************ Sermon on Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 26 ************
Doctrine: The Apostles' Creed, first line; how the almighty Creator is my Father
By: Rev. Adrian Dieleman
This sermon was preached on July 9, 2000
Q & A 26
Psalm 146
"Almighty God, Faithful Father"
Introduction
As we continue our study of the Apostles' Creed it becomes clear that ours is a great God. How great is our God? With the church of all ages we confess God's greatness: "I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth."
Don't forget, we are talking about true faith, saving faith. True faith, saving faith, believes in a great, big, mighty God Who can do anything, anything He wants to do. True faith, saving faith, believes in "God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth."
I Almighty God
A God is almighty. About that there can be no doubt. To confirm this all that we have to do is consider the vastness and the greatness of the universe God has made.
The distance from our galaxy to the next nearest one is nearly 1,500,000 light years. That is the distance light will travel in one and a half million years going 186,000 miles each second.
An analogy may help us to understand the vastness of the distance. Assume that every man, woman and child in the United States has a library of 65,000 books. Let's further assume that we collect every book in all these libraries, and then started on this journey of 1,500,000 light years. And, let's further assume that each mile we place one letter from one of the books. (If "The" was the first word in the first book, we would put 'T' on the first mile, 'H' on the second mile, and 'E' on the third mile; then leave a mile blank without a letter and start the next word in the same manner, etc.) Before we completed the journey we would have used up every letter in every book of every one of the libraries and have to call for more. And that is only the distance to our nearest galaxy.
Now, try to imagine that the total known universe is about eight to ten billion light years long.
The earth is 8,000 miles in diameter, containing 198,980,000 square miles. There are 264,000,000,000 cubic miles on the earth, and even though the earth is that size, Saturn is 995 times as large and Jupiter 1,281 times as large. If this sounds big, consider that the sun -- which is but a small star -- can contain 1,384,462 earths.
B How great is our God? He is so great that He "out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them," says the Catechism. Out of nothing He created the vast universe I have just been telling you about.
It is hard for us to even imagine this – that God created everything out of nothing. After all, we only produce, build, and erect with materials. When our Cadets, for instance, build cars for the Pinewood derby they start with a block of wood, axles, wheels, glue, paint, and weights. With all of these materials they build their Pinewood Derby cars. But God created heaven and earth – all of created reality – and everything in them – both visible and invisible creatures – out of nothing. The moment before the beginning mentioned by Genesis 1:1 nothing existed but God: no sun or moon, no planets or animals, no space or time, nothing material or physical. The next moment the whole tremendous universe sprang into being. This is the sort of God we have – He is almighty; there is absolutely nothing He cannot do; there is nothing beyond His power.
C In Q & A 26 we have the Catechism's clearest statement that neither the earth nor man simply evolved into being.
According to the Catechism, creationism is a creed, an article of faith. True faith, saving faith, is to believe in almighty God "who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them ..." Listen to what Hebrews 11 says about this: "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" (Heb 11:3).
In contrast to this view is naturalistic evolutionism. Naturalistic evolutionism is completely contrary to the article of faith in front of us today. Naturalistic evolutionism has no room for God. It assumes there is nothing beyond the material world. Nature is presumed to be the ultimate, self-existent, and sole reality. All of creation, all matter, all life simply evolved into being and has no ultimate purpose or meaning.
In his book, Growing Deep in the Christian Life Charles Swindoll tells how we got cars:
Many, many centuries ago, all this iron, glass, rubber, plastic, fabric, leather, and wires came up out of the ground. Furthermore, each substance fashioned itself into various shapes and sizes. Holes evolved at just the right places, and the upholstery began to weave itself together. After a while threads appeared on bolts and nuts and -- amazing as it may seem -- each bolt found nuts with matching threads. And gradually everything sort of screwed up tightly in place. A little later correctly shaped glass glued itself in the right places. And you see these tires? They became round over the years. And they found themselves the right size metal wheels. And they sort of popped on. They also filled themselves with air somehow. And the thing began to roll down the street.
"What nonsense!" you say. "How can anyone possibly believe such silliness!" Of course no one believes this – Swindoll is poking fun of naturalistic evolutionism. You see, naturalistic evolutionism would have us believe that heaven and earth and everything in them just sort of happened, that over the years they just sort of accidentally evolved.
