Slide 1
"I could wish you leaves of gold
and may your path be smooth
I could wish you treasures
Or that all your dreams come true
And I could wish you paradise
That every day be spring, 
But I wish you, Jesus
But I wish you, Jesus
But I wish you, Jesus
More than anything."

Slide 2
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; 
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;

Slide 3
by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

Slide 4
The Arian syllogism
·Premise 1: The Father begat the Son
·Premise 2: That which is begotten has a beginning of existence
·Conclusion: Therefore, the Son had a beginning of existence, and there was a time when the Son did not exist.
“There was a time when he was not…Thus there is a Triad,
not equal in glories”

Slide 5
“The Son may be God in some way and the Spirit may be God in some way, but they are not God in the same way the Father is God”
 -Kevin DeYoung

Slide 6
“And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God”

Slide 7
“Only begotten” (monogenes)
A word used five times in the NT with reference to Jesus (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9)

Slide 8
“God of God”

Slide 9
“Light of Light”

Slide 10
“Very God of very God”

Slide 11
“begotten, not made”

Slide 12
Jesus’ “begottenness” is NOT identical to ours
The Son’s begottenness is an “eternal” begottenness.

Slide 13
“No one created the Son. There never was when the Son was not—not in time and not before time”
-Kevin DeYoung: 

Slide 14
John 1:1-3 
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Slide 15
Of one substance with the Father
         homoousios
         Homos (same) ousia (essence or being)

Slide 16
Jesus is one in essence with God; whatever makes the Father God, makes Jesus God
John 10:30 
Jesus: “I and the Father are One”

Slide 17
Bryan Litfin: 
“The word homoousios definitively ruled out the Arian view. If the Father and Son were consubstantial, sharing the very same substance, then one couldn’t exist when the other didn’t. If substance is shared between two entities, so is their timeline. If A and B have the same essence, there can be no time when A existed without B. Once the term homoousios was inserted in the creed of Nicaea, the Arian view was automatically excluded.”

Slide 18
Kevin DeYoung:
·The Son is of the same essence as the Father
·The Son is to be distinguished from the Father.
·The Son is of the Father.
·The Father is never of the Son.

Slide 19
Kevin DeYoung: 
“If you find all of this is hard to understand, you are not alone. The most brilliant theologians in history have gladly acknowledged that the doctrine of the Trinity is full of mystery. We are dealing with realities beyond our ability to fully understand or articulate. But mysterious does not mean unreasonable or irrational. It means that we, as finite creatures, do not possess sufficient intellect to fully grasp the infinite.”

Slide 20
“By whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man…”

Slide 21
“and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.”

Slide 22
“Whose Kingdom shall have no end”

Slide 23
Nicene Creed: The Trinity is permanent
         Which means, the incarnation is permanent

Slide 24
The Bible is clear and definitive that Jesus is God
9 of the 10 uses of “God Almighty” in the New Testament are found in Revelation, where the term is applied to God the Father AND God the Son, teaching us that both persons are equally divine (Rev. 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7, 14; 19:6, 15:21:22)

Slide 25
Romans 1:20 refers to Jesus’ “divine nature”
Col. 2:9 refers to the “fullness of deity” in Jesus (Col. 2:9)
         John 1:1 “The word was God”
         John 8:58, Jesus says “I Am”

Slide 26
Luke 24:51-52: Jesus receives worship from his disciples
John 20:28 Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord and My God.” 
Titus 2:13 Jesus Christ is called “our great God and Savior”

Slide 27
So, Jesus is God, the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but together they are ONE
All three persons are equal in power, honor, and glory
No member of the Trinity is more or less “God” than any other member

Slide 28
Mormons: 
• Distinct, separate beings: 
Mormonism teaches that the Father and Son are separate, physical beings, both with bodies of flesh and bone.

Slide 29
Mormons:
·Co-operation over unity: 
While Christians believe in a unified, essential "Godhead," Mormons believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three gods who are unified in purpose and work together. 
·Godhood and progression: 
Mormonism teaches a concept of godhood where humans can become gods, and Jesus is a created being who progressed to his divine state.

Slide 30
Jehovah’s Witnesses 
Believe that Jehovah is the one true God, Jesus is His first creation (not co-eternal or co-equal), and the Holy Spirit is God’s active force, not a person.

