How does our heavenly Father provide for us?

Series: Growing Together in God's Grace 
January 20, 2013

  

Dear friends in Christ.

It has often been said, and rightly so, I think, that parents are our first providers.  After all, it is our parents who care for us, who nurture us, and who provide for our needs in this life from the time that we are born until the time that we are able to be on our own.  They are the ones who provided for us by feeding us when we were too young to feed ourselves, by clothing us and bathing us before we could do it ourselves.  They were the ones who watched over us and kept us safe, who attended to our injuries and showered us with their love, and in many ways the care with which our parents provided us was a picture of the way that the Lord, God our heavenly Father provides for us each and every day.  Though the way our heavenly Father provides for us may not always be as clear as the way our parents provide for us, we know that he is at work in our lives, caring for us and providing all that we need.  This is why, as we study the word of God before us, we want to take a closer look at the question, How does our heavenly Father Take care of us?

So, how does our heavenly Father take care of us?  What does he do to provide for us?  Well, to find out we want to take a look at Matthew 6:25-27, where Jesus tells us, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" (Matthew 6:25–30, NIV84)

Now, as Jesus spoke these words, he was essentially in the middle of his famous Sermon on the Mount.  He had been sitting on a hillside preaching and teaching all the people who had been following him; a large group of people who had come to faith in him as the Messiah—the Savior of the world.  As he speaks, Jesus makes it very clear how our heavenly Father provides for us and how he cares for us.  For in the same way that our heavenly Father provides food and drink to the birds of the air who do not sow or reap, our heavenly Father provides food and drink for each and every one of us.  In the same way that our heavenly Father dresses up the lilies of the field even though they do not labor or spin, so our heavenly Father provides us with clothing and shoes, food and drink, property and home, spouse and children, land, cattle and all that we own.   It is the Lord our God, our heavenly Father, who provides us with all these things for our bodies and lives.  It is our heavenly Father who always provides us with exactly what we need, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." (2 Corinthians 9:8, NIV84)

Just think about it!  Have you ever gone without food for a whole day or even longer because your cupboards were completely bare and you had no funds with which to purchase groceries?  Have you ever been homeless?  Have you ever found yourself sleeping out on the street because you didn’t have a place to stay?  Have you ever found yourselves wearing the same clothes day after day because your closets were empty and you only had the one set of clothes to your name?  These are but a few of the ways that our heavenly Father provides for us.  Each and every day we live in the blessings of food and clothing, house and home, family and loved ones, because our heavenly Father has provided these things too us.  Though we have all stood, staring into refrigerators filled with food and claiming there was nothing to eat simply because there was nothing in the fridge that we wanted to eat; though we have all stood in front of closets filled with clothing and shoes claiming that we had nothing to wear simply because there was nothing in our closets that we wanted to wear, we have had the privilege of living in the Lord’s great blessings.  For it is the Lord, our heavenly Father, who continually blesses us by providing for all our needs as well as lovingly, giving us even more than that!

Yet, how is it that the Lord our God provides for us?  Well, in Psalm 104 we read: “He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate— bringing forth food from the earth:" (Psalm 104:14, NIV84) So often the Lord provides for us by simply making things grow!  Just think about the many different kinds of plants that grow throughout our world.  There are the grains (wheat, oats, rice etc.) that feed both us and the animals.  There are fruits and vegetables that fill our supermarket shelves because they were grown either locally or internationally and they were shipped to us for our convenience.  Think of the cotton and the rubber plants, soy beans and corn that provide us with clothing and a whole assortment of other products.  Think of the birds, fish, and animals that multiply and provide us with many different kinds of meat.  None of these things grow by chance.  God makes them grow and provides us with all that we need.

