Bart Byl on 1 Corinthians 2.

Series: The Nicene Creed

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” Truth itself is inert and lifeless until the Holy Spirit moves upon us. He is the Gift and Giver, sent by the Father through the Son to help us understand and enjoy all that is ours by grace. Our greatest need is for his presence and power.

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Bart Byl on Psalm 9.

Series: The Nicene Creed

We live in a world that cries out for justice. Moral seriousness requires retribution for evil. Christ is the judge whom God has appointed to set right what has gone wrong — to name and destroy evil, and to usher in a kingdom of justice, peace, and joy. 

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Bart Byl on Psalm 110.

Series: The Nicene Creed

Jesus is not only risen from the dead. He has been glorified and exalted to the place of supreme power and authority. In the words of the Nicene Creed, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” Christ is the king, armed with authority to save us to the uttermost. He exercises supreme, total, and cosmic jurisdiction. When we struggle here below, it is a profound comfort to lift our eyes and see the one who died for us in command of all things.

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Bart Byl on Psalm 68.

Series: The Nicene Creed

When God fights and conquers evil, the lowly sing songs of joy. When we confess, with the Nicene Creed, that “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father,” we are chanting the saga of the Son of God who went forth to slay the three-headed monster of Sin, Satan and Death. 

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Bart Byl on John 19.

Series: The Nicene Creed

This is, along with the accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke, one of the darkest and most disturbing chapters of the Bible. The murder of God’s only Son reveals the evil of humanity in its full horror. Yet the cross is also the greatest revelation of the love of God, because through Christ’s atonement God liberates humanity from sin, Satan and death. So we confess, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.”

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Bart Byl on 1 John 1:1-4.

Series: The Nicene Creed

After Jesus rose from the dead, trembling hands reached out and confirmed: this is indeed the Master ... not an apparition, a ghost, a hologram: this is our Friend, in flesh and blood, sitting beside us eating a piece of fish. The Son of God is truly a human being like us. So we confess with the Nicene Creed:

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Bart Byl on Luke 8:-22-25.

Series: The Nicene Creed

When Jesus calms the storm, the disciples ask themselves in fear and amazement, “Who is this person?” The second article of the Nicene Creed is the considered answer of the church almost three hundred years later: 

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Bart Byl on Psalm 104.

Series: The Nicene Creed

God didn’t created the universe out of necessity, but out of the sheer joyful abundance of the divine life. Why else would he have made 1.5 million species of beetles? Our existence is completely gratuitous: the gift of being comes from the generous hand of our creator. God’s heart toward the world has been gracious from the beginning.

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Bart Byl on Hebrews 10:19-25.

At the heart of the Gospel are Christ’s finished sacrifice on the cross for our sins and his ongoing, eternal priesthood at God’s right hand. Since both these glorious things are true, the author to the Hebrews exhorts us, we should draw near to God, hold firmly to our hope, and stir each other up to love and good deeds.

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Bart Byl on Psalm 8.

Psalm 8 celebrates the significance of humanity in a vast universe. Since all human beings are created in the image of God, we have been graced with dignity, meaning and purpose. But now we are a race of fallen kings, alienated from our Maker and thus from ourselves. But Christ has come as the True Human, to fulfill humanity’s destiny and share it with us all.

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