Slide 31
Unitarians
Do not accept the Trinity, believe Jesus was a divinely inspired moral teacher, but not God Himself.

Slide 32
“Progressive Christians” 
Deny the deity of Christ, the resurrection, and/or the virgin birth

Slide 33
Oneness Pentecostalism
God is one person who manifests in different modes (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), rather than three distinct persons.

Slide 34
Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism both accept the Nicene Creed

Slide 35
Acts 16:31
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, and your household” 
You cannot live a sinless life

Slide 36
Jesus:
        Fully God, fully man
        Born of a virgin
        Lived a sinless life
        Died on the cross
        Rose from the dead
        Appeared to hundreds of people in his resurrection body
        Ascended to heaven
        Will return again 

There's a senior pastor of a large and growing church here in Highlands Ranch. I'll call him Kurt, because that's his real name, was then driving around with his then 4-year-old daughter named Evie. Evie asked Kurt, dad is Jesus God? Kurt said, yes, honey, he's God. Pause for a second goes well. Is he the son of God? Said, yeah, honey. That's right. He's the son of God, said, I guess, well, does that mean Jesus is his own dad? In a very adorable way, Eddy was trying to turn the Trinity into a math problem, which can get us into all sorts of trouble. Our finite minds understandably can't grasp the complexity of a divine reality. But there are guardrails to help point us in the right direction. The main one we use as Christian Church is the Sing Creed. A council was established 1700 years ago this year in 3 25. They slightly elaborated on the creed in 3 81 and is now set as the mark of Christian Orthodoxy. What makes a Christian Church Christian, it goes back to their relation. Will they accept the nice creed? And this week I'm happy to say I get to talk about my favorite topic. It's not marriage, which a lot of people might think because I've done so many books on that. It's not even my grandkids though. I love them. I'm looking forward to having 'em here this week. There's explosions of joy when I'm with my grandkids. My favorite topic is Jesus. He's everything to me. He's my dearest love and my truest hope. This last Wednesday I had knee surgery. It's nothing serious. Just say you just scoped out for a meniscus tear, but they do put you under general anesthesia. So they're wheeling me back and the nurse says, you know, do you need something for anxiety? We can just put something in your IV and you'll be fine. I'm like, no, I don't. I don't need that. I got Jesus. I'm like, I I, I don't need anti-anxiety medicine. But I just thought how grateful I am that going into that I, I put myself in Jesus' hands. It's not like it was serious, but also my wife and my last conscious aunt going out is Jesus has got this. Everything I am, everything I care about is in the hands of Jesus. And when I came outta anesthesia, I was telling my wife this, it felt really weird, but it was kind of incredible. It was like it first conscious thought were like three different worship songs all worshiping Jesus playing simultaneously. But it worked. I mean it was just, it was kind of incredible. I wish it, it would have lasted and it made me think, yeah, I, I think we got one of the best, if not the best worship team in the country. But yeah, but I don't think we have any idea of what worship will be like in heaven when these finite minds are expanded. And we could see. Now, granted, I don't think we should have too much speculation when a pastor's coming out of pharmaceutical grade drugs. So let's, let's be careful there. But it is amazing to me. I thought, why doesn't everybody want this? Every little day of life, every little element of life that you don't ever have to live it alone. You don't have to live in fear, you your loved ones, you can all put it into the hands of Jesus. And that's what it means to be a Christian. It's been the story of my life. 41 years ago, my wife and I were married. Weddings were a lot longer than people would usually have a lot of songs. And when Lisa and I were picking out the songs, there's a very popular singer at the time, sort of like a Chris Tomlin today. His name was Scott Wesley Brown. And he had this one wedding song that just about everybody sang, this is the Day great song for a wedding. But as I was talking to Lisa, I said, I don't, I don't want, this is the day I want a song. I wish you Jesus because for me, that's what I wanted everybody in the wedding to hear. I don't know what's gonna happen in your life. I wish you Jesus. And what I wanted, one of our best friends to sing to us is you don't know what's gonna happen is you get married. But my greatest joy is to wish you Jesus. Let me just give you a short clip of Scott singing that song Happy. If I could sing that's as a pastor, that would be my song that I could wish you Jesus. It came up recently, I was talking to my wife. I said, Hey, since we sang that at the wedding, you should just have him sing that at my memorial service. She goes, oh no, we're not doing that. I said, what do you mean no if I'm alive when you're dead? There's no way we're singing that at your memorial service. It's too sappy. And I wanted to say, well, why is it okay for the wedding and not for the memorial service? But I've been married for 41 years, I know how this works. So I just wanna help