In the sermon, Eric Bechler examines the Nicene Creed in the context of its historical and theological significance. The Nicene Creed, also known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, was established at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD to address Arianism, a heresy that questioned the deity of Christ. This creed is one of several foundational Christian statements of belief designed to clarify and defend orthodox teachings against false doctrines. Bechler explains that while creeds like the Nicene focus on summarizing essential Christian truths, confessions and catechisms offer more detailed doctrinal statements and instructional formats respectively. The sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding what Christians believe to effectively communicate and defend the faith. It details the creed’s structure, affirming belief in one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and the church's role. The sermon concludes with a call for Christians to engage deeply with creeds, confessions, and scripture to strengthen their faith and readiness to counter false teachings.

So we're going to deviate from the normal expository preaching today and take some time to look at the Nicene Creed. Actually, it would be more accurately labeled the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. It's a big word. I've done this in the past, and it's probably a good time to revisit it. Amazingly, this year is the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.

But before we start, let's have a word of prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this time that we could come to worship and just praise you and worship you. Lord, we thank you for this body, your body of Christ, Lord. We just thank you for each family, for each person. Lord, I pray that you would be with me as I share this creed and give some explanation.

Lord, it comes basically from your word that you give us. Lord, I just pray that you guide all I speak and say. Lord, we thank you so much for those in the past who have given everything, Lord, to stand for your truth, Lord, to defend your teaching, Lord, against the false teachings and heresies that continue to spring up even from the beginning. Lord, be with us and bless this time together. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Burnet Bible Church is a confessional church, which means we follow or adhere to a confession. For us, it's the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. The preaching and the teaching you'll hear in this church will be aligned to this confession. Now this doesn't mean that it replaces scripture, it only helps us focus on what scripture teaches. Every Sunday we focus on one paragraph of the Second London Baptist Confession and it takes a long time, about three and a half years to get through the whole thing, all 32 chapters, but I think it's worth our time to step by step go through that.

We need to know what we believe. We need to know what the Bible teaches. When we speak of membership in our church or covenanting, we require you to be in substantial agreement with the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession. Not 100% agreement, but a substantial agreement. We also require the agreement with the Nicene Creed.

Of course, since we discuss the confession every Sunday, we all have some at least some familiarity with it. But the Nicene Creed, I'm not sure how familiar everybody is with that. Some of you might not have looked at it or thought about it for years. Some churches recite it together each Sunday, or each Sunday they celebrate the Lord's table. We don't, and unless you're reciting it privately or going through it in your family worship, you probably aren't that familiar with it, which is why I want to bring it up today.

So we have two words here that I've used so far, confession and creed. What is the difference and is there a difference? Early on, the church wrote brief summaries of essential Christian truths, like the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed. The creeds of the Christian faith are condensed versions of who God is and the gracious things He has done for us. They're basic statements of belief, and they have been developed primarily for correcting or clarifying false teachings introduced into the church.

Augustine once defined a creed as a rule of faith, which is few in words but full in meaning. It wasn't until after the Reformation that the churches began to produce confessions, which present core doctrines of the scripture for a particular group, whether Presbyterians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed Baptists, et cetera. Creed's are statements that all Christians in all times and in all places can affirm and agree with. Put differently, confessions are statements about what we believe. And creeds are statements about in whom we believe.

As we're speaking of these things, I should not neglect to mention catechisms. In some cases, catechisms are simply the confession put into a question and answer format. And it's used to instruct believers in the teachings of scripture. So are creeds and confessions and catechisms important to us? I would say absolutely.

I think they're invaluable for keeping us grounded in God's word so that we may contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints, Jude 3. If we don't know what we believe as Christians, how can we declare God's truth with clarity and conviction to this wicked generation and to our confused world. They also act as guards to keep us from falling into heresy. Solomon tells us that there is nothing new under the sun, Ecclesiastes 1 verse 9, and this includes heresies. Many from the past either get repackaged or just reappear, and the creeds and confessions were usually written to address the theological mistakes or heresies of their time, mistakes that we could very easily slip into today.

So again, yes, they are important and should not be neglected. And if you have children using catechisms to instruct them in the basics of the Christian faith can be very helpful. Dr. Sproul suggests that one of the earliest creeds was the simple statement, Jesus is Lord. This came out of the context of a loyalty oath imposed by the Roman Empire.

