Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. So today we're going to be looking at that we're in the fourth week of the Apostles' Creed and it's kind of an exciting one because we're in the story of Jesus and what he was all about. That's the majority of the Creed is just about simply Jesus and we're going to get to that. And the text we're using today is from the Gospel of John, the beginning of that Gospel. John 1, but we're going to start at verse 9 through 18. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glorious of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known. So here we are in week four, but I'm going to summarize a little of where we've been just to get everyone up to snuff. So we are studying the apostles' creed and we started out in week one with, I believe, I believe, not I know. And that's a huge difference. It's not about knowledge in the head, but trust in the heart and where you can rest your whole lives on this creed. It is the foundation of everything, the foundation of our lives, I believe. And that's what we're excited about. The fact that we can rely on this God and this God makes me who I am. He is my identity. My relationship with him gives me everything. In two weeks ago, we spoke about then, I believe in God, the father almighty creator of heaven and earth. And we said, God is infinitely powerful and beyond our comprehension. And yet we see again and again, the scriptures, how intensely personal and fatherly he is. And keeping those two things together is so important to have clarity, balance and belonging. And we understand whose we are then. And last week we got into, and in Jesus Christ is only son, our Lord. And just that simple phrase and taking each word through it and just how much power there is in each of those names and words of God. And the fact that Jesus is that foundation on which we can build our whole lives, the cornerstone and everything else is building on a sinkhole. And we know what that's like in Florida. It's going to cave in at some point in time, but Jesus is a rock shore for us. And now we're going to be filling out that last phrase. Now the apostles creed, as I said, is over 1500 years old. It has been confessed by the ancient church to the modern church by 2 billion people throughout this world today in one form or another, it becomes the foundation, the seminal work that we have, not because the creed itself is something, but the, the, all the scriptures, the story of God, the gospel is behind it. And what the church has always done from its inception to the present is to do two things when it confesses the apostles creed. And I said, we, first of all, denounce, deny, reject the narratives of our culture, whatever that culture is at every time you can study it through history. There were different things to reject. For instance, in the early church, it was the idea of the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome as if there was peace through Rome. It didn't come from that. And to reject that Caesar is Lord, no, Jesus is Lord. They rejected the, the teachings of that time and period. And we do that today as well. And then they also pledge allegiance to this one God, father, son, and Holy spirit, who has weaved himself throughout our entire lives, who created, who redeems, who makes us Holy calls us his very own and keeps working in our lives. So they do those two things. So when we have stood or when we confess, or when we teach on this creed, we're doing the same things today. We are actually denying or rejecting the narratives of our culture. And one of them is individualism and individualism in one form or another is basically saying, I'm going to fix it. I'm going to do it. I've got all the goods. I get to define my life, my way, and what I want is what I want. And that's what I should get, right? And we reject that. We pledge our allegiance to the God of the gospel. Instead, we also reject another form instead of just individualism, but nationalism. That is where we reject that the values of any nation become our values as if that's going to solve everything t...