Sermon: The Blessings of Confessionalism: Education and Clarity

I ask you to take a copy of God's word this morning and we're going to turn open to the book of second Timothy. If you want to grab a pew Bible right in front of you, you can turn open to page 995. There in the Pew Bible 995. We're gonna turn open to second Timothy this morning, chapter one, and look at verses 13 and 14, two Timothy chapter one, verses 13 and 14 on page 9 95, there in your pew Bible.

Let's pray before we open God's word together this morning.

Our Father, we believe that you are worthy of our trust. We believe that you are God of promises and a God who is at work in this world.

This morning we turn with open ears and we pray with soft hearts, and we pray with fertile minds

ready to hear from you. A God who is worthy of our trust. We pray that you would speak to us by the power of your word as you have promised that your spirit would work in us, that which is good and pleasing in your sight. And we pray this in the strong name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and our savior. Amen. Two Timothy chapter one verses 13 and 14. This is the holy and err sufficient word of God.

Follow the pattern of the sound, words that you've heard from me and the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Guard the good deposit entrusted to you, the grass withers and the flower fades. The word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

For those of you visiting with us this morning at URC, uh, we are in the middle of what we call our faith focus. We take a break from our preaching through a book of the Bible in the month of January, uh, to preach through something that our elders have decided they want to see, uh, more in the DNA, the life of our church. And this year our faith focus is what we have called rooted confessionally connected. And that is we are considering what it is

to be a confessional church. This week we're going to consider two of the fruits of Confessionalism. We saw two last week. I wanna look at two this morning to blessings that flow from Confessionalism. And this morning what I want to look at is education and clarity. Education and clarity. But let's consider Paul's words here in second Timothy to, to help us to eventually get there. You'll remember that as Paul writes to Timothy, both first

and second Timothy, he is preparing Timothy and the church for the fact that the apostolic age is getting ready to come to a close. It seems like Tim, that Paul had some sense that his ministry was coming to an end or that his life was coming to an end, and he knew that as his life came to an end and as the other apostles lives came to an end, that that apostolic age was coming to a close. And it is Timothy and it's his generation

that would continue to carry forth the faith to the generation that followed. And so Paul has a very distinct aim in first and second Timothy as he is writing to this pastor, this younger pastor in the church in Ephesus. He's preparing him. And in our passage, he, he wants Timothy to do two primary things and it it centers upon the verbal commands here in this passage. First, follow the pattern of the sound words and second guard the good deposit.

So let's think through these together this morning, follow the sound words or some of your translations may have follow the pattern. What, what are the, the sound words? What, what are the, the pattern here that, that Paul is speaking about? Well, he tells us, he says that you heard from me as Paul taught and preached. So Timothy was to teach and to preach. He's to follow the pattern. He, he's to follow the form. He's to follow the example that, that he heard from Paul

as Carl Truman said. What is interesting is that Paul does not simply say, make sure you stay true to the conceptual content of what you have been taught. Paul also highlights the form of the words used here. And Paul does this on the heels of verses nine and 10. And in verses nine and 10, Paul gives us a, a kind of abbreviated confessional credle statement of the essence of our salvation in Christ Jesus. What you have heard, what you have received, Timothy,

that the pattern of the, the sound words from me, the doctrine that I articulated, so you are to do the same in the faith and in the love that are in Christ Jesus.

He's emphasizing the doctrine that needs to be passed on.

Paul regularly speaks of this throughout his letters. For example, one Corinthians chapter 11, verse two, he does so by calling it tradition in this verse, listen, now I commend you because you remember me and everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. Paul taught doctrine, what he calls in our passage, the pattern of sound words, as we've said over the past two weeks, our confessions and our creeds, all they are are an attempt

to summarize and then articulate what the scriptures teach. They are the pattern of sound words.

Second command is guard the good deposit entrusted to you and understand that. Let's, let's try and think through how we can understand what this good deposit is. Well, if you flip on, it's probably on the exact opposite page from the text that we just read this morning at the end of one Timothy, one Timothy chapter six, verse 20. Paul says this, he says, oh, Timothy guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Same verbiage, same language, same thing in view.

