APOSTLES’ CREED: God the Father Almighty
Today we begin a study of the Apostles’ Creed. The creed probably did not originate with the 12 apostles, but it was a very early statement of what Christians believed. Through the centuries, Christians like us have come together to say, “I believe…”
Yet our goal is not just to understand what the church has always believed, or what all Christians should agree upon. Our goal is to ask ourselves, “What do I believe, and what impact do my beliefs have on me?”
Many things we believe are merely matters of intellectual opinion. You might believe in extraterrestrial life, or you might not; you will probably never meet anyone from another planet, so what you believe doesn’t much matter. On the other hand, you might believe that your spouse can be trusted to have your best interests at heart; that will transform your relationship.
Our goal in studying the creed is not so much to gain knowledge, as to determine the bedrock beliefs upon which we will build our lives. What we believe about God, and about life in relationship to God, will transform how we live.
I BELIEVE IN GOD…
Many people, perhaps a majority of people all around the world, believe in some kind of God or gods.
Some believe in an impersonal god. Albert Einstein was in awe of “the old one,” by which he meant the fundamental patterns of the universe that inspired awe within him. Others think of God as a spiritual force field, like “The Force” in Star Wars.
Some people believe in a God who got the universe rolling, and then stepped back to watch from a distance. He is far away and irrelevant, sort of like your long-lost grandfather, who might send a check for Christmas and your birthday.
Some people believe in a God who is harsh and dictatorial, giving rules for no reason. Others have a God much like themselves, affirming everything they do, while hating the same people they do.
Some people believe in multiple gods, or multiple spirits, which can be appeased or manipulated to get what they want. Others believe in their personal higher power, who helps them stay on the right track, and makes them happy and prosperous.
What kind of God do YOU believe in? We say, I BELIEVE IN GOD, THE FATHER, ALMIGHTY… Our God is THE FATHER, and our God is ALMIGHTY. Both of those matter to us!
First, “I believe in God THE FATHER.”
Right away, that separates us from those who believe in god as an impersonal force. A father has a will and a personality, expressed in personal relationships with his children.
People of many faiths might think of God as Father, in the general sense of, “We are all God’s children.” That is a nice sentiment about the value of every human being created by God, but it doesn’t tell us much about God as Father. What kind of Father is he?
First, God is the Father in relation to the Son. That is the mystery of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, three persons. The nature of the Trinity is a mystery not revealed this side of eternity, but at its core, the Trinity is a circle of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Most of what we know about God the Father is through the relationship between the Father and Son, when the Son lived on earth as Jesus Christ. Although the Son accepted the limitations of human flesh, the Father and the Son continued in their eternal relationship. Jesus said, “The Father knows me and I know the Father…I and the Father are one.” (John 10:15, 30)
The relationship between Jesus and the Father demonstrates the kind of relationship we long for. Jesus was secure in the love of his Father. Twice in John’s gospel, Jesus says, “The Father loves the Son.” (John 3:35, 5:20) Jesus and his Father were always on the same page: “Whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” (John 12:50) When Jesus died on the cross, he trusted his Father even in death, saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
God is not only the Father of Jesus; he is OUR FATHER. The Apostle Paul begins almost all of his letters with a similar greeting, which in Ephesians 1:2 is, ““Grace to you from GOD OUR FATHER and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Then he goes on to say, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…” The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is God our Father!
Of course, we are not sons in the sense that Jesus was. John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave his ONLY-BEGOTTEN Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (Note to preacher: monogene emphasizes the nature of Jesus, being the same as the Father; he is unique, thus translated as the “one and only,” who shares the genetics of the Father. It does not imply a time of birth.)
We are God’s children, as he brings us into the family circle. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all involved in welcoming us into God’s family:
John 1:12-13 says, “To all who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.”
Romans 8:14-15 says, “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Here is the picture: Father, Son and Holy Spirit have a wonderful relationship of love, demonstrated in the love between Jesus and his Father. Through the redeeming work of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit taking over in our lives, we are brought into the circle of God’s love. God is our Father, Christ is our brother, the Spirit shares the love.
That is amazing, but there is something else about God, that is also important:
“I believe in God, the Father ALMIGHTY…”
If you had an earthly father who loved you, you are fortunate; many children don’t have a father who is there for them. If you had a loving father, you believed your father was strong, and able to take care of any problem or situation. But maybe a time came when he couldn’t do that. Now that you are older, you realized that your father cannot fix everything.
