I Believe

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

“I believe.”
“I believe” starts to draw a line in the sand. You’re demarcating what it is you believe and what it is you don’t believe. But that statement in and of itself — “I believe” — can be a pretty empty statement. You can be like Ted Lasso: put a sign up that just says Believe. And whenever anybody has a question or a disheartening moment, you just point: “Believe.” Believe. Believe what? It doesn’t say. Believe in yourself? Believe that you can overcome? That the team could be greater? It’s ambiguous on purpose.

Or you can have one of the platitudes that is rife in our culture. There was a song when I was young — or younger — “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.” Just listen to the rhythm of my heart. There’s a chance we can make it now. We’ll be running till the sun goes down. Well, I believe in a thing called love. Who doesn’t believe in a thing called love? That’s just an empty platitude. Makes a catchy song, though.

Well, if somebody asked a Christian what it is that they believe, for us Lutherans there should be a pretty quick reply to that:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;

and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

In less than 90 seconds, you’ve summarized the entire Christian faith as it is taught to us, as it is handed down by the apostles, as the Bible (God’s Word) gives it to us. It doesn’t take that long. But in that one little statement, you have drawn a deep line in the sand.

I don’t believe that we’re here by accident. I believe that God has created me and all creatures. And not only that, He sustains life. He gives the things that we need for life: good government, clothing, food, shelter, family, spouse, children, jobs. We call these First Article gifts because they come from the first article of the Creed. So that very first statement has made a very big difference.

I reject most of what the world teaches. I reject that we are here by some cosmological accident or some freak of nature. I believe that we’re here on purpose, and that there is a Creator, that there is a God who created me on purpose. That I’m not an accident, but that I’m valued and I’m loved.

And how do I know that I’m valued and I’m loved? Not only am I created, but I believe that God Himself came in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. That this Jesus was real, not a figment of imagination, not just spiritual, not God far off, but God getting His fingernails dirty. And He came. And why did He come? He came for me. He came for you. He came for all of mankind, all people everywhere.

He came,
and He suffered,
and He died,
and He rose again,
and He ascended into heaven,
and He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

What does that mean? The right hand of God is the saving hand of God. It’s the mighty hand of God. It’s the powerful hand of God. Jesus came not to condemn the world, but to save the world. That is the natural work of God. And so I know that not only am I created, I am loved.

And God doesn’t abandon us.

Jesus doesn’t just stay up there in heaven, but the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, as they have done since the beginning. They send the Holy Spirit. And what does the Holy Spirit do? He convicts me of my sins. He shows God’s Law in black and white right in front of me, and I am undone. “Woe is me. I am a sinner.” To quote Isaiah: “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.” And that “woe” means “I am dead. I’m about to be out of existence.”

But the Holy Spirit doesn’t just convict me of my sins. He points me to Jesus Christ. He points me to the cross. And He gives me faith to believe that Jesus died for me, that the forgiveness on the cross, the blood of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, was poured out for me. And through that terror over sin, and the holding on in faith to Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins is given to me through the Holy Spirit.

And this happens through the preaching of the Word. This happens through the administration of Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, and Confession and Absolution. The Holy Spirit works as God says He does, through means, through people, through His sacraments. And this Holy Spirit conveys this forgiveness, both conviction and forgiveness, out into the world so that all might be called to faith, so that all might believe, that all might be saved, that all might have salvation in Jesus’ name.

And He brings me into a community.

See, this world tries to atomize us — isolate us. It wants us on our phones all the time. It wants us angry at our neighbors all the time, angry at our own family all the time. It wants us locked in a closet, mad at the world, and so, so lonely. But the Holy Spirit brings us into the community, the Church. Church comes from ekklesia, literally “group.” He brings us into the group of other Christians who are also forgiven, who have also been convicted of their sin, and who hold on in faith to Jesus Christ.

And this Holy Spirit, by giving me this faith, conveys the love of Jesus Christ. And I stop hating my neighbor. And I come out of that closet, and I see people through the eyes of love. I see people through the eyes of forgiveness.

Yes, I still proclaim the truth. Nobody is saying don’t proclaim the truth. We need to proclaim the truth. There is good and evil in this world. And evil is destroying this world. It is killing people. And the evil in my heart is killing me, and it’s killing my neighbors. And the evil in their heart is killing them, and it’s killing me.

But there is something greater than that evil: Jesus Christ.