And this is what he says, avoid the irreverent babel and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge for by professing it. Some have swerved from the faith, this good deposit that has been entrusted to you, Timothy, he, he puts it against he. He shows that what is in conflict with it is this, this false teaching, what he calls false knowledge. And he says, some by professing that have actually wandered from the truth.

Well, what's the good deposit? The good deposit is the sound teaching the faith that Timothy has received. Again, he's speaking about sound doctrine. Keep it Timothy, preserve it. Timothy, if we go back up to to verse 12 in our passage and second Timothy here, Paul says this with confidence. He says, I'm not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard until the day what has been entrusted to me.

Paul is convinced that the one in whom he's speaking about a person, he's speaking about God, he, he is confident that God will guard this good deposit, uses the same language, this faith. And yet as we see in our verse verses 13 and 14, as he does elsewhere, he encourages Timothy as he encourages others to guard it. You gotta keep it. So is it God or is it us? When is charged to Timothy verse 14, Paul says, it is by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

It is God provides the power even as he gives us a responsibility. It's his will and his work and it is our duty. He keeps it and he does so by empowering the church to keep it by working through us.

When I think about the entirety of the scriptures

and I think about all of the different commands and all the different things that are asked of us,

this has to be one of the greatest responsibilities of the people of God, of the church, of me as your pastor, surely me as your pastor, to guard this good deposit that we've received to, to keep it. Why? Because we know it's the power of God under salvation for all who believe. And if it's lost, then this world is lost. We have to keep it.

So back to the beginning. What does all this have to do with confessionalism? Because notice, it's more than simply passing on the pages of the Bible that Paul has in mind.

It's more than that. He says, it's the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me. Guard it, keep it sound doctrine.

Lemme quote Truman again,

this notion of tradition of the need to hand on the gospel is deeply embedded in the nature of the gospel itself. The historical particularity of the history of Israel and of Jesus Christ means that if the gospel and this is key, the meaning and significance of these things is not passed on from generation to generation, then it remains in a sense trapped in the past. And here's especially key, God's saving actions require interpretation

and proclamation in order for later generations to have access by faith to them. The tradition is to be regulated by scripture as the sole authoritative source of knowledge of God's actions. But it is not formally identical with scripture. It uses forms of sound, words, doctrine. The gospel requires that we pass it on. But to pass it on, you have to know and understand what it is. You have to understand the doctrine to pass it on.

It requires interpretation, understanding, articulation,

confessionalism helps us to do that.

How? Because of the two wonderful fruits of Confessionalism that I want to focus on this morning. Education and clarity.

The church must know what we believe it is only then that we can pass it on confessions and creeds simply allow us, again, to summarize and articulate what we believe the whole counsel of God teaches. They provide clarity and they provide education to make it all the easier for you and I to pass it on to the generation that comes after us. What is so very important that we do in fact pass on,

uh, Wednesday night, Mr. Hinkley, uh, invited me to dig. He our youth group at URCI get to do this twice a year, once with the junior high, once with the senior high. It is, these are two of my favorite nights the entire year, uh, where it's a q and a with Pastor Jason. It's a stump, the chump. It is, uh, Daniel in the lion's den and they can ask me any question they want and I love it. Uh, we have wonderful high school students

and uh, that was what I did this past week on Wednesday night. And when they ask their questions, they, they want an answer to those questions from the whole council of scripture. They want to know what the entire scriptures have to say on that topic, though, perhaps not the question that was most written in and asked, and that was, um, pastor Jason, what color would you most likely dye your hair if you had hair? And we don't, we don't deal in hypotheticals,

we don't do that. But when they asked, how do we know that the Bible is iner

and how do we defend that? They want to know what the entire scriptures teach so that they can hold to it, believe it, articulate it.

When a student asked, what do I do when I'm angry with God for the will that he is ordained for my life? They're wanting to know what, what do the entire scriptures say on this so that I can practice it? Confessions and creeds provide a wonderful means for education and for clarity. Mr. Hinkley, that night as we were sitting here, it was talking about how we liked Westminster's shorter catechism question and answer for it's, it's one of my favorites.