Yet, the Lord doesn’t only provide for us through these natural means that we see in nature each and every day!  There are also times when our heavenly Father provides for us through his miraculous power, like he did in John 6. “Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish Passover Feast was near. 5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. 12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten." (John 6:3–13, NIV84)

In a miraculous way, Jesus provided food for 5,000 men plus women and children who were there.  In a miraculous way, Jesus provided food for more people than the population of Le Sueur.  In a miraculous way, Jesus provided food for more than 5,000 people maybe as many as 10,000 maybe even more than that.  In a miraculous way Jesus provided food for all these people and then after the meal was done, the disciples filled 12 pick-nick baskets with leftovers!  Though Jesus doesn’t miraculously make food appear on our tables, how often doesn’t he work miraculously in our lives?  How many stories can you tell about close calls?  How many times haven’t you found yourself delayed, frustrated because you simply couldn’t get out the door when you wanted to, only to discover that the frustrating delay saved your life, or kept you from being involved in a car accident that occurred exactly when you would have been in that spot had you not been delayed?  How many times haven’t delays allowed you to run across someone that you needed to talk to but simply could not get a hold of?  How many times haven’t deer or other animals appeared in your headlights, appeared so close that there seemed to be no possible way to avoid them, yet somehow you didn’t hit them?  How often haven’t you found yourselves remaining healthy while others around you are dealing with colds?  These are but a few of the ways that our heavenly Father has miraculously provided for us in our lives, and if we went around the room today, I’m sure that each and every one of you could tell many, many different stories of how your heavenly Father has miraculously provided for you or protected you in one way or another. 

Yet, before we forget the most important way that our heavenly Father has provided for us, let us remember how he sent his Son to be our Savior.  While we were still his enemies, lost in sin and dead in our transgressions, our heavenly Father provided for our salvation by sending Jesus to take our place!  In his great love for us, he provides us with forgiveness, life, and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Because of his great love we have Jesus’ own promise that he is right now preparing a place for us in his heavenly kingdom.  Now, because of this we join with Isaiah in proclaiming, “Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. 5 Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. 6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.”" (Isaiah 12:4–6, NIV84)

For all of our heavenly Father’s providence and for all that he provides us with through natural means and through miraculous means, we give him all our thanks and praise.  Because he is the one who has provided for our salvation through his Son, we seek to show our love for him by serving him and obeying him with our lives.  In the same way that we would show our earthly parents appreciation for a special gift that they have given us, so also we show our thanks and our praise to our heavenly Father for all that he has done for us by seeking to live according to his will.

What greater gift could our heavenly father give us than his gift of providence!  He is the one who cares for us and showers us with his love.  He is the one who provides us with all that we need in this life, and even more than that.  He is the one who has already provided for our salvation by sending his Son to be our Savior.  He is the one who protects us by keeping danger away from us and even working things out for our good.  He provides us with food and drink, house and home, spouse and children, land, cattle, and all that we own.  He is the one who directs our lives and leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  For all of these things, he gives us the opportunity to thank him and praise him, to serve him and obey him.  This is how our heavenly Father provides for us each and every day.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

GraceEvangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

Why Is Creation so Important?

Series: Growing Together in God's Grace

January 13, 2013

Dear friends in Christ.

A couple of weeks ago, we took a look at who the true God is and how the God of the Bible in whom we believe is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 3 persons, yet only one God.  Last week we learned that believing in God the Father, Almighty, means that we know who he is because he has revealed himself to us in the Bible, which we accept is his Word, and through which we have come to trust that all his promises are true.  Now, today, as we dive deeper into his word, we take a look at the very beginning of all things.  We take a look at the foundation of all creation and the foundation of everything that we believe and teach!  We take a look at the account of creation in Genesis 1 and as we do, we will learn, once again, “Why the account of Creation is so very important!” 

So, as we begin, I invite you to open your Bibles to Genesis 1, which can be found on page 1 of your Bibles.  Now, as you turn to Genesis Chapter 1, what I would normally do is give you a brief introduction of the context, but today there really isn’t any introduction or context that I can give you because before creation, there was only God.  Time and history as we know it did not begin until the Lord our God began his creating work.  Take a look with me at Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1, NIV84)

If these aren’t some very familiar words!  After all, these are words that we have known by heart since we were little children.  These are words that made our parents smile when we first learned them in Sunday School or Christian Day School.  These are words that we have cherished as we’ve grown from Children to Teens and from Teens to Adults.  But sadly, these are also words that have sometimes been drown out by the cacophony of worldly ideas that bombard us on a daily basis.  Since we were little children Television has been assuring us that the world in which we live is billions of years old and that life evolved from the simplest organisms to the complex organisms that we are today.  Not only that, but since the mid 1960’s our public school system has taught more and more boldly and more and more factually that according to science all life began when the first amino acids formed the first proteins in a puddle of primordial soup somewhere around 3.5 billion years ago.

