Christianity A-Z

Welcome everybody to a new series of podcasts. That we're doing as Cornerstone Church. My name is Tom Sweetman. I'm the assistant pastor here at the church and who have we got with us today? Introduce yourselves.

Well, I'm Pete Woodcock. I'm the pastor of Cornerstone Church. And I'm Ben Reed. I'm a training pastor here at the Church. Brilliant.

Thank you. And you may recognize our voices because we have done the corona chronicles up until now. So we did 2 2 long series of video devotionals where we worked our way through the book of Revelation and the book of Mark. And we want to keep providing content, but we've decided to do something a little bit different time in that we're not gonna be working our way through a book. We're gonna be working our way through the alphabet.

We're calling this You might be pleased to hear because won't be 89 episodes. Yeah. Although, don't overpromise, brother. You never know. So we're working our way through the alphabet.

Christianity a to z, and with each letter, we're gonna talk about a doctrine found in the bible which begins with that letter. So we're gonna be thinking about not just a particular book but but all that the bible says or loads of what the bible says about being a Christian, Christ, the nature of God, what it means to follow God, and so this is a really exciting series for us. And today, we're gonna be just doing something of an introduction into the series and talking about doctrine itself. Why should we bother with this series? You know, is this not just stuffy, and booky, and irrelevant isn't just belief enough.

I came across this with the word orthodoxy recently, actually, because orthodox like an even stuffy a word, isn't it? That sounds like in the cabinet of stuffy words. It's right at the bottom with everything mounted on top of it. But it's just it's actually it's it's Greek. The etymology is Greek, and it means correct thinking.

That's all it means. I sort of thought of a Russian Orthodox Christian Church with the big sort of roads and stuff on. Thought it was a Russian word. But it just means that means correct thinking. So yeah, we need to sort of throw off these associations we have with these words.

And doctor is 1 of them, as well. Yeah. And dogmatic as well is another word thing. Please, we've got bad reps these words, haven't they? Well, I mean, in 1 sense, you can change the word if it's sort of people are getting it wrong.

I mean, we're we're we're looking into the bible at how God has revealed himself. And how he reveals us. And so that's a wonderful thing, isn't it? It's revelation, really, isn't it? So it's gathering together the revelation of God or a subject that God has spoken on under under an a, a, b, a, or d.

That's what we're trying to do here. And you know, we're we're all interested in discovering and knowing more about all kinds of subjects and for for someone who purports to be a Christian, not to want to know more about the God that loves them. Is really very peculiar, isn't it? And or even who I am in God, you know, you get all these programs. Don't you, you know, finding out about the roots of people and who they are and, you know, and people are trying to find their his history, and are they does is their DNA take them back to, you know, being a viking or a Frenchman or something?

And so people are doing that sort of stuff all the time. Why on earth wouldn't we, as Christians, be interested in in what our savior has done and who he is, and I'm standing him more, and how he loves us more, and how so generous he is towards us. I think that's really helpful, because 1 of the reasons that people might recoil at the word doctrine is because because they don't understand that. So they would think it is just learning and bookie and filling your head with knowledge, whereas what we're talking about is a is a depth of relationship. Isn't it?

It's understanding a person, helping you to understand a person better? It is. And and there's nothing wrong in being a bit actually. I would like to challenge that a bit. I mean, you know, if if you're just going on experience, you're gonna be in massive trouble as a Christian.

And so why wouldn't you want to read and read experts and read people that have had experiences in the past of how they've worked out how can a God of love allow this to happen in my life? That's why wouldn't I want to be a bit bit more booky? And I want to challenge people and say, hey, come on. You you know, a bookie person is not a boring person. No.

It's quite the other way around, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Because they're they're gathering knowledge and Paul in colossians, I think, is quite interesting because he he he writes this at colossians, obviously, is is a in the bible that he's writing to this group of Christians. And and he he tells us his prayer, he says for this reason since the day we heard about you, and he's talking about the day that he heard about them coming to faith in Christ.

He says we never stop praying for you. We continually ask God, and this is what he asked God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all wisdom and understanding that the spirit gives so that we may live a life worthy of the lord and please him in every way bearing fruit in every good work growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all his power, and it goes on, and so he's saying this is like really important that you grow in, understand. You don't just become a Christian, I've done the deed. That's not No. That's what I love about Bunyan is John Bunyan who wrote that book, pilgrims Progress.

There is a progression. It's not pilgrims Stop. It's carrying on, working through understanding God, getting to a deeper knowledge of God, reading stuff, you know, learning learning through your failures -- Yeah. -- through brothers and sisters. That's that's the exciting journey, isn't it?

There's otherwise joy in that as well because we we we think we think of heading off at the beginning of a Christian I've got to learn all of this stuff and it feels like you're going back to university in some senses. Like, I've got to sit down, weekly, listen to these lectures. But there is the the joy of knowing God only increases as we know more about him. Yeah. So there's a there's the joy in in learning and and growing it's not sort of something like going to the gym where you have to psych yourself up and punish your body by doing something.

Mhmm. There's only good things. I I I actually love that. So you often I've I've answered a question from a young Christian that says, I I don't know, I don't understand, and it's like, brilliant. Yeah.

