Matt Chandler - Who Was Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary

How are we doing? Okay, okay. For the seven of you who are doing great, that’s awesome! Now, grab your Bibles and let’s go to Luke chapter one. We’re just going to hang out there in Luke chapter one. If you’re thinking, «Isn’t Luke chapter one a Christmas text?» I figured that since the weather broke, we would go ahead and dive in. So, Luke chapter one! If you’re with us today and you don’t have a Bible, there should be a hardback black one somewhere around you. If you don’t own one, that’s our gift to you. We would love for you to take it and begin to read the things that the Creator of the universe wants you to know about Himself—how He thinks about you and what He sees when He looks at His creation. So, that would be our gift to you.

We’re in week four of a series on the Apostles' Creed. What we’ve said up until this point—I won’t reiterate the entire series—but what we’ve said each week is that the Apostles' Creed, well over a thousand years old, has been used by the church primarily for two reasons. One, it’s been used to correct error, and secondly, it’s been a tool—not the tool, but a tool—in the spiritual formation of God’s people. What you see as we walk through the Creed is that mankind has historically made errors and false assumptions about the nature and character of God. You can also see how God is shaping and molding us to understand Him more rightly, for our own joy and for His glory.

I want to clarify right out of the gate that this correction and formation takes place in what we as Christians understand as a Genesis 3 world. If you don’t have a church background or are not familiar with the Scriptures, in Genesis 1, you see the creation narrative where God creates everything, and there’s a repeated refrain that when He creates something, it is good. He creates this, He creates that, and it was good, and it was good, and it was very good. You get this picture of the universe having a rhythmic peace to it—a real beauty where God is gloriously seen, and man and woman are flourishing.

Then, in Genesis chapter 3, sin enters the world through the rebellion of the man and woman, fracturing the cosmos. This fracture in the cosmos is universal. What I mean by that is there is nothing created that is not touched by sin entering into the creative order. As a result, your experience and my experience in a Genesis 3 world involve brokenness, loss, suffering, and perplexity. We question God simply because the brokenness around us pushes us in that direction.

So, in this space of a Genesis 3 world, with all the testimonies in this room—and just so you don’t feel alone—how many of you have, at this point in your life, experienced either loss or a situation that has left you perplexed and shaken in your confidence in who God is? Just raise your hands. Okay, keep your hands up; everybody’s quick on this. It’s like we’re half-Baptist or something!

Now, if you can look around, I want you to start feeling safe in this. You’re not alone in that; you don’t need to feel guilty about it. If you’re recognizing that one person doesn’t have their hands up, well, maybe it’s just not their time yet. Maybe next week will be their week for that. But nobody gets out of a Genesis 3 world unscathed. It is in this mess that the Creed, derived from the Word of God, really begins to shape us, mold us, correct us, and point us to what is true, right, and good about the Creator of the universe.

With that said, we’ve been reciting the Creed together every week for the last four weeks. Regardless of what campus we’re on, I’ve tried to say, «Hey, we’re doing something that Christians all over the world are doing in this very moment.» We read the Creed together, and when we read it publicly in a congregation, we do two things simultaneously. One, we are rejecting popular narratives of the day that we do not believe to be true, and secondly, we are affirming that we believe this instead.

For example, when we stand and recite the Creed together as the covenant people of God, what we’re saying is, «We reject individualism.» We reject the idea that we can solve what’s wrong with us through the right mixture of effort, moxie, and discipline. We are affirming that we cannot fix what is wrong in us, and we believe that the Creator of the universe can. When we pledge allegiance to the God of the Bible, we reject nationalism. We affirm that the values and ideas driving the United States of America will not fix what is wrong in the human heart. Don’t email me; I’m a military brat and a patriot, but I am NOT…