some of the young husbands. This will just help you in your marriage, okay? This is an extra thing when a woman is considering your opinions and your likes. There's a difference between a woman who's trying to get you and a woman who's got you. Okay? Two very different things. I've had so many young guys say, Gary, she said she loved everything about me. As soon as we got married, she wanted to throw away all my clothes and all my furniture. I'm like, dude, it's easy trying to get you. Got you two different people, all right? You get that down, marriage will go a lot easier. But back to the good stuff, talking about Jesus someone I love very much is Jewish. And in connecting with her, she suggested I read this book by Abraham Joshua Heschel is sort of a contemporary Jewish classic. He died in the seventies, but it's called the Sabbath. And there's some great stuff in there. The first chapter especially, he's talking about the difference between time and things and what we value. But reading through, one of the things that struck me is that the Jews talk about the Sabbath and the Torah. Like we talk about Jesus. The big debate is do we call the Sabbath a bride or a queen? Hessel thinks we should do both. When Lisa and I were in Rome, we were in one of the largest synagogues in Europe. And I've got a picture here, right where the Christians usually have the cross. You see up above where the rabbi would speak, you have the 10 commandments. That's rare. They place their hope. And I wanna tell my friend, the Sabbath is incredible, but Jesus is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. Read Hebrews four, not just from work and labor, but removing our sin. We don't have to work for our salvation. And while some Jewish men will spend their entire lives just studying the Torah while their wives work 'cause they could just study the Torah, that's how they enter eternity. I wanna say Jesus is the fulfillment of the Torah. Read Romans 10, he's everything. All world religions essentially, though they don't often know it, they're all longing for Jesus. He's the fulfillment of everything we seek. And it was the understanding of who Jesus was and is that led to the Naing creed? I want us to stand up and recite it. We're gonna be reciting the 3 81 version. If you can go ahead and stand up. We won't do all of it, bro is gonna talk about the Holy Spirit next week. But let's do with God the Father, and God the Son, if you'll read this with me please. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, begotten of his Father, before all worlds God of God, light of light, very God of very God begotten, not me being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day he rose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven and synth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end. You can be seated. The center of the controversy leading to the sing creed was a nature and person of Jesus. Aria was a popular priest in Alexandria and in his desire to protect monotheism, he didn't think it was logical or possible for Jesus to be God in the same way that the Father is God. Like Evie, he was trying to turn it into a math problem. And him, it just didn't seem to add up. I If Jesus suffered and died then doesn't that mean God suffered and died? And how would that be true? And so he set up what is called the Aryan Syllogism. First premise is this, the Father begat the son. Now that's completely true. That's a tested in scripture as we'll see in just a moment. But then he went to the second point that began to lead him astray. That which has begotten has a beginning of existence, true of us, not true of Jesus. So it led him to this false conclusion. Therefore, the sun had a beginning of existence and there was a time when the son did not exist. His famous phrase, there was a time when he was not. Thus there is a triad not equal in glories. Kevin de Young explains it in contemporary language. This isn't Kevin's view, he's very orthodox, but he describes Aria's view this way. The Son may be God in some way and the spirit may be God in some way, but they are not God in the same way the Father is God. And so with this debate, you've got in two branches of Christianity in Egypt, you've got Bishop Alexander who said that God and his son are co-eternal and co-equal. And then you've got Aria who's teaching that the son is a creature glorious but still a creature. And Constantine comes on the scene in the fourth century and says, I, I want us to get on the same page. So he calls this historic council, the first ecumenical council in the history of the church. And but by ecumenical I mean he, he brought people from all over the world. They came from Britain, they came from Rome, they came from Spain. Obviously they were there in Egypt. And a lot of people from Turkey, 318 bishops showed up with re news. Literally thousands of people came to debate this. Now I wanna say this at the start, 'cause I think some novelists and well-meaning, no, I don't know if they were well-meaning people in the media trying to downplay this as if Christianity was invented in the fourth century and they voted on what we would believe. That's such a, that's just not even true. What happened is the early church gathered, and I believe with the presence of the Holy Spirit, we're correctly able to discern the clear teaching of scripture. Everything in the ingre is, is represented in scripture, is taught in scripture. And with the presence of the Holy Spirit