God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth Short

02 God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth,

Acts 17:16-34 Page 1101

October 29, 2023

And since the 1st century, followers of Jesus have used the Creed to do 2 specific things – shape our Beliefs(Orthodoxy) and and shape or Behaviors (Orthopraxy).

And so as we said last week it’s our hope that as we explore the creed line by line together over the next few months, that it will do the same for us. That we would grow in our knowledge and understanding of these core doctrines of our faith. And then not just that we would know or affirm these truths in our minds, but that it would lead us to surrender to them and live in light of them.

We are in our first affirmation of the Apostles’ Creed: God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth

God is a self-sufficient Trinity.

Now before we get into the specific line we’re covering today,

one of the things I want to make sure we’re clear on is how central to the creed the Christian understanding of God is.

The Christian understanding of God is different

from the Islamic understanding of God,

the Jewish understanding of God,

the Mormon understanding of God.

As Christians we believe in the Triune God. God is a Trinity.

The God of the Bible is one God, three distinct persons.

One God, one nature. Three persons.

You and I as humans are one nature, one person.

God as we worship Him is one nature, three persons.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

You’ve got Deuteronomy 6:4 – “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

In tension with Matt 28:19 – Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Don’t try to give it an analogy like a 3-leaf clover or an egg or the three forms of water, they’re all heresy.

Just keep it clear like this – we worship – 1 God, 3 persons.

And if you’re like - That is confusing. Me too. It’s one of the great mysteries but yet truths of our faith.

And I wanted to start with that because the Creed is distinctly trinitarian.

Meaning in this creed we confess our belief in all three persons of the trinity

and the unique roles and work they do.

The four acts of God are there in the Acts 17 text—

creation

The Father authored creation. Everything was created in, through and by the Son and then the Holy Spirit hovered over the creation

redemption,

In redemption, the Father authored (elected us Chose us ) our salvation, the Son accomplished our salvation and the Holy Spirit applies that salvation.

providence

In providence, the Father cares (ordains) for us, the Son intercedes for us and the Holy Spirit indwells us.

consummation.

In consummation, the Father has ordained the day where His Son will judge the world and the Spirit of God will bring forth those who belong to Him, to Him those who are written in the Book of Life.

They are all Trinitarian.

God is independent. Meaning – God is totally ok by Himself.

God existed before time began in a Trinity.

In a perfect, love relationship - Father, Son and Spirit. 3 distinct persons, 1 God.

Meaning – God didn’t need you. He was perfect.

God didn’t create us to have someone to love,

He was already exercising His love in the relationship of the trinity.

He created us out of an overflow of that love.

The love the Trinity had for one another is what then gushes into all of creation.

There’s this line of thinking that permeates the Church right now that tries to teach God created us because He was lonely.

He created us because He needed a friend.

God is love, and so He created humans

because He needed someone to love.

It sounds legitimate, it’s not the Bible.

He’s GOD.

A. W. Tozer said, “[God] needs no one, but when faith is present he works through anyone” (The Knowledge of the Holy, 36).

God is our infinite Creator

Acts 17:24 “24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,”

Paul begins his address with creation, asserting that God made the world and everything in it.

Regarding the Stoics, Paul states that God is distinct from his creation;

regarding the Epicureans, Paul states that God is not aloof but involved in creation.

We, too, are surrounded by the revelation of God, who spoke the world into existence (Gen 1; cf. Pss 33:6; 146:6).

He is infinite

This fact makes it absurd to suggest that God can be contained in a shrine or temple.

If God created the heavens and the earth,

that means He must be greater than this creation.

Meaning – God cannot be and is not bound by the heavens and the earth.

He exists outside of their limits.

He is, as theologians call it – omnipresent.

He exists everywhere at all times.

Even when Solomon’s temple was dedicated, the wealthy ruler realized God couldn’t be domesticated

(1 Kings 8:27 “27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”

No one can lock up the Creator (cf. Ps 115:3).

The whole earth, in fact, is a theater of God’s revelation.

Echoes of his reality permeate the world.

He has made himself known in creation,

and this is why no one can claim to be completely without revelation of God (Rom 1:18-32).

Have you ever noticed how many modern items are stamped with the words “Made in China”?

It’s laughable.

I can buy a T-shirt with an American flag on it, but the tag inside will most likely read “Made in China.”

The reality is that everything in the world is similarly stamped with the undeniable truth that God the Creator formed it.

The Athenians, like many others, believed in many gods—

a god over the sea,

a god over the sun,

a god over business.