And the question is this, what is sin? It's not my favorite because I love sin. I love it because it is so clear and it is so concise and it's so easy to articulate the whole doctrine of sin in a sentence. When you and I think about sin, we often think of it as this is something that we do against God, against his law. It's some action that we have taken against him. But that's, that's only part of it. What the Westminster Shore catechism question answer

for says in answer to what is sin? It says, sin is any want of conformity unto or any transgression of the law of God. Clear, concise. It's not just what you do against God. God, it's what you don't do that you should do according to the law of God. It takes the entire teaching of the scriptures to bear and just clearly articulates it to the end that it educates even as we were doing Wednesday night with these high school students so that we can pass on the faith

to the generation that follows.

My guess is that everyone in this room understands there is some need for this and you're okay with it. Now I can say that because you all sang this morning, you sang doctrine, you sang summaries and articulations of what we believe you sang. My guess is that almost every single one of you would confess the apostles creed or the ene creed. 'cause you would say, well, it's helpful, it, it's a summary of the core of our faith

and it it articulates the very heart of the gospel. It, it articulates and it's helpful for all of us to agree and to say that together even if it's not out loud, but to say, yeah, this is what a Christian believes. This is who God is. This is what salvation in Christ looks like. It's simple, it's brief.

But you might think, and I think there are a number no doubt in here, but think, ah, but the west minister that that confession and those catechisms, why do we need longer things like that, more detailed things like that? That's a fair question. That is a right question. And my answer is this, for education and clarity, if something is passed on from generation to generation, the following generation, Lord willing, should have a greater understanding

than the generation before it.

One of the prayers that I pray regularly for the covenant children of this church, as I pray Lord help them to have a faith and faithfulness that surpasses that of their parents because that's what it should be. We want the following generation to be even greater than this generation.

For example, none would imagine that it's a good thing for mathematicians to remain in the basics of addition and subtraction. Once algebra and geometry and trigonometry and calculus were all understood, I did see a meme the other day at the beginning of 2024 where someone put online, they said, oh, another year has passed and I still haven't used algebra. And I agree with that sentiment. But for mathematicians it would be odd

if they simply remained focused upon addition and subtraction. Why? Because their life is caught up with mathematics

and so that they have to treasure addition and subtraction there. To build upon that to the greater disciplines in mathematics seems like it could spare the rest of us as we go through junior high in high school. But they should or Christians,

our lives are caught up with Christ. We're marked by his name and our baptisms as we did this morning. He's our life for me to live is Christ.

I'm identified with him, want to grow up in him

and not to remain infants in the faith with the basics. Listen, the basics are essential. There's essential as addition and subtraction. But as we embrace and enjoy and celebrate the basic cores of our faith, it is always so we might build upon it. Listen to what the apostles say. Peter says this in two Peter three 18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Paul Chides, the church in Corinth in one Corinthians three,

two, I fed you with milk, not with solid food. For you are not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready. The writer of Hebrews echoes, Paul's admonishment chapter five for though by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the Oracles of God. You need need milk, not solid food. Peter's charge is grow. Paul and the writer of Hebrews are in essence saying, grow up.

You've been planted in Christ. And if you are planted in Christ, then you are to grow in Christ.

Entrance into the church is very simple entrance into life with Christ. It's very simple, it's very basic. We simply believe that God the Father, sent God the Son into this world, that he lived a perfectly righteous life for us. That he then died in atoning death upon the cross for us, took our sin upon him, shed his blood for us. And that as we saw in the waters of baptism this morning, that we are then washed by his blood

and made clean, made clean. And I just receive that gift by faith. It's that simple.

So basic that a 2-year-old can grasp it

and I'm to rejoice in that and I'm to keep returning to that over and over.

But once you're united with Christ,

once you've believed upon him, you increasingly find that he is the greatest delight you could possibly imagine.