Yet, while science teaches us that life spontaneously came into being around 3.5 billion years ago, if we compare the timeline of world history with the timeline of the Bible, we find: that Jesus was born on this earth roughly 2,000 years ago, that the flood took place roughly 2,500 years before Jesus was born, and that roughly 1,500 years before the flood our God created the heavens and the earth.  In short, according to the timeline of the Bible, it was roughly 6,000 years ago that the Lord our God called everything into existence by his almighty word.  As Genesis 1:1 tells us in the Hebrew, (spelled Phonetically) “beraysheet barah Elohim”.  Now, this is something I taught you a little more than a year ago when we went through the Stained Glass Window Series.  Beraysheet means “beginning” or as we translate, “in the beginning.” (In Latin it would be translated as Genesis, which is why the name of the first book of the Bible is, Genesis.)  Barah means, “he created” with an emphasis on calling something into existence out of nothing. “Elohim, which is the subject of this sentence, means “God”.  So, in three short words Moses establishes the fact that until Elohim (God) created (barah) the heavens and the earth, there was no time, no space, no matter; in fact, there was nothing in existence except for the Lord our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!  There was nothing but God until the very beginning of time (Beraysheet) when he, Elohim, Barah(ed) began his creating work, creating time and space, light and dark, matter and energy out of nothing; calling it all into existence as a formless and empty lump of clay, so to speak, from which he would spend the next five, literal, twenty-four hour days, forming the universe and all things.  Just as Moses tells us in verse 3-5 “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." (Genesis 1:3–5, NIV84)

That was the first day!  From there the Lord went on to separate the waters on the earth from the waters in the sky.  He called forth the dry ground and produced vegetation on it—never planting seeds, but simply calling it forth by his almighty word.  He set the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens for the purpose of giving us light and helping us to tell time in weeks, months, and years.  He filled the skies with birds and the waters with fish.  Then, finally, on day six, after creating all the land animals, he formed Adam from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and later that day formed Eve from one of Adam’s ribs.  This is the work that the Lord God did in creating the world and all that exists.  In six days, six, literal, twenty-four hour days the Lord created all that exists, creating living creatures as well as the human race.  He created a perfect world in which for us to live and work and thrive, but sadly, as you know, our first parents ruined God’s creation when they fell into sin.  Yet, even then the Lord promised to send his Son to be our Savior.  We know how Jesus came to the earth, how he was born, how he lived, and how he died in our place to free us from our sins and to give us the gift eternal life by his side, in heaven, forever.

It is because of all of these things that creation is so important!  For the truth is the account of creation is the foundation of our faith in God.  It is the foundation of our knowledge of who the true God really is.  It is the foundation of our acceptance of his Word—the Bible.  It is the foundation of our trust in his promises.  Yes!  Creation is that important! 

The problem is that our world is filled with the ideas and the concepts that flow out from the Theory of Evolution; a theory that works very quietly and at the same time very blatantly at undermining the truths of Creation and the Bible.  Just think about how the teachings of evolution have been at work in our lives.  How many times haven’t we been tempted to try to harmonize our God’s work of Creation with Science’s ideas of Evolution?  How many times haven’t your children come home from school openly questioning the truth of creation and favoring the “facts” of evolution because it is “scientific”?  How many times haven’t you found yourself in a conversation with someone who says that they believe the Bible and call themselves a Christian yet, they simply can’t accept that the six days of creation were actually six, literal, twenty-four hour days?  How many times haven’t you heard someone talk about the creation account in Genesis as God setting creation into motion and then allowing it to evolve over time so that when things had evolved sufficiently, God would step in on the next “day” and spark the next step in creation which he would allow to evolve again until the time was right for him to step in again? 

