Word of Salvation – Vol.51 No.8 – February 2006

 

The Almighty God Is My Faithful Father

A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema

on Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 9

 

Scripture Reading: Luke 12:22-34

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We begin our confession of faith in the opening words of the Apostles’ Creed. These words are very familiar, aren’t they? Nearly every Sunday we say or sing these words.

They are words completely different from the vast majority of words publicly declared in this world today. The language of the media, of politics, and of finance, is so twisted and undependable. How often do they simply proclaim how blind so many people are!

But we can see! We who had been cut off from God; from properly knowing Him; and especially from realising His love in Jesus; we are now so miraculously reunited in Him! Something so incredible we can’t really express it deep enough. It even takes the Lord’s Spirit Himself to correctly translate how we feel to Him.

Boys and girls, we might think that saying the Apostles’ Creed is just what we do all the time. Actually, there’s nothing more special! In fact, it’s so special we can’t compare it with anything else! Let’s see, though, if we can touch a little of how special it is. Imagine you had found a secret cave that was completely filled with all kinds of treasure! There was gold and silver jewellery, precious and rare stones, chests full of old and valuable coins. Your eyes are popping out of your head! This is more than your wildest dreams! It seems so unreal – it’s too much!

When you know Jesus as your own personal Saviour and Lord you’ve got heaps more than that amazing cave! You’ll blink your eyes more than once when you think about the most phenomenal riches you have! In fact, isn’t it so often just too much for you? Who are you to deserve this kind of treatment?

Bit of a strange feeling, though, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not run of the mill thinking, is it? That’s why the Apostles’ Creed works to put it all back in such clear and penetrating light. But only, and always only, if we want to see.

Friends, how often haven’t we stated this confession without even the slightest interest in what we’re saying? We know it backwards! But to think about it – nah, not today!

We have to be reminded time and time again. We need to hear, as the apostle John says in his Gospel, chapter 1 verses 12 and 13, “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.”

John puts it so forcefully because he’s seen it so brightly himself. And it must not be dull! No – let it shine! For in the darkness a light has shone. That’s what we confess!

And look at how we start! “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” Here we get into our roots! In my spiritual family this is where life began.

Isn’t that so much the sense of Paul’s first chapter in his letter to the Ephesians? There’s that immense section entitled, in the NIV, ‘Spiritual Blessings in Christ’. And look where Paul begins! He writes, from verse 3 on, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

The apostle starts where we must begin – with God the Father. “I believe in God the Father, Almighty.”

Do you have that sense of awe and splendour? Have you seen He is the Almighty?

This is much more than describing one particular attribute of God. This is so much more than strength. In the words of an old hymn:

God Himself is with us:

Let us now adore Him,

and with awe appear before Him.

God is in His temple,

all within keep silence,

prostrate lie with deepest reverence.”

(Blue PsH 324, BoW 161)

We begin our confession, congregation, as we begin our worship. You see, from dirt we were made. And it’s that dirt we should feel as we meet the Great Maker. We have to be completely humbled before Him. He is Almighty God!

In the answer of our Lord’s Day we aren’t specifically confronted with this until the second last line. But as we consider the Answer as a whole we see that these last two lines are summing up what has come before.

The second last line draws together the first paragraph of the Answer. The last line does the same for the second paragraph.

God is able to be the Creator and Sustainer because He is the Almighty. Our detailing of this makes up our first point, which is… WE SEE THE ALMIGHTY GOD. And our second point comes as we see that God desires to do all this for you and I because He is a faithful Father. In other words… WE REALISE THE FAITHFUL FATHER.

We have opened in reflecting upon the Almighty God. Together with the apostle Paul we understood the source of everything. That very thing Scripture itself begins with. For in Genesis chapters 1 & 2 we have that immense picture of God’s creative hand at work.

Think about it, congregation. We need experience, training, and resources, to use in our work. Yet God is so much more. His voice itself called absolutely everything into being! And it came from absolutely nothing! In the first line of Answer 26 we declare that we believe, “That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them.”

Oh, what frustrating logic this truth is to this world! It does not compute! Their systems can only reject what is so indiscernible. I mean, how can you quantify Psalm 33 verse 6? “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”

Ah, what a knowledge we have. For redeemed hearts, bought by the blood of Christ, can say in those words of Hebrews 11 verse 3, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

The divine light has shone in our hearts! The plan for greatness is known! For creation means purpose and planning. Then the world has a God. And we are always in His presence – in the environment which He controls ever so intimately.

Here we move from the Almighty God as Creator to His distinct position of Divine Sustainer. We continue in our Confession to acknowledge that it is He, “who still upholds and rules them by eternal counsel and providence.”

This is something which should seem obvious to a person who has already accepted the belief of a greater being. Yet it’s saddening to see the distortions which Satan uses to close our minds.

Take, for example, Stephen Hawking, that brilliant theoretical physicist, a Professor at Cambridge. A man who, despite his severely debilitating physical condition, has been described as the greatest scientific mind since Einstein. A man who, in his book, A Brief History of Time, unfolds the incredible richness and diversity of God’s creation. And he does this through showing how physics points to an ordered universe.