And you're not content, not content with what you have of him. You want more. You want to see more of his beauty, you want to understand him more. In depthly, you want to be stirred with more delight in him. You want more,

not content with the basics. If you're planted in Christ, you desire to grow in Christ. That's true of the individual. It's also true of the church.

We want and expect the church to grow in Christ through the centuries. So why the more detailed confessions? Because the church matures in its understanding of the scriptures. Its confessions and words necessarily. As it understands more becomes more robust.

Again, it's make sure that we're clear about what we spoke about last week. If it's new in the church, we should be incredibly suspect of it.

But depth of understanding is not something new. It is understanding something better. And part of us growing in maturity, education and clarity so that we are able to pass on what we have received and grow into the glory of him who we worship. That's the aim. Let me illustrate it to you from history. We have very clearly in scripture the doctrine of the Trinity. Now that word is nowhere in the Bible, there's nowhere that it says that God is one

and there are three persons nowhere where you have this together. But we have, if we take all of the scriptures, you go to something like Matthew 28, the Great Commission. And what did Jesus say what I did this morning? He said, you are to baptize in the name of the Father and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Spirit, our triune God in the third century there was a false teacher, a leader in the church by the name of Aria that came around

and Aria said as they were thinking about the relationship between the father and the son and he said, listen, the Son is God, but he has not always been. He is a created being. There was a time S famously said, there was a time when he was not. So the son is less than God and he almost carried the day in the Christian Church except for another early church father in the third century, Athanasius who stood against Arius

and as has famously been said in church history, stood against the world and he overcame these arguments of areas. And Athanasius helped the church to understand the teaching of the whole council of Scripture. And then it articulated that at the Council of naia, that deeper understanding what we often confess on Sunday mornings from the Naing creed, that the son was not of similar substance. He was not of like substance to the Father.

He is of the same substance as the Father, as we confess in the creed. That he is very God of very God. Light of light, begotten not made being of one substance with the Father.

And they articulate it. What is it? It is a summary of what the scriptures teach and it is sound words. The sound pattern of words that now has been handed down from generation to generation of the church and we benefit from

Son is very God of very God. This was not a different doctrine than the church had taught before, but a more robust understanding of what the church had understood and fascinating enough, enough, 60 years later there will be another controversy about the person of the Holy Spirit. And so you will have the entire section on the Holy Spirit added to the sing creed as they meet in constant noble and they will deliberate upon that

and they will add the whole section on the spirit. And what we often confess in the sing creed, the church grew a more robust understanding of that, which is scriptures teach and then they confessed it. And those sound words, that doctrine, that creed or confession provided for the church throughout the centuries, even to our day clarity. Clarity for what the scriptures teach about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Clarity and a means of education to pass on this faith, this good deposit to the following generations.

We talked in previous weeks about this, that we are connected confessionally and and we are, we're connected. There's one church. And so we are connected to the church of the past. We received through the ages this good deposit. We don't reinvent how incredibly awful it would be if we had to revisit every single doctrine that the church has wrestled through. What do the scriptures teach on this and articulate it. And we have to wrestle through every single one

of those in every generation of the church. How awful would that be? I'm not signing up for that. Oh, you've received the pattern of sound words. It's been passed on to us. We build upon that which the church and the past is understood and what is confessed and what it's preserved and what it has even died for as it grew in its understanding of what the scriptures teach. We're connected to the church of yesterday. We're connected to churches in our day.

But what I also want you to understand, especially this morning because of the context of Paul's letter to Timothy, you are connected and I am connected to the church of tomorrow. That's Paul's concern.

One of the most essential things for you and I to consider is that what we do today as the church, what we believe today as the church affects the church of tomorrow.

I don't wanna be a part of passing on something that is errant, something that is toxic,

something that is heretical, something that's simply the obsession of our age.

I don't wanna be part of passing on something that is limp and impotent and flimsy. We have the good deposit

and the greatest gift of the ages and we want to pass that on. And our confessions help us by educating us in it and by being clear in it what we are indeed supposed to be passing on.

Lemme offer two closing applications for you.

First, use your mind. Use your mind. There is no one in this room that is too old and there's no one in this room that's too young except maybe the babies that I held this morning

that you can't memorize.

