Preaching the Statement of Faith
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone. And welcome to the Mark Prater podcast for our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. A few podcasts back, you talked about how Covenant Fellowship is preaching through the new Statement of Faith. And I'm thrilled because you're coming this Sunday to my church to preach a sermon on the doctrine of Jesus Christ that you preached at Covenant Fellowship. And so, continuing to find ways to press the Statement of Faith down into our churches. Why don't you tell us about what you were talking about in that sermon and in that section of the Statement of Faith.
Mark Prater:
In that sermon, one of the things I wanted to do was to stir a desire in the members of our church to read the Statement of Faith. And not just read it. There are actually sections of the Statement of Faith that actually preach, in my opinion anyway. And so I just preached that section as a part of my sermon. So let me just give you one example under the saving work of Jesus Christ and the subtitle is the humiliation of Christ and his saving work. Listen to this:
“In his substitutionary death on behalf of his people, Christ offered himself by the Spirit as a perfect sacrifice, which satisfied the demands of God’s law by paying the full penalty for their sins. On the cross, Christ bore our sins, took our punishment, propitiated God’s wrath against us [and I explained that means he appeased God's wrath on our behalf], vindicated God's righteousness [and by doing so, we are imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ], and purchased our redemption in order that we might be reconciled to God and live with him in blessed fellowship forever.”
That section preaches.
Benjamin Kreps:
That's good news.
Mark Prater:
That's really good news. We'll take it right? Especially right now. And you know, one of the things that we've talked about historically in Sovereign Grace because of the influence of Jerry Bridges and the leadership of C.J. is to preach the gospel to yourself daily.
Benjamin Kreps:
Right.
Mark Prater:
And we have to recognize as pastors that we could lose that in the next generation or two if we're not intentional to hold out that practice. And so, the Statement of Faith is one way—and that section I would commend to our members to read as a means to preach the gospel to yourself daily—it's just one practice for us to remain gospel centered in all that we do. But that section preaches.
Benjamin Kreps:
Yeah, that's helpful. I can't wait to hear you preach it this Sunday. And I also appreciate what you guys modeled—Covenant Fellowship—you guys it got off Amazon. You can order the Statement of Faith. It's $4.50. It comes in a couple of days if you have Prime. And we, like you, ordered a copy for every family in the church to distribute so that we can get it into the hands of people to have in their homes and to read. There's something else that you're doing as well with the Statement of Faith at Covenant Fellowship that I think is helpful.
Mark Prater:
Yeah. This is an idea that I had and carried out and just want to mention it to our guys who are listening just for their consideration. There's a group of folks at Covenant Fellowship who have the gift of prophecy that I meet with quarterly. And I've been doing that for about 15 years now, which has been one of the joys of my responsibility as a local elder. So, I took them through sections of the Editors’ Edition on the person in the work of the Holy Spirit. And there's some sections I wanted to point out to them that I just want to point out to our guys. This section and these two subsections are under the major section, The Empowering Ministry of the Spirit. And the first subsection is the Filling of the Spirit. And I wanted to draw attention to that for a couple of reasons.
I'm going to read the footnote. So, if you guys aren't reading footnotes in the Editors’ Edition, please do. It's just so rich. So, under the Filling of the Spirit, the footnote says: “… the Spirit’s powerful work not only marks the inauguration of the church age but characterizes it.” So we're being very clear. We want the work of the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit to characterize who we are as a family of churches. And it goes on to say: “The important role of the filling of the Spirit is then stressed, noting both the availability and importance of this experience for all believers.” This is so good. “This paragraph gives a general description of what it means to be filled with the Spirit and also celebrates the fruit of this filling. It should also be noted that this section does not dictate a particular position on the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit.’”
And the footnote is written in a way that allows our pastors to hold different views in that area. So, some guys might hold a Pentecostal charismatic view of a second experience with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Many of our guys hold the third wave view where, obviously, when we're indwelt with the Spirit, we are filled with the Spirit. Both views agree we need to continue to be filled. So it just allows for that. And I wanted the members of our church to know that a particular theological category and the room for different views there.
And then I took them through a part of the footnote under the Gifts of the Spirit. And I did this because at times as Executive Director, I hear, or I get asked this question is probably better way to say it: Are we losing our continuationist conviction as a family of churches?
And this statement is very clear: Oh, no, we're not! If anything, we want to continue to pursue those with even greater passion. So, in the footnote for the Gifts of the Spirit—this is footnote 369: “The importance of the spiritual gifts in the New Testament, our own continuationist convictions, and the confusion that often surrounds the gifts all warrant this subsection on the guests.” So, we're devoting a subsection on the gifts because we think it's important. “[This] paragraph begins by placing the gifts in a biblical context as aspects of Christ’s care for his church. Such a context preserves a Christ-centeredness relative to the gifts as well as an appropriate appreciation for them.” So, we're saying we're not going to put this over-emphasis on the gifts. The gifts exist to continue the work of the gospel as Christ cares for his church. And then it goes on to say: “The next sentence picks up on key New Testament teachings on the gifts, including their variety and role of promoting interdependence among the members of Christ’s body.”
So, we're in this age right now where we’re so vulnerable to division. But when a church uses their gifts together, it actually promotes unity. Just one other thing from this subsection: “Finally, given the prevalence of what might be termed a functional cessationism among theological theological continuationists, and the popularity of an “open but cautious” posture towards some of the gifts, this statement explicitly asserts the biblical mandate not simply to affirm but to earnestly desire the full range of spiritual gifts.” So, I wanted the members of the folks on this team that I work with to know our desires as a denomination to truly be continuationists not in theological understanding only, but in practice as well. And it's an idea that you can consider for ways to strengthen the members of your church.
Benjamin Kreps:
Absolutely. And speaking of unity, I mean, Paul says pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, which I take to mean that earnestly desiring spiritual gifts is part of how we love each other. And we pursue love in this, in this fractured season. Well, this Statement of Faith is a gift to our family of churches. It preaches, and it's a gift to steward. And so thanks for sharing some thoughts about how we can further use the Statement of Faith to serve our churches. Thank you everybody for watching. We'll see here soon. Bye for now.