D What an almighty God we have. He not only created heaven and earth and everything in them out of nothing; He also "still upholds and rules them by his eternal counsel and providence." It is God Who keeps the nine planets circling the sun and rotating on their axis. It is He Who keeps the countless stars and planets together in whirling masses we call galaxies. It is He Who establishes the seasons and makes them follow each other in a regular pattern. It is He Who sends sunshine and rain.
What an almighty God we have. He "provides whatever I need for body and soul and turns to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world." He's got you and me and the whole world in His hand.
E Psalm 146 is written from this perspective – that our God is so unimaginably great. That He made the heavens and the earth and takes care of them.
(Ps 146:5-9) Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, (6) the Creator of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them-- the LORD, who remains faithful forever.
What an incredibly great God we have!
According to the Creed, we believe and confess faith in this almighty God.
II The Almighty is My Father
A If God is so great we might be inclined to think that we should not get too familiar with Him. Yet, we dare to claim almighty God as Father.
Look at Psalm 146. Does it say, "Because God is so great He can't be bothered with a widow's grief or mom's headaches or our family's money problems or Marietta's disabilities? Of course not! Rather, it tells us that the almighty God is concerned with us and our problems.
(Ps 146:7-9) He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free, (8) the LORD gives sight to the blind, the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous. (9) The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The psalmist doesn't use the word, but He is thinking of God as a Father, as a loving Father.
The Creed makes God's "fatherhood" an article of our undoubted faith: "I believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." According to the Catechism this means that I believe the almighty God is my Father because of Christ.
B We confess that God's Fatherhood is one of His eternal traits; that there has never been a time when He was not Father. Therefore His title "Father" is not taken from human relationships and then applied symbolically to God. Rather, God is the original Father and all other fathers are but His imitators. The name "father" did not go up from us but came down from Him. God is the Father of all fatherhood.
C In what way is God the Father? What do we mean when we say God is the eternal Father?
First and foremost, as the Catechism puts it, God is "the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is called the doctrine of eternal generation, and by it we mean that there never was a time when the Father was not Father or when the Son was not Son. Within God's being is an everlasting Father-Son relationship.
Second, God is the Father of all that is living. He is the Father in the broadest and absolute sense: in Him is life and from Him comes all that has life; He is the Fountain, Originator, Beginning; He is the root, well, and origin of existence.
Third, God is especially the Father of those Who believe in Jesus. To appreciate this we need to backtrack for a moment. From the beginning God has been the Father of the human race. However, because of sin, all men have forfeited or lost the right to call God "Father" and to call themselves "children of God." When man sinned he broke the father-son relationship between himself and God. Almighty God, however, took steps to remedy this situation. He sent His Son Jesus into the world.
(Jn 1:12-13) Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- (13) children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
Says the Catechism, "the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is my God and Father because of Christ his Son." The fact is, we can experience the father-child relationship with God only through Jesus. Although we live in God's creation, and although it is God Who has given us life and breath, we have become so alienated from God that we cannot love Him as Father except for His saving grace towards us in Christ the Son. No one can find God as Father but through Christ Jesus.
III Trust
A The almighty God is my Father because of Christ His Son. So what? What difference does this make in my life?
According to the Catechism, a response of "trust" is called for. If the almighty God is my Father I am to trust Him: I am to trust God will provide all my needs; and, I am to trust God will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me.
B First, if I believe that almighty God is my Father, then I am to trust Him to provide all my needs. Do you remember the words of Jesus?
(Mt 7:11) 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!
Jesus also tells us that our heavenly Father feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lily of the field. Won't He do this and more for us who are far more valuable than birds and lilies (Mt 6:25-35)?
How do you know if you have this trust? You trust in your heavenly Father if you do not fret, worry, or are anxious about life's necessities. You trust in your heavenly Father if you, in faith, ask Him for what you need believing He will give it to you. You trust in your heavenly Father if you seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
C Second, if I believe that almighty God is my Father, then I am to trust that "he will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world."
Perhaps you don't see the good of the adversity the Lord has permitted in your life?! Perhaps you even doubt there ever will be good from the heartaches you have gone through?! When we are filled with such doubts we have to listen again to what the Bible says: "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (Rom 8:28). We have the unshakable guarantee that everything will end up all right with you and me and all those who love the Lord.
It is true that sometimes the Lord does not grant us the grace to see the good He brings out of adversity in our life. More often, though, we are allowed to see the good but only after time has been allowed to pass.
Therefore we are to be of good courage. We are not to be afraid of adversity and we are not to flee from trouble because we trust the Lord.