Christians were required to say publicly, Kaiser Kurios, Caesar is Lord. The Christian church in the first century was quite willing to render civil obedience as much as they possibly could. But they balked on that statement, Kaiser Kurios, this is something they couldn't do. They said in response to that, Jesus ho kurios, Jesus is Lord. And we know how that turned out for many of them, but that's how they responded.

That's what they believed. We can find a number of creeds in scripture. Deuteronomy 6.4 has a classic creedal formula. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Also in Matthew 16-16 with Peter's confession, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

These are brief and only touch on certain parts of the Christian faith. But there are others throughout the Bible, such as 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 7, and Philippians 2, 6 through 11. The three most common creeds out there are the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed. In fact, in the front of the hymnal that we used, there's actually a copy of the Apostles' Creed. I didn't find the Nicene in there.

It would have been nice, but anyway. The Apostles' Creed shows up somewhere between the fourth and the eighth century. Some suggest it comes from an old Roman creed dating back possibly to the second century. It was written to address the challenge regarding Christ's humanity made by the Gnostics, the Marcionites, and later the Manichaeans. The Nicene Creed was originally written in 325 AD to address the Arian position challenging the deity of Christ.

The Athanasian Creed, by far the longest, was written in the fifth or sixth century and stressed the Trinity, wherein all The members of the Godhead are considered uncreated, co-eternal, and of the same substance. Our focus today, though, is just on the Nicene Creed. And we'll start with some historical context. In February 23rd, 303 AD, the great persecution began by the Roman emperor Diocletian. He was the 10th and worst of a series of, this was the 10th and worst of a series of persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire.

Churches were destroyed. Bibles and writings were destroyed. Christians were killed in untold numbers of in horrible ways. The goal was to completely eliminate Christianity from the Roman Empire. God had other plans though, and he rose up Constantine the Great, who took over the Roman Empire in AD 306, and later openly confessed Christianity in 312, and eventually made Christianity the official religion of the empire.

So leading up to the Council of Nicaea, most Christians had either personally experienced or had known someone who had personally experienced great tragedies and persecution. Christians took their faith seriously. Confessing Christ had been an act bringing great risk to the Christian and his or her family. In the early 300s AD, there was a man named Arius who was an elder of a church in Alexandria, Egypt, and he began a movement called Arianism, which held to the position that God the Father created or begot the Son. And then the Son in conjunction with the Father proceeded to create the world.

The result of this makes the Son a created being and thus not truly God, undermining Christ's deity. Arius' bishop in Alexandria was a man named Alexander. He made efforts to correct Arius' bad teachings and get him to renounce them. But he was unsuccessful and found that there was already a divide between the various elders throughout Egypt on this point. Arius, it seems, was a very persuasive man and spread his new teaching far and wide, to the point that the whole of the eastern half of the Roman Empire was involved in this debate over Christ's divinity.

The emperor Constantine became aware of this split and decided to do something, to call together a council of bishops, and his goal was peace in the empire rather than any theological orthodoxy. In AD 325, Constantine sent a letter to 1800 bishops throughout the Roman Empire to address a number of issues. He was concerned that disputes within the church might lead to disorder within the empire, even civil war. The items to be addressed were Arianism, the calculation of when to celebrate Easter, the militia schism, and 20 different church laws or cannons. Of these items the major dispute at the time came from the teachings of Arius.

He again denied Jesus was fully God. He could not conceive of a mediator other than a created being. The Son had no existence. He believed the Son had no existence before he was begotten. Thus he proposed there was a time before Christ was not.

Assuming the Son was a creature, he therefore could not be the same of the same substance of the uncreated God. He could only be called a God in a lower and improper sense. There are differing accounts of how many bishops attended but an estimate of about 318 is close. Upon arriving, more than 20 bishops were in support of Arius. After a month of debate, the profession of faith as written in the Nicene Creed was adopted by all but two of the bishops.

One of the attendees in the party of Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria, was Athanasius, a deacon. He later became Bishop of Alexandria. He spent the remainder of his life, close to five decades, leading the Orthodox position against Arianism, which unfortunately didn't disappear until after the Council of Nicaea. Didn't disappear after the Council of Nicaea. The Arian position actually still exists today and is accepted by the watch over society or the Jehovah Witnesses.

And there's also a similar movement that has popped up more recently on the on the eternal subordination of Christ. These are attacks on Christ's deity and should be repudiated. I'd like to read for you the resulting creed from 325. It's a little different than what we use today and are familiar with. In fact, it doesn't hardly even say anything about the Holy Spirit other than we believe in the Holy Spirit.