These are but a few of the evolutionary termites, so to speak, that seek to burrow in and seek to destroy the foundation of our faith in the Lord by destroying the founding doctrine of the Bible—creation.  For if we begin to doubt creation, we begin to doubt the Lord our God.  If we begin to doubt that our God has the power to create all that exists, out of nothing, by the power of his word alone, then we begin to doubt who our God really is.  If we begin to doubt that the six days of creation are six literal twenty-four hour days, then we begin to doubt his word.  If we begin to doubt God’s Word, then we begin to doubt his promises.  If we begin to doubt his promises, then we begin to doubt anything that our God tells us in his word.  If we begin to doubt anything that God tells us in his word, before we know it, we have set creation aside as a myth, Adam and Eve as a make believe story about our struggles to delay our gratification and seek to work for the common good of humanity, the promise of the Savior as a story to be reserved for Christmas, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of santa clause, and the doctrine of heaven and hell as nothing more than something to scare children into being good. For the truth is, if we doubt that our God created the heavens and the earth and all that exists by his almighty power, through his word, then it won’t be long before we doubt our own sinfulness, our need for a Savior, the miracle of the Savior’s birth, or the gift of salvation that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ.  In short we will begin to believe that there can’t possibly be a hell, because a loving God would never send anyone to hell.  Nor would a loving God keep anyone out of heaven because a loving God would accept everyone just as they are, and that should be good enough to get into heaven.

This is why creation is so important.  It is so important because it is the foundation of everything that we know and believe about the Lord our God.  It is the beginning of his word which was written for our salvation, and it sets the stage and the purpose for the Lord’s activity in our life.

Now, even though I am seeking to clearly emphasize how important the teachings of creation are for us as Christians, please understand that I am not seeking to set Creation and Science as enemies!  For the truth is, in so many ways, science is really about trying to understand God’s creation.  Science is about using all the gifts that the Lord has given us in our intellect and creativity to seek to utilize his creation in a way that is beneficial for God’s people.  In our world there are scientists who are Christians, who approach science from a God fearing point of view rather than an evolutionary point of view.  There are chemists, biologists, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, vets, and all sorts of others who work in any of the scientific fields in our world, who are Christians and who believe the Bible is God’s Word.  The problem, however, stems from the fact that in so many of the world’s colleges and universities, science is taught from an evolutionary point of view.  So often science teaches the theory of evolution as a fact and ridicules the faith of those who believe in a God who created the world in six, twenty-four hour days.  Because of this young Christians in college can feel very isolated, and made to feel that they must choose between their faith and their grade or even their future career.  Because of this, young Christians can begin to doubt their faith, doubt their God, and wonder if God can even exist, because science has basically proven the non-existence of God by not being able to prove that he exists.  (Interestingly enough, it seems that the theory of evolution has basically been proven by the fact that it can’t be disproven.  I’m sure it goes deeper than that but that is how it seems on the surface.)

This is why creation is so important!  It is so important because it is the foundation of everything else that we believe.  Just like the sturdiness of any building becomes questionable when the foundation becomes weak or even crumbles, so also when the foundation of our faith begins to crumble, our faith quickly weakens and is in danger of collapsing.  So, as we close, dear friends, let me encourage you to make use of the tools that God has given you so that you can continue to grow in your faith and your trust in him.  Make use of all of the opportunities you have to worship the Lord.  Strengthen your faith by reading and studying his Word on your own and with other Christians.  Take advantage of things like the Meditations devotions and the Forward in Christ magazine; devotions designed to help strengthen your faith, and the magazine designed to offer encouragement, strategies, and to let you know others are going through the same struggles.  But on top of that let me give you one incredibly valuable resource to help answer your questions and prepare your children.  That resource is Answers in Genesis.  This is the group that runs the creation museum in Petersburg, KY.  They are an independent organization and they are not affiliated with our synod.  They are an independent organization and they are an amazing resource of biblical truth and scientific knowledge, especially when it comes down to questions that deal with creation, science, and many, many other issues.  The easiest way to find them is through their website, which is the same as their name, AnswersInGenesis.org.  If you don’t use the internet and would like more information about them, I would be happy to provide it to you.

This is how important creation truly is!  How amazing and how humbling that the Lord begins our faith with such a solid foundation of fact!  “Beraysheet barah Elohim, ate ha shamaim, ve ate ha aretz.” In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.   

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

We Believe in God the Father

Series: Growing Together in God's Grace 
January 6, 2013

Dear friends in Christ.

