I wrote the following with my congregation in mind. It is my own faith statement within the
context of a format provided by Dr. Bill Hoyt, a church consultant who has been
guiding my congregation through a difficult time. It is not intended to replace or subvert The Apostles’
Creed, The Nicene Creed, or The Athanasian Creed. Indeed, I hold all three of those creeds in the highest
esteem, and believe their words without reservation or qualification of any
sort. If anything, my 21st
Century Lutheran Creed is simply another layer that might be common only to me,
but it is true in every respect according to my own walk and talk with the
Lord. If it helps any reader
in any way, then I wrote it for you; it was given to me to give to you, so be
blessed as the Holy Spirit gives you blessing. Go in peace.
Serve the Lord.
Steven A. Sylwester
* * *
21st Century Lutheran Creed
As believers in God, we are each of us born alone as
individuals: first, biologically into a human family, and then, second,
spiritually through Holy Baptism into the Invisible Church that is God’s family
that includes all fellow believers at all times past, present, and future. Though each of us born biologically
will someday die a physical death, none of us who are born again spiritually
who continue to live in the Lord will ever die a spiritual death. Instead, we will each of us join the
company of saints and angels in Heaven who live with God in eternal life.
Now, during our earthly lifetime, we — all of us — must
contend with sin, for the Bible tells us in Romans 3:23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God.” We are sinners.
Each of us has eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
that is in the midst of our own garden — our own life. And so we sin: we miss the mark of
perfection and we fall short of the glory of God. The Bible tells us in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
We are spiritual beings living in mortal physical bodies
during our lifetime on Earth. The
greatest reality even now is the eternal spiritual reality. The lesser reality is the temporary
physical reality: our material world.
Because our earthly consciousness is often blind and deaf to the greater
reality all around us and within us, we pray for the blessing of eyes to see
and ears to hear the glory of the Presence of God.
We have been led by the Holy Spirit to become Christians,
and our path is along the way of Jesus found by Martin Luther in Holy
Scripture. Luther described the
path as: “Scripture Alone. Grace Alone.
Faith Alone.” The key passage
is Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is
not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not
the result of works, so that no one may boast.” What then is salvation? Jesus told us in John 3:16: “For God so loved the
world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not
perish but may have eternal life.” Then Jesus told us in John 14:6-7: “I am the way, and
the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you
will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Jesus is God.
Though Heaven awaits all
believers, all believers must first live a lifetime on Earth. The “blasphemy” for which Jesus was
crucified was that He forgave sins; He did something only God could do. In dying on the cross and then
resurrecting to life, Jesus won victory over death for all of us, and then He
gave us — each of us, all of us — the power to forgive sins. He completed His task, for if humans
were to be like God in having the knowledge of good and evil, then they also
must be like God in having the power to forgive sins. But will we do it?
Do we do it? Do we exercise
the right to forgive sins that Jesus won for us through His death and
resurrection? In teaching His
disciples to pray The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray in Luke 11:4: “And forgive us our
sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” And yet we
sin, and our greatest sin is that we often do not and sometimes will not
forgive others. In the Sermon on
the Mount, Jesus said in Matthew 5:48: “Be perfect,
therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” God help us. Amen
The Bible tells us in Ephesians
2:10: “For we are what he has
made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand
to be our way of life.” James,
the brother of Jesus and the leader of the church in Jerusalem, wrote in James
2:17,26: “So faith by itself, if
it has no works, is dead. … For just as the body without the spirit is
dead, so faith without works is also dead.” That is the Lutheran “faith and works” conundrum, and it is
best answered by Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O
mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord
require of you but to do justice, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
We believe God is One: an Eternal
Being of Light, Love, and Spirit who we know as Father (our Abba), Son (our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit (our Advocate). God is ever present and hears our
prayers, even our groaning and the cries of our sorrows. Therefore, we strive to be faithful and
hopeful and trusting as we pray: “Thy will be done. Amen”
We believe God the Father is the One
Eternal Light and the Creator of and Provider for life and all things seen and
unseen — the very Source and very Essence of all that ever was, is, or will
be. Therefore, we strive to be
humble, to always know ourselves as created beings, and to fear, love, and
trust in God above all things.
We believe God became True Man in
Jesus and that Jesus is the Light of the world, the Word, and the Christ: the
promised Messiah prophesied in Holy Scripture. Through Jesus came grace and truth, and also the new
commandment to “love one another as I
have loved you.” Therefore, we
strive to remember Jesus in all of our doings: to give the Gospel freely, to
bless, and to forgive always, even our enemies; and to love each other in God’s
Peace as our Christian witness to the world.