We also have some references of a curse at the end for those who don't believe it. We 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 the Father, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, 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 and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven. From there he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead and in the Holy Spirit. But those who say there was a time when he was not, and he was not before he was made, and he was made out of nothing, or he is of another substance or essence, or the Son of God is created or changeable or alterable, they are condemned by the holy Catholic and apostolic church." Of course, Emperor Constantine was thrilled.

He even held a feast after the council. He thought unity was achieved and the matter settled. Unfortunately, although Arius was excommunicated from the church, Arianism continued to spread even to the point where Constantine was convinced to ask the church in Alexandria to restore Arius back in fellowship. By then Athanasius was the bishop of Alexandria and he actually refused the emperor's request, which was a very dangerous position to take. Athanasius in his battle with Arius would be exiled five different times from Alexandria.

Eventually, Athanasius did not live to see the conclusion of the battle. He died in AD 373. There were other arguments besides the deity of Christ, such as a group denying the full humanity of Christ and another challenging the deity of the Holy Spirit. At this time, God raised another emperor, Theodosius I, who actually was brought up in the Orthodox faith. And he removed the Arians from any positions of authority and held another council eight years after Athanasius died.

This is called the Council of Constantinople in 381. While not as memorable as the Council of Nicaea, this council further expanded and clarified the language used to describe the Trinity, fully countered the Macedonianism and Apollinarianism movements, and subsequently brought Arianism to an end for a time. Now as a comparison I'd like to read what came out of the first council of Constantinople in 381 and you might notice the changes maybe that it now sounds much closer to what we use in the churches today. I'll also include the phileoque which is translated as and the son which was added by the first council of Toledo, not until 589 after that phrase where it says the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father with the phileoque, it's proceeded from the Father and the Son. This creed would be more accurately called, again, the Niceneo-Constance-Napolitan Creed.

We 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 the Father before all worlds, light from light, very God of very God. Begotten not made, 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 Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried. And the third day he rose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven and Sit at 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?

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeded from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets, and in one holy Catholic and apostolic church, who acknowledge one baptism for their mission of sins and look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. So quite a bit different. The second half is greatly expanded. Anyway, that's quite a bit of background, but I'd like to now go through the confession and touch on where some of this come from and a couple of points that are either controversial or could be confusing.

I'll be going through with a more modern version that's similar to what I just read, but a few more words are different. When we look at the Nicene Creed, we see four basic structures, belief in the Father, belief in the Son, belief in the Holy Spirit, and belief in the church. We'll begin with the first section focusing on God the Father. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. We begin with God, one God.

We believe in one God, not three and not as the Egyptians in the Bible who had several thousand deities, but one God. We derive this from scripture and there are many verses in the Bible supporting monotheism. The belief in one God. Hero Israel the Lord our God is one Lord. Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5.

I am the Lord and there is none else. Isaiah 45, 18. Well, who is this one God? We start with the first person of the Trinity, God the Father Almighty. Jesus throughout scripture calls God Father.

Jesus tells us, whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 10, 32. This tells us that God is a loving God, a loving Father active within his creation. Well our God, the Father, what did He do? The statement provides a summary of what God has done. He has made heaven and earth and all that is visible and invisible.

And that's pretty comprehensive and it comes straight from scripture. In our society, we're bombarded with the truth of evolution. It's become its own religion. However, the supporters of evolution are unable to come up with any idea where everything came from. The actual origin of all things.

There is the Big Bang Theory, but who lit the fuse? Who made the fuse? Who made the stuff that blew up? It still falls short. The Bible though opens up with God creating the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1.1.

In the New Testament, Paul tells us, for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him. Colossians 1.16. In the next section, we focus on the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. The first half of this section stresses the deity of Christ, specifically written to refute the heresy of Arianism. This part reads, and we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God, a very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made.

Arius taught that God the Son was God the Father's first creation. Leaning on Colossians 1.15, it says, Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature? If this is true then there is a time when Jesus was not. He therefore could not be of the same substance as the uncreated God, the Father. What trips up many or causes some confusion here is with the use of the word begotten.

In the Creed here it's used three different times. Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, and begotten not made. This word was chosen by the authors because this is the word we find in Scripture. In John 1, 14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father. No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him." John 1, 18.

We see this also in John 3, 16 and John 3, 18. Using the word begotten can cause confusion because we understand the word in human terms from which we have examples in our life. Beget or begotten from Noah Webster means to procreate as a father or sire, to generate as to beget a son, also to produce as an effect, to cause, to exist, to generate as luxury begets vice. Begotten means procreated or generated. Arius argued that the logos is not eternal.