That's I wish I was in your position -- Yeah. -- because the joy of trying to get to grips with that and understand it. You've got that journey to go. It's fantastic. It's like watching you you you are jealous of people who haven't watched a film yet that absolutely love.

Haven't seen that twist. Yeah. Yeah. Because you just think, oh, you're gonna Yeah. You just wait until you get to this bit and you see that moment.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And the other illustration we were talking about before this is marriage, isn't it? So when you marry when you get married, you know, when me and Laura got married, You know, we said our vows, signed our papers.

I am no more married to her now than I was on that day. You know, I'm as married her now, but the whole inbuilt in marriage is the idea that you grow in the knowledge and the love of the other person. And it intimately relational. It would be a strange marriage, wouldn't it? Just to say, I do.

And then, to be totally uninterested in the person from then on and grow growing in them. I say I'm yeah. Or or or the adventurer that plants the flag on the on the new ground just puts the bag up and doesn't get onto the shore and say, hold on. Are they in mountains? What are the animals like?

You know, that's what adventurers do. You push forward and say, well, there's a funny looking I missed what they did in Australia, isn't it? And they discovered this, you know, duck bill platter that everybody thought was stitched together and made up because it's such a weird animal. Brilliant. So doctrine okay.

So doctrine is not boring. It's not stuffy. It's it's growing, it's biblical, it's the knowledge of God. Can you brothers think of a time, just thinking practically, when when some doctrine that you've known or learned has been has been just really helpful for you in your Christian life. So I'm thinking, you know, maybe a time of suffering that you've been through and and it's because you've known doctrine or a ministry failure.

I'm thinking, you know, if something has been really discouraging in church, it's because of a doctrine. That the law has helped you. Can you think of any Well, I was thinking slightly different to that, but we could come onto that. My immediate thing was when I was first Christian, and didn't really understand justification by faith alone. There's a word, isn't it?

I mean, you know, what does that mean? And and I thought it was more down to, you know, my works and and I didn't understand that fully and I was failing as a Christian. You know, all the time and I was thinking, I'm not a Christian. I can't be a Christian by the way I'm living my life by falling in that area again. And then I read, you know, a hefty book on justification by faith alone.

And it was hard work for me in those days, because I wasn't a natural reader, but it liberated me. You know, that doctrine completely liberated me. To realize that it's what he's done, not what I do. Mhmm. And and therefore, I want to love him and serve him and do all I can for him.

But my relationship is based on what he's done for me. And, yeah, that So you were a Christian at that point? I was definitely a Christian. But it was the growth in that doctrine. When I understood the doctrine -- Yeah.

-- by reading and thinking about him, looking more into scripture. It's Romans chapter 5, actually. Romans to 3 to 5 that really just hit me, then it helped me grow, brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah.

I remember Christians standing up and speak about their depression and saying that the doctrine of God's sovereignty and the doctrine of God's goodness means that in my suffering, he is working something good out in me even during this time. Because we can often think of god as as being distant and far from us in times of suffering, and and we think, God, why have you abandoned me? Mhmm. And if you have the doctrine that God is still at work in you, even in suffering, then it it brings a a huge measure of comfort to what you're going through -- Mhmm. -- and actually gratitude in some sense because you Thank you that you were gonna bear fruit out of this rubbish situation.

Mhmm. And 1 day I will glorify you. Mhmm. That's such a good 1, isn't it? Because You don't have to.

In order to be a Christian, you don't need to know that. But in order to survive periods of suffering, that is just liberating. That that is necessary knowledge, isn't it? That God is good, that God is sovereign, that he is working for your good? Those are truths that are just essential learn about God to survive life, aren't they?

And so doctrine is very practical. It's very practical. Yes. Because because what's it also doing it's replacing the world's thinking, which is massively in error. And you don't quite realize that, until you hear God's revelation.

Yeah. Yeah. And as you hear God's revelation, it it pushes out the errors that we so falsely believe So that's the way to grow, isn't it? If you're going to go, the the areas of the world are ginormous when we deserve. There's something in us that deserves to be rewarded for the good people that we aren't.

And then of course when suffering comes, you're totally confused because it's a false doctrine. And so when the true doctrines are being implanted in you, you're washing out the errors as well. And that's so important. That is so important. And that's that's good, isn't it?

Because it's not like if I don't study God and the bible, nothing else will take its place. Will always be growing in some doctrine. Yes. It's just the doctrine of the world, or are we, as you say, having the truth of Christ replacing -- Yeah. -- the world's teaching?

So And and it and it's what it's it's what Christ says about his word with that very simple, but beautiful illustration of building a house on sand and building a house on rock. Mhmm. Presumably, the the house built on sand is easier to build, and it looks good and it's by the beach. And it looks like the 1 that you would want to to live in because you're it's a beach house, isn't it? It's wonderful.

But the 1 on the rock where you to dig down and put found you know, it's hard to work -- Mhmm. -- to build and he's not on the beach. So therefore, it doesn't quite look Sounds wonderful. Well, you you don't like the beach. But, you know, that that is going to stand.

And he talks about the, you know, when the storms come. And and and if you don't think storms are gonna come in your life, then you've followed the foolishness of the world. Brilliant. So there we go. That's where we're going with our new series.

I hope that's given a whole load of good reasons to tune in. Not just to learn more but also to rejoice more in the God who has revealed these things to us.