We believe God the Holy Spirit is
the Light of our souls and the gatherer of the faithful, who forms, guides,
inspires, and enlightens the Church on Earth. The Holy Spirit is always everywhere present, is the Voice and
Power of God, and is alone the Presence of God who can make things holy in our
world. Therefore, we strive to be
ever listening, ever watching, and ever open for the Holy Spirit to teach us,
to show us, and to change us according to God’s will.
We believe the Bible is inspired by
the Holy Spirit and is therefore the inerrant Word of God, that it tells a true
story and the actual history of Immanuel (God is with us), and that it reveals
what we need to know to know God and to speak of God to others. Through the Bible’s teachings, the Holy
Spirit instructs us in our faith and guides us in our doings within the Church
and with the outside world. The Bible
is holy and is our Ark of the Covenant; it is where the Gospel is treasured and
accessed. Therefore, we strive to
read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the teachings of the Bible through daily
study, both by ourselves in personal meditations and with each other in group
studies under the tutelage of pastors or blessed teachers, so that we might be
better able and more confident to speak to others of our hope in Jesus.
We believe the Church is the Family
of God, the Body of Christ, and the Flame of the Holy Spirit in that it is the
children of God revealing Jesus to the world through the gifts and the weapons of
the Holy Spirit, in choruses sung out gloriously, in the precious quiet of
solitary kindnesses, and in the courage of martyrs who would not deny the Lord,
even unto death. Everyone
counts. Everyone has something to
offer. Everyone is blessed to be a
blessing. Therefore, we strive to
be courageous, to not shirk, to join together, and to reach out as we can as we
walk humbly with God.
We believe worship is a duty, a
pleasure, a joy, and a revelation: it is the stillness from which we can know
God, an opportunity for giving thanks and praise, an opportunity for receiving blessings
and forgiveness through Word and Sacraments, and the blessed moments created
when two or three are gathered in the Name of Jesus when He makes His Presence
known in our midst. O that we
would be worshiping always — praying without ceasing! Therefore, we strive to live our lives as a liturgy to the
Lord, to regularly gather together as a congregation in worship, and to come
before the Lord with clean hearts and right spirits if we can, but too with
broken and contrite spirits if we must, for the Lord will meet us as we are and
then make us to be all that we can be to His glory. Hallelujah!
We believe prayer is what ultimately
separates belief from unbelief; it is the measure of faith, for no one who does
not believe in angels and miracles — who does not see the Hand of God in human
events and in their own life — can ever have that faith that will move
mountains. A life of prayer is a
life lived asking, seeking, and knocking and also a life lived in silence and
stillness and waiting on the Lord; it is a life lived swimming in the living
waters in which the peace that passes all human understanding flows. Therefore, we strive to pray, praise, and
give thanks at all times in all places in all that we do in thought, word, and
deed, so that our walk with God would be a talk with God and at long last we
might learn to listen and thereby let the Light of God shine from within us
uninterrupted.
What is Love? What is this everything that is God,
this everything that is to bind us and be our witness to the world, this
everything that is the stuff of grace and truth? Love is spiritual energy that functions as the force of harmonious
interactions in all things material and immaterial; it is the unifying
principle of all temporal and eternal life; it is the essence of consciousness
and the very substance of Heaven and Earth such that Holy Scripture tells us:
“God is Love.” — Steven A. Sylwester (words from a dream in the morning of October 28, 2012)
And so we will welcome strangers and
angels to be among us with these words: Jesus Christ is Lord at
Central Lutheran Church: a house of prayer and worship, and a place of
Christian fellowship and learning. We welcome all who want to join us as
we serve our Lord with gladness.
If
any congregation of believers must have a slogan
beyond “Jesus Christ is Lord,” it
should be the words spoken by Job: “I
know that my Redeemer lives,” which are found at the heart of Job 19:23-27:
O that my words were written down! O
that they were inscribed in a book!
O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
If any
congregation of believers must have a Mission Statement, let it be Matthew
28:18-20: And
Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching
them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you
always, to the end of the age.” Amen
Yes,
let it be a prayer, and let it end with “Amen.” If we are ever to teach others to obey everything that Jesus
has commanded us, we must start by being the first to obey those commands; we
must set an example pure, and we must make it a prayer.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Steven
A. Sylwester