And Paul starts his speech to them by clarifying that there’s one God who created everything. and he is not contained or controlled by Hos creation. All of the beauty of nature was made by the triune God for his glory

He is our Almighty God who ordains the actions of man.

What does almighty Mean?

God is the sum total of perfection. He’s all-powerful. He’s all knowing. He’s

self-existent. He does whatever He pleases.

He ordains the world

Acts 17:26 “26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,”

The reference to determining “alloted periods” and “boundaries”

either refers to God’s sovereignty over seasons and the borders between habitable regions and wilderness (Ps 74:17)

or to God’s sovereignty over the rise and fall of nations and the boundaries between them (Deut 32:8).

In either case God is sovereign over history and geography.

On Wednesday Mike Johnson was elected speaker of the house and he said this in his speech

The Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority,” he said. “He raised up each of you, all of us. And I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment.”

He ordains the world and our actions in it.

Theologians refer to this guidance as “the hidden counsels” of God.

The word “hidden” means that God has not revealed these eternal counsels to us in Scripture as he has other things.

So we do not know the future; we do not know what God has determined to do in national affairs.

Nevertheless, God is in control of what happens.

He has made plans and thus also determines whatever comes to pass.

This is the true God,

not a weak God,

not a God we must beg in order to get him to change his mind about something.

Nothing God does is an accident, it is all by design and his providence.

Fourthy...

He is our Patient Father

He’s a Father in relationship to Jesus, God the Son.

He is a father in a generic sense who stands over all humanity who bears His image.

He is also Heavenly Father in a special and specific sense to all who trust in Jesus.

As Christians, we get to share through spiritual adoption,

with Jesus, what it means to be children of God.

Acts 17:27–29 “27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 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.’ 29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.”

Acts 17:30–31 “30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.””

Paul tells the Athenians that, despite the revelation of God in creation, they have become spiritually ignorant.

But that ignorance doesn’t give them an excuse before God.

Instead, Paul warns them of judgment.

His use of “overlooked” in this case doesn’t imply that God ignored human rebellion.

In God’s great mercy he didn’t immediately visit humanity with the judgment they deserved (Stott, Message of Acts, 287).

With the coming of Jesus, however,

a decisive turning point is taking place in redemptive history:

everyone must repent or face God’s just judgment, because the last days have come...

The fact that God will judge has been clearly expressed through the resurrection of Jesus.

Paul tells the Athenians that God has committed this judgment to his Son,

Jesus, who will judge everyone on a fixed day, in perfect righteousness.

If people will repent, however, this same Judge can save them.

Salvation comes through this man, the Second Adam,

who lived the life we fallen humans couldn’t live,

died the death we deserved,

and rose on our behalf.

We come from one man: Adam (v. 26), but we must turn to this man: Jesus, the Lord. He is not only our Judge but our Savior..

Orthopraxy allow our Belief to Shape our Behavior......

Humble yourself

What tends to happen in our lives is that when we shrink our view of God,

we replace Him with ourselves.

We become our own functional gods who then God is supposed to serve.

So I pray about my will, not God’s.

I ask God for what I want, way more than I ask Him what He wants.

I’ll say it this way –

far too often,

we are tempted to form our view of God as someone made in our image,

not the other way around. We are functionally creator, and He is the creation.

Meaning – we think God should think like us,

act how we expect him or want him to,

and be generally fashioned in his views on life and the world as we would desire him to be.

This comes out often when someone is explaining why they don’t believe in God or want to reject a certain part of the Scriptures.

They will say something like - “

I could never believe in a God who…”

As if in order for God to be God He has to agree to our decided upon standards.

Tim Keller – “If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.”

But church, let the words of Scripture, let the truth of the Creed, remind us and convict us – God is God.

He does not think like you and I.

He does not operate like you and I do.

He is not subservient to your demands or view of the world.

He is not created in our image, we are created in His image.

He is the creator, we are the creature.

He has what theologians call “creator rights”.

Because He created us,

He gets to call the shots over our lives, not us.

He gets to call the shots over our theology, not us.

Because He is eternal, and we are finite.

He is infinite, and we live with so many limits.

He is omnipotent, we are frail and weak.

He is independent, we rely on Him for everything.

Look at what Psalm 100:3 “3 Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

And we get the beautiful invitation from the Scriptures to humble ourselves before Him.

To lower ourselves in His presence.

To come before Him with confidence because of the blood of Jesus

and trembling because of His awesome power and might.