Would you memorize the apostle's creed, memorize the ING creed. Maybe even choose to memorize part of the shorter catechism parents. Encourage your children to memorize the shorter catechism. Help them to do that.

Personally, I have found it to be one of the very best ways to remind myself that I'm connected with the church of yesterday and I'm connected with the Church of Tomorrow. It gets us out of our kind of of tribal mentalities and it's simply one of the best ways to educate ourselves to be clear about what we think so that we can articulate it so that we can pass it on. And here is what I promise. You will find that as you are memorizing these things

and as you begin to wrestle with it biblically that it will begin to inform your worship.

You will be a better worshiper, you'll be a better liver for Christ because the doctrine of the Ss will here, which by God's grace will move here and it will inform you.

Second, would you use your time? Use your time. Would you take time to read through the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Westminster Shorter Catechism?

I dare you. I double dog. Dare you read through it.

Less podcasts, more creeds. If I could tattoo that on your eyelids, I'd do it.

Less podcasts, more creeds, less sound bites, more deep thought, less drive by theology. More times soaking and truths that have been held through the ages.

Has your pastor who loves you, who prays for you, who agonizes. For many of you, there are few better things I could recommend to you

to take your Bible in one hand, put it there, that's your authority. And lay the Westminster confession of faith there or a shorter catechism there. And then check it as you're reading, you check it. Is this true? Is this what the scriptures teach as a whole? Go through all of those passages. And one of our elders that told me he is doing this every night. He is been doing this every night for months where he is reading

through a section of the confession of faith. And he is looking through every single proof text to see is it accurate in what it says? And he's probably dreaming of sugar, plums and fairies and puritans. But that's not a bad dream to have. It's a good exercise. And you don't have to, as I've said over and over, you don't have to believe everything that is there. I want you to test it. Be a faithful berean. Keep looking.

Is this actually what it teaches? I don't want you to be convinced by the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Westminster Shorter Catechism or the Heidelberg Catechism. I want you convinced by the scriptures, but test it. Is it a good summary and articulation of what the scriptures teach? I want your conscience dictated to by the scriptures, but test it.

I'd encourage you to, if you're doing the confession of faith, pick up Chad Van Dix horn's, uh, book as you're going through it and put it next to you. It's a wonderful book, uh, called Confessing the Faith where he just takes, uh, one of those pastures. He's got a modern English, he has it in the other, uh, the old English of the Westminster, confession of faith. He's got 'em both there on the page, gives you all the proof text,

and then he just gives you a short little theological devotional on that. Or if you're gonna read through the Westminster Shore of catechism, use the books that we gave you at the beginning of this or get Thomas Watson's body of divinity. It's picturesque. It is clear, and yet it is robust. It will affect the heart. And read through it and check it with scripture. I promise you, you will find yourself clear and thought.

If you just give your time to studying some of the confessions and catechisms and creeds, you will find yourself clear in thought. You will find yourself more educated, more mature in thought. You will find yourself more thankful and hard for the scriptures because what they teach as a whole will become more and more alive to you. You'll understand it better. You will be more clear in your scriptural thinking and you will be more able to articulate it.

And most importantly, you will find that your heart is welling up, not only in Thanksgiving for the scriptures, but that you are being stirred and moved in greater love for this great salvation that has been given to us and this great Christ that has been sacrificed for us. You'll find yourself worshiping.

I can guarantee it.

It's worth it. Here's your time for good, for your soul, for the glory of Christ and for the Church of Tomorrow.

We're to keep this sound pattern of words. We're to guard this good deposit that has been entrusted to us.

Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful for the men and the women and the children that have come before us. For those that you used men to write the holy scriptures for the women and women in the church that have labored hard, often in conflict, often at the cost of their own lives, to maintain sound and holy doctrine and to pass it on to the generation so that our generation could enjoy it and know it and worship you more fully and more robustly.

But you help us to be those who keep a close watch on our life and our doctrine to guard this good deposit entrusted to us for your glory, for our good, and for the good of the church to come. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.