God begat him and before he was begotten he did not exist. Athanasius would reply that the beginning of the logos was not an event in time, but an eternal relationship. God is outside of time. Alexander the bishop of Alexandria understood it this way. To beget is to cause someone to have one's nature or to cause someone to become equal with one's nature.

For example, a human father begets a son. The human father who begets had a beginning of existence. That is why the human who was begotten, the Son, had a beginning of existence also. If we apply this definition to an eternal being, it would be like this. The one who begets is eternal.

That is why He who is begotten is also eternal. Again, this is kind of hard to understand. But it will help you to remember that the terminology of begotten doesn't apply the same way to the father-son relationship in the Godhead as it does in a human father-son relationship. God the Son was begotten of God the Father. God the Son is one substance with the Father.

He's not inferior. He is fully God. Nor do we look at God the Son inferior just because we call him the Son. We shouldn't consider him inferior because He was begotten of the Father. Again, we can get so easily tripped up by applying human standards and conditions on God.

And to make the point stronger, the authors in the third instance of begotten included in the creed the phrase begotten, not made. There was no way around this phrase for the Arians. God did not create Jesus like the angels which were made. God the Son was begotten not made. Begotten before even time was created.

Begotten refers again to an eternal relationship rather than an event in time. Time is a relation between physical events and only has meaning in the context of the physical universe, not to the Godhead. This was the main phrase where the conflict was closed. Arius was clever at pulling out scriptures to counter many arguments. However, the bishops at the council decided that using the Greek term homo usios in the confession was the only way to contradict the Arianins and to stay true to scripture.

The trinity is three persons, excuse me, the Arianins could not come to accept that God the Son was fully God in the way God the Father was. This Greek word I read, homi-ousios, is the Greek word for being one substance. And I said, as I said, the Arians could not come to accept that God the Son was fully God in the same way God the Father was. The Trinity is three persons united in one substance. This meant that God the Son was of the same substance as God the Father.

He was fully God, not inferior. From the Gospel of John we read in John 10 verse 30, I and the Father are one and that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him. John 10 38. Paul also tells us, "'From in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, ' Colossians 2 9. And again from the Gospel of John, "'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, ' John 1 1.

Scripture tells us that God, the Son of God, was, excuse me, God the Son was God. There was never a time when the Son of God was not. If you know the Son, you know the Father, John 8, 19, John 10, 28 through 30. God the Son is the light of the world, John 1, 4 through 9. The Athanasians had several analogies that they applied to the father and the son being of the sum substance to try to help us better understand how that works.

First the father and son are one as the side of two eyes is one. Number two You could think of the C chord, the C, E, and G notes are all distinct notes, but joined together they form one chord. The sound is richer and more dynamic than had the notes been played individually. The third analogy is that that was used regarded light. Light is continuously streaming forth from the sun.

The rays of light are derived from the sun and not vice versa. But it's not the case that first the sun existed and afterwards the light. It's possible to imagine that the sun has always existed and emitted light. The light then is derived from the sun, but the light and the sun exist simultaneously throughout eternity. They are co-eternal, just so the sun exists because the Father exists.

But there was never a time before where the Father produced the Son. The analogy is further appropriate because we can know the Son only through the rays of light that it emits. To see the sunlight is to see the Sun. Just so Jesus says in John 14 9, he who has seen me has seen the Father. The second half of this section covers Christ's work of redemption, his humiliation, his exaltation.

And there's nothing here that I would consider to be controversial or difficult to understand. And each of these phrases have direct Scripture supporting them. I'll read briefly through it here who for us men and for our salvation John 3 16 and 17 Came down from heaven John 6 38 and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary Luke 1 27 and 35 Matthew 118 and was made man John 114 and Philippians 2 7 and he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, Matthew 27, 23 through 26, and suffered and was buried, Matthew 27, 50, 59 through 60. And the third day he rose again, Luke 18, 33, 24, 7, Acts 10, 40, according to the scriptures, 1 Corinthians 15, 4, and ascended into heaven, Mark 16, 19, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. Romans 8 34.

Mark 16 19. And he shall come again with glory to judge. John 5 22. Both the quick and the dead. Acts 10 42.

First Timothy 4 1. Whose kingdom shall have no end. Luke 1 33 in Revelation 11 15. Again, there's really nothing as Christians. We believe these things.