He does not despise a humble heart, the Scriptures tell us. He exalts the humble heart.

So we in humility, as we learn to view God rightly, surrender to Him and His ways and His commands and His teaching.

How we view God shapes us:

- It shapes our view of the Scriptures –

Humility means we don’t read the Scriptures as if we’re the authority over it

to take it or leave it, we read in submission to God’s authority as revealed in His Word.

- It shapes our view of surrender –

Humility means when God calls us to give something up

or sacrifice something we don’t argue back,

or excuse our way out of it,

we learn to humbly submit to our Heavenly Father.

- It shapes our view of gender –

Humility means not seeking to make our body something other than what the creator has designed us to be,

and bringing ourselves under His design.

- It shapes our view of sexuality –

Humility means we listen and follow How he has told us to function within our bodies

and how we use them or don’t use them sexually against his commands and will.

And so on and so forth.

There’s a repentant humility that should come as our view of God is lifted up by the creed

As we say each week “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”

let it be a reminder of how big our God is and therefore His appropriate rule and reign over our hearts and lives.

Seek Him

Acts 17:27 “27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”

In contrast to the teachings of Epicureans, who viewed the gods as being detached and uninvolved in daily affairs,

Paul teaches that God’s purpose in creating humans was that “they might seek God.”

He lovingly desires that people discover their Creator.

Paul’s language, though, also suggests the doctrine of sin.

The image he gives is that of blind people groping after God.

James Boice-

Paul uses a word here for “feel their way toward him and find him”

that the Greek poet Homer used in the well-known story of the Cyclops.

The giant one-eyed Cyclops had captured Odysseus and his men,

and Odysseus had gotten him drunk and then blinded him with a sharp stake.

The epic’s hero then wanted to sneak out of the cave where he and his men were being held.

But it was difficult because the Cyclops was groping around, feeling after Odysseus so that he might find him and kill him.

That is the very word Paul uses.

So it is as if he is saying:

In our sin we are as blind as the blinded Cyclops.

Nevertheless, because creation is still there, we have an obligation to feel after God and find him, even though we cannot see him.

We instinctively know God is there,

but because of sin’s blinding effects,

we need divine grace to give us the new spiritual eyes to find him (Boice, Acts, 299). +

God is not detached, disinterested, or unengaged.

He is near to us, but we need the work of Jesus Christ to know him (Heb 10:22).

Seek Him and you will find Him

Trust Him

If you are anything like me....

Though the God of the Scriptures is extraordinary, the God in our minds is often functionally ordinary.

- I might say I believe in an eternal God,

but then I start freaking out and doubting Him when His plans don’t match my timeline.

I start thinking – “Why is God delaying here? Why is He not acting sooner?” –

Thinking my timetable is better than the one who stands outside of time.

- I might claim to believe in an infinite, limitless God,

but how often do I live with the reality of feeling alone?

God is everywhere, active, present and yet often I fall into the trap of thinking He’s not present with me,

or that He’s far from me, or distant from me.

- I might say I trust the all-powerful, does whatever He pleases God,

but then when pain enters, hardship enters suddenly

I suddenly wonder if God really is powerful or if His purposes are in danger of failing.

- I might say I worship an independent, self-sufficient, ways are higher than my ways and thoughts are higher than my thoughts God,

but then when He acts differently or provides differently or tells me in His word something different than I want,

suddenly I start wanting to reform God into my image to do what I want and act how I expect Him to act.

So when you pray, you’re not throwing out wish dreams into the sky. For those who are in Christ, who trust in Jesus for salvation:

- You are calling upon your mighty Father. Who is not bound by time. Who is not bound by space and limit. Who is not bound by inability or capacity. Who is not bound by need.

- You are calling upon the God who controls the wind and the waves, causes the grass to grow (or in my yards the weeds), sends the rain, spins the world on its axis.

- You are pleading with the one who gives life and breath and everything to all mankind.

- You are petitioning the one who hung the stars in place, who knit you together in your mother’s womb, who appoints the rulers over the world.

You can trust Him!

Let this line draw you into worshipful trust – “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”

He’s more forgiving than my sin.

He’s stronger than my weaknesses.

He’s more faithful than my doubts.

He’s more present than my fears.

He’s more comforting than my sorrow.

And so we trust Him.

Let’s worship the God who we can trust because he is Creator, Almighty Father

Behold our God.

Behold our God, seated on his throne Come, let us adore him Behold our king, nothing can compare Come, let us adore him