My Heavenly Father

 

Sermon by Rev. John Zuidema on Lord’s Day 9

 

BOW 23 “The Lord’s my Shepherd”

BOW 8a “Lord, our Lord, Thy Glorious Name”

BOW: 206 “In God the Father I believe”

BOW 361 “This is my Father’s world”

Scripture Readings: Isa 40:12-31; John 14:5-14;

BOW 367 vv1-2; “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder”

BOW 367 vv3-4; “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder”

 

Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the early church people who wished to join had to agree to the articles contained in the Apostles’ Creed. They had to believe in the Triune God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, the universal church, the communion of saints, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

Now one of the first things we profess in the Christian faith is that “I believe in God, the Father Almighty!” That is more than just believing about God. We don’t believe in God simply for the sake of doing it – that would be pointless. Then we might as well align ourselves with the devil who also believes and shudders.  No, when you and I make this confession, we believe that the Creator of the Universe and everything in it is my Father God. And you and I believe that whatever He is and has and does, is all for his glory and our eternal salvation! That is the sort of confidence this confession states.

When we confess that we believe in God as the Father, we are not only referring to the first person of the Trinity and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, but are also acknowledging that He is our heavenly Father. But that can only be true if we know Jesus as our Saviour. Apart from that, we cannot know God the Father.  1 John 2:23 makes that clear – “No one who denies the Son has the Father, whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” They go together. You cannot say you know God as Father and reject the Son. It’s not possible.

Now when we say we believe in God the Father, we believe several things about him. First that He has a fatherly affection towards us and on account of what Christ has done. After all, He has adopted us as his son or daughter.

Second, his title as ‘Father’ is not something we have given to Him. He has had this title from the beginning. God is the Father of all fatherhood. Paul writes in Acts 17:28 that in him is life and from him comes all that has life.

Third, He has always been. He was never created. Gen 1:1; is statement, “In the beginning God!” The Scriptures rightfully assume that he has always been. God the Father is the originator, the beginning, Father of spirits (Heb 12:9), Father of lights (Jm 1:17) fountain of all good (Belgic Confession Art 1).

Fourth, He is Almighty. When we speak of “Almighty” we mean in the sense that we stand in awe of him. We are not surprised by miraculous deeds because He is God Almighty. Therefore we dare not limit God the Father’s action to our limited understanding of him!

He is almighty and able to accomplish whatever He wills, even those things He does not will, providing they are not contrary to His nature. As “Almighty” God, he can accomplish things at a simple command, and without any difficulty. He alone has the power to do all things, and is the dispenser of that power which is in all his creatures.  Furthermore, He is also ‘Almighty’ for my benefit, and can and will direct and make all things subservient for my eternal salvation. Congregation it is wonderful and comforting to know that this Almighty God is my Father, who loves me.

And it is my Father God who is the Maker of heaven and earth and He did so out of nothing. Sometimes children will boast about their earthly dads, well beat this.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” [Gen 1:1] and everything in them, everything that is visible and invisible. And He did all this because He is precisely the Almighty.  And not only did He create but He continues to sustain the world and the universe by his eternal counsel and providence. That is what we confess about our God the Father! And it is sad that many people today don’t believe this!

Many humanists, scientists and botanist’s suggest that the biblical teaching of creation and God’s continued sustaining work is fantasy. And how often haven’t we watched beautiful creation films only to shudder at the narrator’s reference to the millions and sometimes billions of years that it has taken to ‘evolve’ in this manner.  As a result we not only have the evolution debate, there are now theistic evolutionists. They believe that God created everything, but that it now evolves and God has no more say in things.  In some ways they are deists. Deist’s believe that God created everything and wound it up like a clock and it is now just ticking
away to its inevitable conclusion.

Now we need to be careful for this is much more than a debate about the origin of the world. It’s not simply a matter of one theory over
against another. Those who deny that God created the heavens and the earth and all that is them deny that we have a loving God who is providing all we need for eternal salvation. What’s more, I suggest that in a subtle way they are rejecting their need to be saved which ultimately means the rejection of God’s Son.  But let us also be careful and gentle. Can we prove to a non-Christian that God created the heavens and the earth? We can’t really, can we? That’s why Heb 11:3 states, “It is by faith that we believe the universe was created by God’s command.”  And we also need to add, that even though our doctrine of creation doesn’t answer all the questions, it does rule out certain answers and theories. Our understanding of creation answers some of the basic questions of life, which the evolutionist cannot answer.

For instance, “Who am I?” “What’s my purpose?” “Where am I going?” “Is there life after death?” There is a big difference about being created by a loving God who has revealed himself in his Word in the person of his Son, and who works all things for the good of our eternal salvation, or that we just happened to be because of some chemical action.  If we are here simply because of chance, then don’t ask too many questions about life for there cannot be too many answers for we just may happen to die by a chemical reaction as well. However, if we know God as the Father Almighty and that he loves us in Christ then he has made us for a purpose. We have been set on a journey by God and God our Father is also the goal, the destination.