with the church leadership there, they're able to determine once and for all. This is what makes us a Christian Church. Now, Constantine had no agenda other than unity as the emperor. He just, I want everybody to get along and, and he let the bishops battle. And it was a bit of a battle. I'm not gonna lie. In fact, there was one bishop named Nicholas, since it's been called Saint Nicholas, who do we call Saint Nicholas Santa Claus. He got so frustrated with Aria. Legend says he hit him in the nose in the middle of that. So apparently Saint Nicholas really did have a naughty list that you didn't want to get on. Very likely not true, but it's kind of a fun legend to talk about. And so it begins with explaining, okay, who is Jesus? And it begins with this, we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God. The word only begotten in Greek is the word used five times in the New Testament with reference to Jesus. And we're gonna list them there. I I, I gotta apologize some of you, some like this, some don't. This is gonna be more like a lecture than a sermon. There are gonna be a ton of slides because we're gonna go through a lot. And what you can know is that if you open up the app in the notes section, all of these verses and all these slides will appear. So you could look at 'em. You don't have to write 'em all down. You could review 'em later. We're kind of putting it this way. We know this is sort of a technical sermon, but we think it's important for us to understand who God really is, including especially Jesus. Now, Arius would agree with the phrase only begotten. He accepted that he had to, it struck me in scripture. But where he disagreed is when he taught that Jesus did not exist prior to his beginning. So the ene creed to make this clear, followed it up with four other phrases. They said that Jesus is God of God. What does that mean? That Jesus Christ is God from God. He's not part of God. He's not different from God. He is holy God. He is God of God. And then he is light of light that talks about Jesus and the Father being of the same essence. He's not a different kind of light. He's definitely not a lesser light. He is light of light. He is very God, a very God. That's just an archaic way When you say very truly he's truly God, not just a God, he is God. And then this is a phrase that completely undercut the heresy. The arius was teaching. He was begotten but not made a thought. The two went together and it undercut his position because he, here's the poor important point, Jesus's begotten. This is different than our begotten. This all of us were begotten, which implies in human worlds that there was a time we were not. But that's not true of Jesus. Jesus' begotten, this is an eternal begotten. This in human language. There was never a time when Jesus was not in Kevin de Young's words. No one created the son. There never was when the son was not, not in time and not before time. And again, this isn't just something they voted on. It's a clear teaching of scripture. John one, one through three, when Jesus is described as the word says this, in the beginning was the word Jesus and the word was with God. And the word Jesus was God. He was with God in the beginning. There was no beginning without him. Through him, Jesus, all things were made without him, nothing was made. That has been made. And then they emphasize it in the creed with this phrase that he is of one substance with the Father. Kurt said last week, this is the most important word in the creed. And I would get into it and I am that word is homo. These two words put together homos, which isane usia is essence or being. What they're making very clear is that Jesus is one in essence with God. Whatever makes the Father God makes Jesus God. And again, Jesus flat out stated the same in John 10 30 when he said I and the Father or one, that's how Brian Lipin, a professor describes it. The word homousius definitively ruled out the Aryan view. If the father and son were consubstantial sharing the very same substance, then one couldn't exist when the other didn't. If substances shared between two entities, so is there timeline, if A and B have the same essence, there can be no time when A existed without B. Once the term homousius was inserted into the CRE of naia, the Aryan view was automatically excluded. It also excluded the Kesy. And Kurt talked about this last week called Modalism, that the father and son are only different modes of the same divine being. The creed makes it clear we still, even though the of the same essence, light of light, we still have to distinguish between the two persons. Kevin De Young has a helpful chart here. The son is of the same essence as the Father. The Son is to be distinguished from the Father, the son is of the Father. But we must insist the Father is never of the Son. Now, if your head is turning circles here, here's what Deion says. If you find all of this is hard to understand, you are not alone. The most brilliant theologians in history have gladly acknowledged that the doctrine of the Trinity is full of mystery. We are dealing with realities beyond our ability to fully understand or articulate. I kind of wondered if when I was coming out of anesthesia, if God gave me that picture of worship in heaven. WW was showing me the difference when we can get rid of these human minds and it could be expanded the way it was with worship, the way it is here with understanding. But this is so key. He insists mysterious does not