God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth

Today we continue our series on the Apostle’s Creed. As Josh pointed out last week, the Apostle’s Creed is the most widely used, and oldest creeds, in it’s current form, dating back to the fourth century!

Creeds serve the church by correcting error and forming/shaping God’s people. I am not preaching the creed, rather I am preaching the Bible. Any authority we see in the creed, comes from God’s Word.

In that sense, creeds serve by pointing us to God’s Word, inviting us to dig deeper into the truths of God’s word, focusing our attention on who God is: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What each member of the Trinity has done and is doing. Who we are and how we belong to God.

This morning we have already witnessed the belonging we share in Christ, through Erin’s baptism and profession faith, the professions of faith of Hannah and Maria, and in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

Our focus today is God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Let’s turn first to the descriptor of God the Father, the word Almighty. God is all powerful, all knowing, eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, completely wise, just and good. He is the overflowing source of all good—Belgic Confession, Article 1.

Of these, we can identify characteristics of God that are unique to God alone. Theologians refer to these as incommunicable attributes. Incommunicable means not shared, or not imparted to. Think of it like this: an artist can create a painting, but the painting can’t itself create another painting. In this case the ability to create isn’t communicated, or shared with the painting.

Another artist can create a robot, program it, and the robot can, in turn, create other robots. In this case, the artist has communicated or shared the ability of creating robots with its robot.

The attributes that God alone has are: eternality—God has always existed, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in perfect love, perfect existence, always and forever.

God is so incredibly intelligent—by studying creation we see how intricate, how incredibly put together it all is. How the vastness of the universe displays incredible beauty, complexity and wonder. Albert Einstein once said, “Of all there is to know in the universe, I suppose I know less than one percent. God knows it all! God is omniscient—all knowing. Nothing escapes his observation.

God is invisible. God the Father is spirit. He inhabits no body. He is everywhere, he is omnipresent.

God is unchangeable. God is not fickle like sinful humans are. He doesn’t change. He keeps his promises, perfectly. He does not act contrary to his laws, his commandments. He is steady.

God is infinite. Nothing can limit God. The entire universe fits in the Father’s hand, because he is far greater than the universe! Nothing is impossible for God, as we’ll see in the weeks to come.

God is almighty. He is omnipotent. He rules all of creation. He rules over all the earth. The nations, the leaders of nations all do his bidding. He allows one nation to overcome another, for his good plans and purpose. God is amazing!

God is completely wise, just, good, the overflowing source of all good. These are the attributes that God shares with his creation, specifically, humans. God has given humans wisdom, justice—that is the knowledge of right and wrong, goodness. But the goodness of God also flows out into the whole world, thus, when God created the heavens and the earth, it was all good.

Everything belongs to God. teaches us that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. the world, and all who live in it.

There was a time when the pharisees, the teachers of the law, the leaders tried to trap Jesus (Mathew 22:15-22). They sent their disciples to ask Jesus, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” If Jesus answered, “No” they could charge him with insurrection. If he said, “Yes,” they could say he was in favour of the Roman occupation.

Jesus astonished them with his wisdom, when he said to them, “Show me a coin used for paying the tax.” they showed him an denarius, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this, and whose inscription?” “Caesars,” they replied. Then give Caesar what is his, and to God what is God’s.

Now who’s portrait is God’s. People are. God created all people in His image. Jesus is saying, “Give your money with Caesar’s portrait on it, to Caesar. But know this, you must give to God what is God’s, in other words, give yourselves to God, for that’s who created you!

Now, God the Father almighty is also our Father.

God created us. He created us in his image, he created us to be in relationship with him. Adam and Eve, before they sinned and were banished from the Garden of Eden, walked with God in the cool of the day. They talked with him, learned from him. They enjoyed each others’ company.

But sin caused separation between us and God. Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who can stand in his holy place? No one, apart from Jesus can stand and ascend. Only Jesus is pure and holy. All others in history, you, me, not one of us is worthy to ascend the hill of the Lord.

though God promised that in time, he would heal that separation. He made many promises throughout history. Each one pointing toward the day when the Father would send the Son to redeem humanity through his death, which we celebrated in the Lord’s Supper this morning. Jesus’ death atoned for, paid for our sins when he took the Father’s wrath upon himself.

In this way, Jesus, who has clean hands and a pure heart, who never ever lifted up his heart, his soul to an idol, or swore by what is false. Jesus ascended and received a blessing from the Lord. Jesus received vindication—he was falsely accused—from the Father.

Jesus began the process of bringing us into a restored relationship—he did it by walking with people again!

Jesus promises that one day he will return, and he will usher in a new heaven and a new earth! The gates will be lifted up to receive Jesus, the King of glory when he returns. Jesus has conquered death, he has won the battle against death, sin, the devil. Jesus is God, God almighty. God’s dwelling with be with his people again. He will be their God, and they will be their people. Maria, Hannah, Erin, you belong to God! You have been grafted into the the vine, Jesus Christ. God the Holy Spirit walks with you, with all of us, each and every day!

God the Father is creator. He created everything visible and invisible. And he created creatures who create. We all share in this communicable attribute. We are able to create. Not only are we able to procreate, but we can create all kinds of beautiful and amazing things. God created us with the ability to create art—art that mimics God’s beautiful artistry in the universe, in the earth, in heaven. We create tools and things that assist us in living. We create laws that seek to bring justice and righteousness in society. We could spend hours discussing all the tings that God created us with the ability to create.

So these are facts that we can know. But why must we believe them? Knowledge is something that we can store in our memory banks, and knowledge can inform our actions. But believe is knowledge in action. Belief is acting on our knowledge.

So we have learned about God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. God created this good universe and he’s going to take good care of it, especially his creatures that bear his image. So we can trust God’s care—for the world, and for us who belong to him. He is almighty, he has the power to do it all.

He is our Father. We belong to him, to his family. We can trust him. We can trust that he turns everything in our life into what is good for us, for our salvation. It might not be easy. But God is sovereign, his grace is sufficient for us all.

He is almighty. Nothing is impossible for God. Whatever we face today, tomorrow, this week, next week, next month, next year, next decade, next century, millenia, whatever, God has the power and authority to handle it. We can trust him!

This day, Maria, Hannah, Erin, all of you, all of us can trust God. He’s got this. Amen.