I said early that we can only know God as our Father if we know his Son. Yet, it is also true that should sinful man examine carefully God’s book of creation, they can have some understanding that there is a God who has made it all. For we read in Romans 1:20 that man is without excuse because of general revelation. We also read that sinful man suppresses this truth (v 18). The man who denies God’s hand in creation and gives glory to some big bang theory or to some silly accident is robbing God of the glory that is rightfully his alone!

Now just because you know God as your father in Christ is no reason to boast. What’s more, even being in this privileged position doesn’t give us any more insight into the history of our planet. Again, it is by faith we believe that the God created the heavens and the earth and we simply trust our Father so much that we do not doubt that He will provide whatever we need for body and soul, and He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends to me in this sad world. Yes even adversity. Yes, the devil has much to do with it, but we are confessing faith in God Almighty, who made the heavens and the earth and who rules and up holds them without interruption.

And because God the Father is almighty He can send adversity. Of course, we believe that when decides to deal with us harshly He has a further and greater purpose in mind. Rom 8:28; says that God works for the good of those He loves, of those He has called and chosen to be his so they may become more like the Lord Jesus. And that is also why we don’t give up and can continue to be optimistic. We continue
to work for our daily bread and we continue to trust in him, for we know that this is our Father’s world.

Now in closing allow me to just mention a few facts about the universe that my Father in Christ created. Just imagine that we could reduce the earth to the size of a marble and place it on a table. We could place a second marble, half the size of the first 60 cms away and that could be the moon, which roughly indicates to scale the distance of the moon from earth, 240,000 miles approx (380,000 Klms.) Three days space travel. 90 meters away from the earth we could set a ball the size of a volleyball to indicate the sun. The sun is our nearest star, some 93 million miles away, 156 million kilometres away. Do you know who made it? My awesome God who I can call my Father!

The speed of light is 300,000 km’s per second. In one second, light has travelled around this planet seven and half times! Travelling at that speed, light would cover a distance of 15,220 Billion klms in one year! Now if we wanted to place this ball to represent the next nearest star, which is Proxima Centauri which is 4.28 light years away, which is about 65 Billion Kms away [4 x 15,220], ollowed by Alpha Centauri A & B = 4.37 light years away, we would have to travel to China for the next star is 300,000 times further away.

My Father God made it all! And do you know that there are an estimated 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Ah, Isaiah knew it long before the astronomers, that in comparison to God we are puny. “To whom shall you compare God? Who is His equal?” By all means, please look at the heavens and marvel! Did you know there are more stars than people on earth, and God knows them all by name? Who created all of them? I will tell you who. My Awesome God, the Father Almighty, and I can call him my Father!

A car travelling 100 klm an hour travels 27 meters per second. The earth’s velocity through space is 29.8 klm/sec, travelling 1,522 billion K’s in one orbit of the sun. That’s awesome and My Father God made it all! It’s only in last few decades with our deep space probes and giant telescopes that we have only begun to realize how unimaginably vast the universe is. Our planet earth is but a pinprick in space.  And we profess that we (I): “I believe in God, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and I can call him my Father!”

We also realize that our little marble is rather vulnerable. It has an outside crust that sometimes cracks, causing earthquakes and proud buildings to collapse. Around our marble is a blanket of air, the atmosphere, and if it should even be pulled back for an hour or so, everything on earth would be burnt to a crisp due to unfiltered heat from the sun. Yes, on this tiny marble with its millions of people, we make this profession: “I believe in God, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” Yes, the creator of all of this is our Father. Awesome! He is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah says, considers the nations as a drop in a bucket, as dust on the scales – and he is my father! Awesome, just awesome.

Now I have mentioned some things that give us an idea of how great God is by mentioning sizes that the mind cannot really comprehend! I could equally have gone the other way. All matter is made of atoms. This page is 100 million atoms thick! The central part of an Atom is the nucleus. There are about 100 electrons around the nucleus. If the atom were 100 meters in diameter, size of a football field, the nucleus would be the size of a pea! Who made it? My awesome Father in heaven!

Now we may be inclined to think that God is so great that we should not even bother him. Wrong! This great God, Father almighty, creator, loves me, loves us. And the Catechism says our Father desires to do this, because He is faithful. And how much more so now in that His Son has given his life for us.  “But when I think, that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in, that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died, to take away my sin; When Christ shall come, with shouts of acclamation, and claim His own, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration, and there proclaim, “My God, how great Thou art!”

That’s my awesome Father God in heaven. My prayer is that you may know Him as your Father too. Amen.