mean unreasonable or irrational, it just means that we as finite creatures do not possess sufficient intellect to fully grasp the infinite. So it lays out this is who Jesus is. And then it goes into a summary of his deeds that wasn't so controversial. Most of these you've heard and we accept it says by whom? All things were made who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man. So after going into length, Jesus is God. It reminds us, but he's also man, he's fully God and fully man. Not that he just appeared as a man or not that he was just God in a human body, incarnate me. He was fully God and fully man at the same time. And when it says he was conceived he, he was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. It's stressing that no human male was involved in the conception of Jesus. Not that there's something inherently wrong with physical relations, but it's same for Jesus to be God. No human man was part of his conception. It happened through the Holy Spirit goes on to say this. And he was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third day he rose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven and sit it on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end. What I wanna emphasize from this is the ascension of Jesus. I don't know that we give it enough attention because it's significant that Jesus ascended in the same body in which he rose from the dead. In one of my books just trying to be a bit provocative, I asked the question, does Jesus today need to get haircuts? Does he need to trim his fingernails? It might sound irreverent, but the point I'm trying to make, I, I don't know. We don't know what the glorified body is like. The point I'm trying to stress is that Jesus is in a body right now today. He sit at the right hand of the Father. You have to have a body to sit at the right hand of the Father. He will always be incarnate. It ends whose kingdom shall have no end. This was likely added to combat another heresy by Marcellus who tried to suggest that after Jesus rose from the dead, he was absorbed into the Father. The Holy Spirit is absorbed into the Father and now they are one. And the nice Reed says, no, the Trinity is permanent. And if the Trinity is permanent, the incarnation is permanent. Jesus exists today in a glorified body, fully God and fully man. And that's how he will be throughout all eternity, whose kingdom shall have no end as he had no beginning. So he shall have no end. And again, this is not something that the church just voted on and it wasn't settled. It was a work of the Holy Spirit bringing the bishops, the leaders, the teachers of the church together so that they could determine the true meaning of scripture. Because everything that this nice creed says is clearly represented in scripture. The Bible is clear and definitive that Jesus is God. Nine of the 10 uses of the word God almighty in the New Testament are found in Revelation and it refers, the term is replied is applied to both God the Father and God the Son teaching us that both persons are equally divine. Romans one 20 refers to Jesus's divine nature. Colossians two, nine says, in Jesus dwells the fullness of deity, the fullness not part, the fullness of deity resides in Christ. And Jesus accepted this. John one, one says, the word was God. Jesus uses a phrase, I am in John 8 58. That is the title that God Yahweh gave to Moses in the Old Testament. Jesus applies it to himself. In Luke 24, 51 through 52, Jesus receives worship from his disciples. And in John 2028, when Thomas calls Jesus, my Lord and my God, Jesus doesn't chastise them. If he was just a glorified teacher, he would've corrected them. No, you've gone too far. He received worship instead of challenging them, he's basically by his acceptance saying, finally, you get it. I am your savior. I am your Messiah. I am also your God. Which is what the early church taught in Titus two 13. It says it straight out Jesus is our great God and Savior. Now, if you go through some books, there are many other scriptures, but I think it's making the point this wasn't voted on. This was discerned from the truth of scripture. So we know Jesus is God, the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But together, they're one. All three persons are equal in power, honor and glory and no member of the Trinity. This is where some people go off. No member of the Trinity, father, son, and Spirit are greater God or less than God. They're all equal in glory. They're all as much God as any other member. And why does this matter? Our salvation depends on this being true. The reason that Jesus could accept our sin is that he became fully man. But the reason he can dispense of our sin by his perfect life is because he's fully God. If he was anything less than man or anything less than God, God's plan of salvation completely falls apart. It shows his brilliance, his magnificent, that he could make this happen. Now we've just kind of skated through this. I know some of you like to read up and I feel like I'm always Hocking books, but I think it's helpful to point you that way. Three books if you wanna follow up on your own since we're celebrating the ING Creed the Sing Creed by Kevin De Young, you've heard me quote from him. It's a short book. You could read it in an afternoon. Very well done. It's straight out. Here's what it means. Brian Litvin is a professor. I was amazed at how accessible he makes these difficult truths. He really does a great job of