Every week, as we join together in confessing our faith in the Lord our God, we begin our confession by stating that we believe in God, the Father, Almighty.  Now, as you know, depending on which creed we use, we either say, “I believe,” or “We believe.”  The reason for this is that the Apostles Creed, which we use on non-Communion Sundays, was designed as a creed to be used and spoken by those who were confessing their faith as they entered into the membership of the church.  Thus the member to be would stand before the congregation—much like our Confirmands stand before the congregation today—and that member to be would confess before the entire congregation, “I believe in God, the Father, Almighty…”  The Nicene Creed, which we use on Communion Sundays because it speaks more fully about Jesus and the work that he did here as our Savior, was designed to be a corporate creed—a creed used by the congregation of believers to confess their collective faith in “God, the Father, Almighty…”  But now comes the logical question!  What do we mean when we confess that we believe in God, the Father, Almighty?  Though we speak these words each and every week and even though we hold them in our hearts as our confession of faith, the question still remains, “What do we mean when we confess that we believe in God, the Father, Almighty? 

Well, to answer this question, we want to turn to the Scriptures to better understand what we mean when we say, “We Believe in God, the Father, Almighty!  First, we turn to John 17:1-3 where John writes, “After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:1–3, NIV84)

In such beautifully simple way, Jesus reveals that belief in God is knowing who the true God is through Jesus Christ our Savior.  Just as we talked about last week!  We believe in God the Father Almighty because we know who he is through Jesus Christ, his Son.  We know that the Father is one of the persons of the Trinity.  We know that he is not the Son or the Holy Spirit and yet he is at the same time our true God.  Now, the interesting thing about belief is that people in all parts of the world believe in all kinds of Gods.  Some gods are idols made up of wood or stone.  Some are gods made up by men who said they had a dream or a vision.  Though these may well be people who sincerely believe in their gods, they do not believe in God, the Father, because they do not know him, or Jesus Christ whom he sent.

Yet believing in God includes even more than knowing who the true God is!  Take a look at 1 Thessalonians 2:13, “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe." (1 Thessalonians 2:13, NIV84)

When we come to faith in the Lord our God, we come to know who the true God is and what he has done for us.  We come to know this from the lessons and the accounts that our Lord recorded for us in his Word, and from this we accept that the Bible is God’s Word.  We accept that the Bible is the only source of our Salvation and that the Bible is the only place where the Lord has recorded his word for us.  This is what believing in God, the Father, Almighty, is all about!  It is about knowing who the Lord our God is, and accepting that the Bible is his word!

Now, having said this, let me address the question that always comes up every single time that I teach this lesson.  “Pastor, how can you know this for sure?”  Well, the simple answer is, I can’t know for sure.  I can only accept that the Bible is God’s Word through faith in God the Father, and because I have come to know who God the Father is through the Bible I accept that the Bible is God’s Word.  Now, I can’t prove that the Bible is God’s Word.  There is no scientific proof to demonstrate this as a fact.  However, when I compare the message of the Bible to every other religious book in our world, the message of the Bible is always different.  No matter how motivational, encouraging, uplifting, or instructional all the other religious books of our world might be, it is only the Bible that teaches; that we are by nature lost in sin and enemies of our God; that our God loved us so much that he sent his one and only son to take our place and bear the punishment that we deserved; that through faith in Jesus Christ our Savior all that we did wrong has been forgiven, we are at peace with God, our Father, through Jesus Christ, his Son,  and now moved by that knowledge we seek to live for our God out of love for him.  Every other religious book and religious teaching in this world teaches that in order to find forgiveness or salvation we have to take part in the work and contribute something (even just the slightest thing) in order for forgiveness or salvation to be applied to us.  This is the difference between the Bible and every other book and teaching in the world.  This is the difference between the way the Lord our God reveals himself to the human race, and how the human race perceives and seeks to understand who God really is.

As Christians who believe in God, the Father, Almighty, we know who the true God is, because he has revealed himself to us in his Word—the Bible—and because he has revealed himself to us in the Bible, we trust that all his promises are true just as the Centurion did.  Matthew tells us about him in chapter 8, beginning with verse 5: “When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.” 7 Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.” 8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour." (Matthew 8:5–13, NIV84)

In faith, the Centurion trusted that if Jesus simply said the word, his servant would be healed.  He trusted that Jesus’ words were a bond, a promise of what would happen, and it did.  His servant was healed at the very moment that Jesus spoke the Words.  The Centurion trusted Jesus’ promises in the same way that Abraham trusted the Lord’s promise that one day he would have a Son.  Though Abraham had to wait 25 years until Isaac was born, though he listened to his wife’s plan to have a son through her slave Haggar, and even though by the time the promise would be fulfilled their bodies were to the point that they were no longer able to have children, Abraham trusted the Lord’s promise that he would have a Son, and when he was 100 years old, the Lord fulfilled the promise and gave him a Son. 