And so the Holy Spirit brings me and all believers into that holy communion. And not just in this time, in this place, not just here at Christ Lutheran Church in Mustang, Oklahoma, in the year of our Lord 2026 on May 31st, but to Christians around the world on May 31st, 2026, and the Christians that have come all the way before, going all the way back to Adam and Eve, the first believers, and extending out into the future until Christ returns.

This holy, sacred communion, this community, the Holy Spirit has brought me into. And the promise just gets better, because the Holy Spirit doesn’t just leave me here, which is good enough already. My sins are forgiven, and I have a family now. A family built on love. A family built on this same belief: that we are sinners and yet we are saved by grace through faith, and this is not our own doing but is a work of God.

But the Spirit also, on the last day, will raise me and all to the resurrection. And Christians will live with God in eternity in the New Jerusalem.

That’s a lot for under 90 seconds. And we haven’t even touched on all of it. It’s a multi‑day explanation and confirmation to go through each individual part of the Creed and what it means. And where does the Creed come from? We didn’t just make it up, it summarizes the teaching of the apostles. That’s why it’s called the Apostles’ Creed.

Well, what are the teachings of the apostles? Open up God’s Word. There is the teaching of the apostles. There is what the Holy Spirit has conveyed to us since the beginning of time. This is what we need to know. This is what is important for salvation: that God created everything; man brought sin into the world; God gave an answer for sin and rescues us from it; and God will come again. And until He comes again, and even after He comes again, the Holy Spirit goes out into the world, calling all to God.

This distinguishes us from the rest of the world. We don’t necessarily wear different clothes, have different haircuts, wear earrings or don’t wear earrings, wear makeup or don’t wear makeup. We don’t eat certain foods or avoid certain foods. That is not what distinguishes our faith. In a lot of other religions, that is what distinguishes you, because it’s a work of righteousness. You distinguish yourself by what you eat, what you don’t eat, what you wear, what you don’t wear. There are strict laws and observances for that.

But what does Christianity say? “Do not call unclean what I have made clean.” Christianity says: Believe. That’s the hallmark of faith. And when you believe, what will distinguish you from the world? The love of Jesus Christ. The love of neighbor. That you approach the world through the forgiveness of sins, the forgiveness you were given, and the forgiveness won on the cross for the whole world. Your speech will be different. Your clothing might look different, maybe a little more modest. Your life will be different. For you won’t live for yourself. You won’t live to just check off a list of rules. You’ll live for God and for your neighbor.

And even your thoughts will be different. And you’ll hold on to something that is true because it is the truth. And so there’s not just an outward glaring neon sign that says, “This person is a Christian.” I mean, some of us, we have our signs like crosses and clerical collars, but when you wear these signs, they are expected to be accompanied by the words, the thoughts, and the actions of what a Christian is.

What happens when we don’t do that? What happens when we fail? What happens when we sit there and say, “I believe this,” but I live like this, when there is the accusation of “hypocrite”?

The answer is: yes, I am a hypocrite. I am a Christian who is a sinner saved by grace. I still sin. You still sin. Everybody in the world sins. Babies sin. Hundred‑year‑old people sin.

But it’s not the sin that defines me. It is the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the Spirit that resides in me, the higher calling that I have. And knowing that I have the forgiveness of sins, that I’m going to be convicted of my sin (and I need to be convicted of my sin), but I’m going to hold on to the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And nothing, no power on earth, not even Satan himself, can take that from me. Nothing can take Jesus Christ from me. Nothing can take your Savior from you. And nothing can take you out of the hand of the Father.

That’s the mark of a Christian. Not that I’m perfect, but that I rely on the Perfect One. And that even though I mess up, because I will, I repent, and I hold on to the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

We say some sort of confession of faith every single Sunday. It might be literally one of the creeds, the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, or like this Sunday, the Athanasian Creed, or when we do our Matins service, in the Venite and the Benedictus or the Te Deum, where we sing what God has done. We confess who God is.

Our life as Christians revolves around confessing who God is, because we confess that God is the Savior of the world.

Let not these be empty words for you today. Don’t let it just be rote recitation because you memorized it a long, long time ago, or you’re working on memorizing it now. But dwell on these words as you say them. Dwell on these words this week.

Ponder your faith and what it means for you — what it looks like to live it out — what it means to be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Don’t just simply say, “I believe,” but also think about, “I do.”