When we look at the world, we wonder whether ANYONE can fix it!
****Preacher, fill this in with current examples that touch you and your people. I had 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria…Recession, national debt, broken political system…Culture shifting in unsustainable direction…few children today have stable homes***
Can God fix the world? I believe in God…ALMIGHTY. Isaiah 40:23 says, “He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.”
Jeremiah was God’s prophet in the darkest days of the history of God’s people, Israel. The Babylonians had invaded, plundering the land. The leaders of the nation had been taken to Babylon, leaving a puppet king. Now the Babylonians were at the gates of Jerusalem, to take the rest of the people into a far-away exile.
Jeremiah received a message from the Lord: Your cousin will come to you, wanting you to buy a field in Anathoth. The deed will be worthless, of course, when the people are taken away, and foreigners take over. Jeremiah obeys God, and buys the property. He records the deed, saying, (Jeremiah 32:15-27 excerpts follow) “For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”
Then Jeremiah prays. “Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. You show love to thousands but bring the punishment for the parents’ sins into the laps of their children after them. Great and mighty God, whose name is the LORD Almighty, great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Your eyes are open to the ways of all mankind; you reward each person according to their conduct and as their deeds deserve. You performed signs and wonders in Egypt and have continued them to this day, in Israel and among all mankind, and have gained the renown that is still yours. You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror. You gave them this land you had sworn to give their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey. They came in and took possession of it, but they did not obey you or follow your law; they did not do what you commanded them to do. So you brought all this disaster on them.”
Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?...Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes, declares the LORD.”
Seventy years after the Babylonians first attacked, Jews returned to the land of Israel, as God had promised!
Is God in control? Maybe for you, the question is more personal. You hear that dreaded word, “cancer.” You look at the empty chair in living room, or the child headed in wrong direction. You feel the tension at work or in kitchen. Your mind is full of scary things you pretend not to know, and never talk about.
Our Father God is not throwing up his hands, saying, “What am I to do?” As Isaiah 59:1 says, “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save.”
Honestly, when we look at world, it is not always easy to believe that God is in control. That is when we look back over 2000 years of Old Testament history, and 2000 years of God’s church (despite human weakness and sin), to see that God is almighty to save.
For Christians, the greatest proof of God’s power came at the darkest hour in history, when God seemed to be defeated. The Son of God, Jesus Messiah, was crucified, and laid in a tomb. The powers of darkness had won, it seemed. Then God did the impossible.
Peter put it his way at Pentecost: “Jesus was handed over by God's purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” (Acts 2:23-24)
God is mighty to save. “I believe in God, the Father, Almighty.”
WHAT DOES OUR FAITH MEAN FOR US?
It gives us CONFIDENCE, when we face adversity.
The Heidelberg Catechism was written in 1563, in the chaos of the Protestant Reformation. When it explains this part of the Apostles’ Creed, it says, “I trust the Father so much that I do not doubt that he will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because he is ALMIGHTY GOD. He desires to do this because he is a faithful FATHER.”
The years come and go, but God is still a faithful Father. He is able to overcome whatever life throws at us, and in the end, he is mighty to save.
Matt Chandler is a pastor in the Dallas area, and a leader in the Acts 29 movement. At the age of 35, he was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer, requiring surgery. He admitted to all kinds of thoughts and emotions, as the diagnosis was not good. Yet NBC News gives us this quote from Matt: "This has not surprised God. He is not in a panic right now trying to figure out what to do with me or this disease…” That is the confidence of faith in God, the Father, almighty.
Our faith also gives us COURAGE.
In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested and brought into the Jewish court of the Sanhedrin. Despite the danger they faced, they boldly testified to the power of Jesus, risen from the dead. Peter and John faced the threats of the court, saying, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” After further threats, they let them go.
Then Peter and John went to where the believers were gathered. When they told them about the threats hanging over all of them, the believers did the only thing they could: They prayed. They addressed God as the ruler over all, “Sovereign Lord.” They quoted from Psalm 2, to remind themselves of God’s power in the time of Solomon. They repeated again how everyone, from Herod to Pilate to the Jews, had conspired against Jesus, all the while doing exactly what God had decided should happen. Then they asked for boldness, and power to do miracles. The result? God shook the house, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they “spoke the word of God boldly.”
Our God is almighty, and we can be bold for him, because we know he is there for us.
I believe in God the Father, in his love and faithfulness. I believe the Father is almighty, and able to save all who trust in him. Because of that, I can live with confidence and courage.