making it understandable. It's a great book to look at. And then we have our own Lee Strobel who wrote the Case for Christ That represents who Jesus is. So you could look at those if you wanna get into this in more detail. So the nice creed eventually became the creed for every Orthodox Christian tradition. A lot of people say they're Christian, but whether they are or not depends on do they accept the teaching of the ING creed because the ing creed correctly explains what scripture clearly says. And so we don't go through this a lot at Cherry Hills, but we thought it would be important to look at how other people who claim to be Christian but really aren't according to the ING Creed, what they believe that's different. First we could look at the Mormons. They prefer Latter Day Saints these days. Why do we think they don't represent Christian truth? They teach that the Trinity are distinct separate beings, but the father and son are separate physical beings. In fact, they would teach that the father has flesh and a body just as Jesus the Son does. And they stress cooperation over unity. We believe in a unified essential Godhead. But Mormons believe the Father, son, and Holy Spirit are three Gods unified in purpose and work together. And it leads to something that is particularly troublesome. The godhood and progression belief. They teach a notion of a concept of godhood where humans can become gods. And that's what Jesus did. He's a created being who progressed to his divine state. And that technically you or I then could become a God in our own world that we create. Now, it's important to remember Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith's revelation that God came to him and said, the early Christian creeds, including, especially the nice creed, are an abomination. And he was saying, Mormonism is to set things right. It's to refute the ancient lie. We would say no. It was the new revelation of Joseph Smith was a lie who leads people away from what it is to know Jesus Christ. Jehovah's Witnesses will often insist when you see 'em in the mall or at the airports that they are Christians. And while they believe that Jehovah is the one true God, they teach that Jesus is his first creation. By that they mean he's not co-equal and he's not co-eternal. And they teach that the Holy Spirit is an active force, not a person. Unitarians don't accept the Trinity. They say that Jesus was a divinely inspired moral teacher but not God himself. Well, if that's the case, then he wasn't a very good teacher because he lied about who he was. Progressive Christians. I I, I'm nervous about this title because progressive can mean a lot of things. Here's how I'm using it. A progressive Christian is someone who says they're a Christian, but they deny the deity of Christ, the resurrection or the virgin birth. You can't deny essential qualities of who Jesus is. That makes him God and say that you believe in him. You've created your own false Jesus. And some teachers will say, well, does the virgin birth really matter? Yes, it really does because it sets up Jesus's divine nature that he wasn't created at some point with the activity of a human male. But he was, he came from the Holy Spirit. One. This Pentecostalism isn't as popular, but it goes back to that heresy. Kurt talked about this last week, modalism that teaches that God is just in three different modes, sometimes as a father, sometimes as a son, sometimes as the Holy Spirit. Now two groups I haven't mentioned that we would have theological disagreements with the nature of salvation, how you view Mary what is the church, but they both accept the Naing creed and we believe it's proper to call them Christian. That's the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Again, significant theological disagreements with them, but they do accept the ing creed. They teach the truth about who Jesus is. And this has caused some challenges. I'm gonna be speaking in Italy next week to a number of churches that are coming together for a marriage conference. And they get nervous when I quote Roman Catholics because to be an evangelical Protestant in Italy, you face a certain kind of opposition that we don't fail in this country. But because they hold to the ING cream and tell the truth about Jesus, we would say while we have disagreements, we believe it's appropriate here at Cherry Hills to call them Christian churches. So what does this mean for you practically? I know a lot of this has just been theory and whatnot. It means practically that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Our faith is about a person more than just a belief, more than just spirituality in general. It is about putting our trust in a real person. Jesus the Christ. I had a long conversation with a man out in the lobby last week and we were talking about how you said, well, Gary, aren't, aren't they all the same getting in touch with creation and they teach different things, but in the end it's going to, it's like not at all, not even close. They might say a couple of things that are helpful for talking about spirituality in general, but in essence, our salvation, our hope reality insists that we're relating to a real Jesus, a real person who he is and what he has done and what he will do if they don't speak the truth about Jesus. They're leading us astri. In Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are in a prison. They're worshiping and praying out throughout the night. In the middle of the