as Saviour and King by every person one day soon.
I’m going to look at the first three declarations of the Apostles Creed that speak to Jesus being an equal member of the Trinity and a willing participant in God’s plan of salvation for the world that he has created. Consider over these next days who Jesus really is, that he existed long before his miraculous birth in Bethlehem as God’s only Son. That fact alone makes what he did for us by taking on the form of a human being and sacrificing his life for our sins on the cross, all the more amazing.
Will you pray with me that people who don’t know Jesus like we do will hear the Easter story and accept Christ as Saviour? Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to draw people that we know to Jesus so that they will be able to say with us, ‘I believe’.
See you Sunday…
Pastor Del