Yet, though allowing for the possibility that the universe was created and designed by God, Hawking doesn’t see God as being active in any way since creation. He says that, while the laws that govern our universe may have been decreed by God, it appears that God “has left the universe to evolve according to them and does not intervene in it.”

It’s encouraging that such a man acknowledges there is a God who has set the universe going. But, sadly, he continues that error of seeing God’s role as only extending to “winding up the clock, and letting it go.” This is deism.

How can we believe that creation was only set up to let it go? Why do you make something? To immediately forget about it as soon as you’ve made it? Surely you make something to gain some kind of benefit from it! You want to use it!

It’s the same with God. He continues to sustain His creation so that it’s doing what He wants it to do. Even now when we so desperately want our Lord’s second coming, we should remember that there’s an active plan in place.

You see, God’s work isn’t complete – there’s still the rest of the elect to come in. God is still caring for creation on this side of glory for His Will.

That might make us sometimes frustrated as we are so eagerly waiting for the Lord’s return. But it also gives us comforting reassurance. For what we’re going through now is for our ultimate good.

This is something which Lord’s Day 10 will show clearly. But our Answer already points to the loving Father’s hand. And this is where the second point comes in. We move from the strength of Almighty God, to the tremendous love of a faithful Father. WE REALISE THE FAITHFUL FATHER.

This is what’s vividly described in Romans 8, verse 28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Here’s Fatherhood par excellence!

And let’s not stain it by spilling on His Name our inadequate and badly sinful representations of fatherhood. There are human fathers because there’s a Heavenly Father. It’s not the other way round. So let’s not think we can match God up against our fathers here below.

Boys and girls, this would be like describing that huge cave of treasures with cheap, everyday things. Imagine saying, “You should see all that treasure, Mummy. There’s gold and silver that shines just like our knives and forks!”

You’re trying to describe that treasure using other things that shine, but you really can’t. It’s quite different! And that’s how it is with having God as our faithful Father. We would like to describe Him in ways that we know. Yet He’s so much beyond what we can ever know! And His care for His children is so much more than we could ever show to our children!

Mind you, we can see in the good we do a small reflection of the huge good that he is to us. Jesus pictured this for us in Matthew 7:9-11, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

With that love we have in our hearts, we can be reassured of the great love that our Father God has. And for a much better purpose than we could ever have!

So, with the Catechism we can personally say, “I trust him so much that I do not doubt 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.” Together with Job we stand in awe at the Lord’s working. For it is not our way!

Praise God that it isn’t! As if we would want again to be trapped by our own sinful limitations! But, brothers and sisters, the clay is in the potter’s hands. It’s been abused enough by other types of clay which have only made it less of the pure clay than it should be. Yet, now in Jesus, it’s all so different. The God who has provided so powerfully in physical, earthly creation, is the only One who can make us spiritually change.

And He does! God cares! In the message of the Gospel there’s immeasurable comfort. If only you know those words for yourself personally! To reach out in faith, and say – whether in your thoughts or words or actions – “I do not doubt.”

It seems easy enough when things are going well. Though then we can easily forget God in amongst all those material comforts. But it becomes acutely difficult when things aren’t what we’d like them to be. That’s why you’re always limited by yourself. You desperately need to realise the Potter’s hands. How is He teaching you through your situation?

Hebrews 12:10-11 pictures it this way, “Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Congregation, this can only come through faith. A faith that looks up. WE SEE THE ALMIGHTY GOD. And… WE REALISE THE FAITHFUL FATHER. That makes us really glad!

No matter what happens, the treasure is ours! It’s kept safe and secure for all ages in the bank of God. There the merit of Christ is stored up so richly.

There was a song that came out some years ago. It was entitled, “Don’t worry, Be Happy!” And it was a joyful little ditty, putting life in a positive perspective.

It wasn’t long, however, and rumours came out that the writer and singer of that song, Bobby McFerrin, had committed suicide. “Well, what do you expect,” people said, “That guy couldn’t have been really happy. It had to get to him!” Mind you, he hadn’t committed suicide, the rumour was false. But it fitted in with what people honestly believe about this life.

That’s a bit like it is with living out our faith. We believe that despite how hard things can be, we’ve got a tremendous joy. But just like those false rumours about Bobby McFerrin’s suicide spread like wildfire, so people will quickly say and believe that we can’t be happy. There will be those taunts and jokes, and even straight-out abuse. To many people happiness just cannot make any sense! Many people, when they think about it, believe that there is, in fact, nothing really to believe in that can actually make you happy! So they’d rather not think about it, they’d rather just sing, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

But congregation, WE SEE THE ALMIGHTY GOD… and WE REALISE THE FAITHFUL FATHER. We’ve caught sight of the greatest treasure. A glorious sight that the eyes of the world just cannot see. And yet it shines so brightly! That’s the way we begin our confession, congregation. We know Who we come from, Who made us. It all starts to make sense. We’re on His way!

Amen.

PRAYER:

Let’s pray…

O LORD God, we bow before you in deep thankfulness. For you not only created this incredible world, you have become our own Heavenly Father, through faith in Jesus Christ, your Son.

By your Spirit, help us to trust in you for everything. Make us realise, time and again, that it is all working out. It’s you who’s got it in hand – your hand!

In Jesus’ precious Name,

Amen.