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
