St Andrew’s Church is a place of comings and goings. Some of our members have called Hong Kong home for all their lives, while there are also plenty for whom this city is a home away from home. We are so glad to be able to welcome and greet newcomers throughout the year, and especially at the start of a new academic year when many are looking for a spiritual home.
Today, we start a new sermon series looking at what we believe, the core foundations upon which we build this Christian community. These Christian principles may be very familiar to us, in which case this will be a good refresher, because our hearts are naturally prone to wander away from the truth revealed in Jesus Christ. It may be that this series is a helpful introduction to St Andrew’s as you think about whether to make this your church family. One way or another, our hope is that over these next couple of months, we’ll have our hearts drawn back again to these beautiful truths of the Apostles’ Creed.
What we believe affects how we live
A creed is a statement of belief: a way of summarising the core truths Christians confess together. We do not know for certain what the origins of the Apostles’ Creed are. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it was widely used from a very early time after the Apostles. Ever since that time, these words have been understood to represent a faithful summary of the Bible’s teaching on who God is and what he has done in human history. In these familiar words, we have a clear outline of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one God who created the world, redeemed for himself a beloved people, and who will renew all things when Jesus returns as Saviour, King, and Judge.
The command in Colossians 3:2 to ‘set your mind on things above’ is not just a one-off action. It is a continual and ongoing posture we are to have towards Jesus, who is the truth revealed in the Bible. The subsequent verses in that chapter also show us how our beliefs are more than simply a set of ideas that are held in the mind. What we believe affects how we live. The core truths that shape our thinking also feed into the many choices we make in everyday life.
As we reflect together on these foundational Christian truths, our prayer is that our lives would be transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus. Our longing is that by the work of the Holy Spirit, we would become the sort of community described in our vision statement: a community devoted to Jesus Christ, who share his gospel, calling on people to follow him, and seek the flourishing of Hong Kong.
