Lesson 2 God, The Father Almighty
The Apostles Creed • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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How do we even begin to speak of God?
And by what right can we call Him Father?
The audacity of claiming to speak of God seems massive enough, but then we go on to dare to call the almighty God our father?
This is exactly what Christians do, and are taught by Jesus to do.
Jesus taught His disciples to pray, Our Father who is in heaven. Matt 6:9
9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Our Self-Revealing God
Our Self-Revealing God
“what comes into our minds when we think of God is the most important thing about us.” A.W. Tozer
What the church means when it says the word God reveals everything about our worship and theological integrity.
From the time of the Apostles onward, the church has taken its stand on the phrase Credo in Deum Patrem Omnipotentem which means “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.
Notice the Apostles Creed does not begin merely with the words “I believe in God”
Rather it goes beyond that simple phrase to describe the identity and character of God.
The Christian faith is not established on some abstract deity or on “some god”.
We do not confess, “I believe in the numinous”
We are here in the name of the supernatural, the sacred, and the divine.
We do not call ourselves together in the name of some god we think might be there but have no proof of.
According to Scripture, everyone knows that God exists even if they claim to reject that knowledge. Romans 1:20
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
The consequences of this truth suppression are abysmal confusion, fatal and futile speculation.
Instead of turning to the God who has revealed himself in creation, men make idols for themselves or deny Gods very existence- a conviction the Bible condemns as complete foolishness. Ps 14:1
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is none who does good.
If God had not denied himself his personal privacy, if he had not revealed Himself to us, then we would be lost and locked in the same patterns of speculation, confusion, and futility that affects those who have not believed the Holy Scriptures.
Only Scripture clearly exposes who God is and who we are.
The human heart is “a perpetual factory of idols” -John Calvin.
We constantly produce new idols of the imagination.
Our concern with the first article of the creed is not with just and ordinary god or with the god of the philosophers but with the holy God who has revealed Himself in Scripture.
The Christian identity is marked by the confession of God, the Father Almighty.
When the Apostles Creed begins with these words “I believe in God, The Father Almighty it immediately gets to the essential content of our faith- Gods Trinitarian nature.
Without this affirmation Christianity is incoherent it does not hold together.
Our Father: A Personal God
Our Father: A Personal God
The creed, like scripture indicates that the first person of the Trinity has revealed himself to us as Father.
In other words this is not some distant, unknowable deity but a God with whom we have a personal relationship.
God is not a force or a principle or a Higher Power.
He has instead revealed Himself as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Eph 1:3
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
We see in Matt 6:9
9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
These words imply that Jesus disciples are not only allowed to pray to God, but we are specifically instructed to pray to God as “Father”
Scripture clearly affirms that we become sons of God only as we are untied to Christ and thereby adopted into God’s Family Gal 4:4-5
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
The fact that humans have a world to live in along with the gift of food and natural resources is evidence that God sustains humanity as in a fatherly way.
Without God’s daily provisions all life would rapidly perish.
Life is a gift from God.
28 for
“ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
God our Mother?
God our Mother?
Over the past 40 years there has been a marked effort to in many ways neuter the Bible and take away the male pronouns in its texts making the Bible basically unisex.
By doing this it would change the whole idea of God The Father to a less powerful and less understood God than what is in the Bible.
We are now reaping the reward of this thinking as we battle the gender identity issue in todays culture.
(Refer to Book)
The Father Almighty
The Father Almighty
The Apostles Creed does not merely affirm “I believe in God the Father” but it adds “I believe in God, the Father Almighty” .
Just as God is personal, He is also all-powerful. God is imminent, but He is also transcendent.
As Scripture indicates, God is El Shaddai the God who is all-powerful. Gen 17:1
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,
Even King Nebuchadnezzar confessed who God is. Dan 4:35
35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”
In the Apostles Creed the word Almighty is a collective that is meant to represent all Gods attributes, the fullness of God’s perfections.
His: omnipotence
His omniscience
His omnipresence
Self existence
immutability
All of these are summed up in this one word, Almighty.
Only the God who possesses the fullness of perfection and infinite majesty can truly be almighty and sovereign over creation.
The God of Christianity is not just and ordinary god.
He is the Father Almighty; the Father who can do anything; the Father who possesses all power, the one who created by the power of his word and who rules forever.
Worshiping the Father Almighty
Worshiping the Father Almighty
We measure doctrine and every thought against this affirmation about Gods sovereign authority.
If it falls short, we should dismiss it as nonsense.
God the Father Almighty is the God we worship in song, deeds, and in the preaching of His word.
All hymns must reflect and resound to this glorious King.
All preaching must fit His glorious reign.
All works of service and love must be rendered for the glory of His name.
This affirmation of God as “Father Almighty” ought to rule our hymnody, our teaching, and every moment of our daily lives.