Direct reference to scripture. These are the basic tenets of the Christian faith, the Christian doctrine. These are what I would call the big rocks of our faith. Here again, although they're pretty straightforward, there could be some confusion with the oneness of God. If the son in his resurrected body is sitting at the right hand of the Father, maybe there's some confusion there.

As an established standard, the right hand is a place of honor and authority. When someone of rank places someone on his right hand, he gives him equal honor, equal dignity, and equal authority. God is actually exalting Jesus by placing him at his right hand. From Ephesians 1 19 through 21 we read, and What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us, word, who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion in every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come. The fact that Jesus was at the right hand of God was proof to his disciples that he indeed had gone to heaven.

He told them that he had to go away and would send his Holy Spirit, which was evidenced at Pentecost. The fact that Christ sits at the right hand of the Father indicates that the work of redemption has been completed. This brings us to our third section involving the Holy Spirit. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. There is some controversy here in the phrase, proceeds from the father and the son.

It is called the phileoque controversy. It is one of the disagreements that has kept the Eastern and Western churches apart. The Eastern Orthodox Churches support that the Spirit proceeds only from the Father. The Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches include and the Son, which is actually what the word phileoque translates to in English. In the agreed upon language in 381 AD, the sun was not included.

It was added following the third council of Toledo in 589, which was a council that unfortunately did not include any of the Eastern Orthodox churches, which is probably why it was added. The Eastern churches, while affirming the Trinity as three persons in one substance, tend to emphasize the threeness of the Trinity, the individual persons. The West tends to emphasize the unity of the Godhead. From the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, but let readers observe here that the Spirit is, without any distinction, called sometimes the Spirit of God the Father, and sometimes the Spirit of Christ. And this called not only because His wholefulness was poured on Christ as our mediator and head, so that from Him a portion might descend on each of us, but also because He is equally the Spirit of the Father and of the Son who have one essence and the same eternal divinity.

Support for the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son is found in several New Testament passages, notably in John 16, 13 through 15, where Christ says of the Holy Spirit, He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. It is urged that in the inner trinitarian relations, one person cannot take or receive anything from either of the others except by way of procession. Examples of this doctrine include Galatians 4-6 where the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son, Romans 8-9 the Spirit of Christ, Philippians 1-19 the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and several texts from the Gospel of John in sending the Holy Spirit by Jesus, John 14 16, chapter 15 26, and chapter 16 7. Eastern theologians emphasize the phrase proceeds from the Father explaining that it indicates the Spirit's unique origin. Western theologians meantime point to passages again such as John 16-7, but I tell you the truth, it is for your benefit that I go away.

Unless I go away, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you, underscoring Christ's involvement in the sending of the Holy Spirit. And finally, we move on to the last section of the Creed on the church. And we believe in the one holy Catholic and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the mission of sins, and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

Amen. The use of the word Catholic here means universal, not Roman Catholic, with the phrase apostolic church that refers to the church whose origins go back to the apostles themselves. Rome. Rome was one of the many regional centers that existed throughout the empire, others Alexandria, Antioch, there's others, all being relatively equal. And at this time in history there was no such organization as the Roman Catholic Church that we're familiar with today.

Any controversial doctrines that are held by that church today were not in existence at that point. The One Baptism here is not talking about water baptism, where it says, we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. The act of water baptism doesn't remit your sins. There's no power in the water. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit when He gives us a new heart, regenerates our heart through the baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire.

This is the one baptism referred to here. John the Baptist tells us, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." Matthew 311. We live in a fallen world. Our world is filled with lies and false teachings.

Our culture has rejected God and tried to remove all signs of Him. But we as Christians know the truth. We know where to find the truth and we look forward to Christ's return wherein the universe will be reconciled and Christ will reign forever and we will be with him. So what now? Now that you're a little more familiar with this creed, If you memorize it, perhaps it will help you to be more prepared to answer a question posed to you, what do you believe or who do you believe in?

And perhaps you could just read through the Nicene Creed every month or so and go over the beliefs with your family. A tremendous amount of effort was made to counter the false teachings of Arianism. Athanasius used his lifetime fighting this heresy. We as a church need to be picky about scripture and false teachings. We need to stand up and fight against false teachings.

When you hear something contrary to scripture, do you confront it? Do you know enough scripture to even recognize a false teaching? Sadly, most of us fall short. We need to spend more time in our Bibles learning the truth. We need to read our Bibles more.

We need to study our Bibles more. And perhaps also we can read through the Nicene Creed. We can read through the confession and read through the catechisms so that we might be ready to give an answer. Amen. You you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you