night there's a giant earthquake and the doors break open and the chains fall off their wrists and the jailer wakes up. He'd been sleeping and he sees all the doors open. He sees the chains are dropping and he takes out a sword to kill himself because he would surely be killed for letting the prisoners escape. And it would be a painful death. He's thinking, I might as well just get it done. Paul sees it and he calls out to him, don't hurt yourself. We're all here. And the man shaken by it. He, he, he doesn't know he he's seen the power of God. He knows this just isn't real. I mean, you don't have an earthquake that would just open the doors and and drop the chase. He's seen the power of God and seen the power of God. He asks a question that I hope every person here today will ask, that every person watching online will ask everything about your future and present depends on asking this question. He says, what must I do to be saved? And Paul and Silas answer verse 31, simple answer, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. And your household, it's all about Jesus. You cannot live a sinless life. You cannot do so much good that you overcome the bad that you've done or to overcome the good that you should have done and didn't do. It is all based on believing and trusting in Jesus. There's one path, who He is and what he did, I wanna put it in a little simpler language, but this is who Jesus is as revealed to us in scripture and the Naing creed. He is fully God and fully man. Born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross, rose from the dead, appeared to hundreds of people in that resurrection body. He ascended to heaven and he will return again in a bodily form in which we can see. Now Satan believes everything on that list because everything on that list is true. So believing on Jesus doesn't just mean accepting these historical facts. It means that you recognize he's very God of very God. He is light of light. And so we surrender to him. We put our trust in him, we put our faith in him. He becomes our Savior and our Lord. And I know for some of you, if you don't know him yet, well why do I wanna submit to him? Can I just plead with you? Submitting to him is the sweetest thing I've ever done. I see younger people here and here, and I would just tell you, every time Jesus said to me, don't do this, and I did it. I've regretted it every time Jesus says, Gary, walk in this way. And I walked in that way. I'm so glad I did. Yeah, we're submitting. But it is the sweetest life where you don't live one day of life alone on your wedding day, giving birth to your children, sitting by a loved one at the hospital, facing your death or the death of a loved one. Jesus changes everything. Following him has been the greatest joy of my life. That's while I still tear up at baptisms. When I see young kids and I'm thinking they get to live with Jesus and they don't have to figure life out without his presence affirming them and guiding them and empowering them. And when I see middle-aged people who've wrapped their lives and they're being baptized, and I know they have a whole new life ahead of 'em, I'm so happy for them because life is so different with Jesus. I've talked to so many married couples, they tried marriage without Jesus and they made a mess of things. And I can tell 'em, you have a whole new marriage ahead of you. When Jesus becomes the center of your relationship, everything changes. So we're gonna have a song of response because when you hear these things about Jesus, it's not enough just to know him. It should move us to worship. We see His glory and and we realize, man, this, this is the only natural response. Here's the glorious truth. Scripture teaches that there will be a day when every one of us, every person here, everybody watching line, we will see Jesus face to face. For those of us who have trusted in Him, it will literally be the best day of our lives. We'll say, Jesus, I knew you were beautiful. I I didn't know beauty could look like that. I know we talked about your glory. I didn't know glory could be that great. Everything I hoped, I just, I had no clue just how beautiful and glorious and true you are. And now I get to see you. I get to spend eternity with you. Jesus, I love you the best day. But for those of you who hear this and you don't respond, sorry, I, I gotta say it, it will be the worst day of your life. It'll be filled with regret. I could have lived with him and I missed. I could be with him for all eternity. He would remove the wrath and the guilt and the shame that I feel He would've taken it away. I didn't let let him. And now I gotta live an eternity without him, it will be beyond awful. And it's so unnecessary. 'cause If you're here today, if you're watching online, Jesus is saying, come to me. We're in burden. Surrender to me. Submit to me. I will truly and fully save you. I will be your savior, your friend, your Lord and your king. And so even before we're over, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to go to Trailhead If that's you. If you haven't trusted in Jesus, you don't even have to wait till after the service. You can do it right now to my left. And you're right. We have people that are gonna be over there early. Those of us who know Jesus are gonna get a chance to worship him because it is the delight of our hearts. Those of you who don't yet know him, this is your chance. He is God of God. He is light of light. He would be your savior. Come to him.