This is what believing in God, the Father, Almighty, is all about.  It is about knowing who the true God is; the true God who has revealed himself through the Bible which we accept as his Word.  It is about trusting the promises that the Lord has give to us through his word—promises that the Savior has come; that the appearing of the Gentile  Wise Men is assurance that Jesus came even for the Gentiles like us; that through Jesus death and resurrection all our sins have been forgiven and we are at peace with our heavenly Father; that through faith in Jesus he will take us to be with him forever when he calls us from this life to our life by our Father’s side forever in his heavenly kingdom.

What a comfort it is to know that God, the Father, Almighty, is also our Father.  Though we have all had earthly Fathers who have affected our lives in one way or another, it is God, our heavenly father, in whom we believe, who longs to father us, nurture us, and help us through this life.  No matter what type of earthly father we may have had, we believe in God, the Father, Almighty, who is our heavenly Father, because, as we know from the prophet Malachi, he is the one who created us! (see Malachi 2:10)  We know that God is our Father because he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who was sent to the earth by God, our Father, when the time was right.  He sent Jesus to the earth to be born under the Law so that he might redeem we, who were under the Law, that we might receive the full rights of sons and daughters of God, our heavenly Father. (See Gal 3:26 – 4:7).  Now, that we have been called to faith God our heavenly Father, by the working of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, we have come to know Jesus, our Savior and our Brother, who has made known to us our heavenly Father.  Now that we have come to believe in God, the Father, Almighty, we find comfort and assurance that God our heavenly Father loves us, cares for us, strengthens us, disciplines us, teaches us, encourages us, and calls us his own. 

Now, if you would like to understand this concept of our heavenly Father’s fathering activity in your life, I have two books that I can suggest which can help you.  Now, you know that I don’t do this all that often. In fact, this is only the 2nd time I’ve suggested outside reading to you.  You also know that these are books that I have read and found to be a blessing to me and my family.  The first book is:  Wild at Heart, by John Eldridge.  This is a book written primarily for men, but it can also be a benefit for women to read.  It is a book that helps men better understand the wild heart that the Lord placed inside them, and how the Lord longs to father the heart of that son.  The second book is: You are Captivating, by Stasi Eldredge.  This book is written primarily for women, but an also be a benefit for men to read.  It is a book that helps women better understand their feminine hearts and the amazing strength with which the Lord has blessed them.  It is a book that helps women better understand how the Lord loves them and longs to father his beloved daughter.

Now, these books are by no means, Scripture.  They simply are written from a Christian and biblical point of view to help people better understand how God, the heavenly Father, works in their lives.  I recommend them to you because I have read them and they have helped me better understand my heavenly Father all the better.  They have taken me back to the Scriptures and made me study up on my heavenly Father and how he reveals himself in his Word.  They have even helped me foster a greater appreciation for all that my heavenly father has done for me in my life.  Thus, in reading these books, my faith in God the Father has been strengthened because they drove me back to God’s Word, and caused me to study it all the more.  I share them with you today so that you might do the same.

But regardless of what you do, you leave here today with a stronger belief in God, the Father, Almighty!  You leave here with a stronger faith in your heavenly Father.  You leave here, knowing all the more who the true God is because you know how he has revealed himself to you in the pages of the Scriptures which you have accepted is his Word.  You leave here with a greater trust and assurance that all the promise the Lord has ever made are true and have either been fulfilled in the past, or they will be fulfilled when Jesus comes again.  You leave here knowing that God, the Father, Almighty, is your heavenly father who longs to be a father to you, and help you to grow in his grace.  You leave here knowing that the God in whom you believe is the Father of your Lord Jesus who freed you from your sins so that you might live with your heavenly father forever.  Though today we won’t be confessing, “We believe in God, the Father, Almighty” in the Apostles Creed, we will be confessing that very faith as we join together to sing our faith in Hymn 270 on page 7 of your service folders.  Please stand and we will join together in singing our believe in our triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

GraceEvangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN