The Power of Sustenance

The God of Aristotle

Aristotelian Theology

The Greek philosopher Aristotle, it seems, parted ways with his cultures views on religion. While he didn’t outright reject the pantheon of Greek gods, he concluded that there must be a creator God that existed eternally. If there were other gods, then they would have to be below this creator god.

Aristotle called this god that he surmised the Unmoved Mover and believe it or not this greek philosophy from a pagan who died 2,342 years ago is still used in christian apologetics today.

The Why Game

It is a logical conclusion that he reached. It’s the conclusion you have to arrive at when your children get to the stage that they start playing to the ‘why’ game. It goes like this:

The kid asks: Dad, why is the ball red?

The dad responds: because they dyed it that way at the factory

The kid asks: why?

The dad responds: because that is how the toy factory wanted it

The kid asks: why?

The dad responds: because they thought it would sell more balls

The kid asks: why?

The dad responds: because kids prefer red balls

The kid asks: why?

The dad finally, and exhaustedly responds: because that is how God made them.

A Contemporary Conclusion

But this is the same place we end up with most of our attempts at determining why existence exists.

The big bang theory suggest that there was something infinitely small and infinitely dense that decided to go bang but never concludes how the infinitely small and infinitely dense thing came to be.

There is a theory, as non-traditional as it may be, that human life on earth was seeded by aliens. But that doesn’t really resolve much. It just outsources the problem to another galaxy. What created the aliens?

There is a theory that we all just live in a simulation. This theory makes for a pretty great Keanu Reeves movie but we still have to determine what created the beings that created the simulation.

The conclusion of rational thought always has to come back to this notion that an being set everything in motion that was himself not set into motion. An Unmoved Mover. The god at the end of the why game.

Impersonal

But, Aristotle’s god is impersonal. He set the universe in motion and then stepped away from his creation. Aristotles god has been called the Heavenly Narcissist by critics because it presents as De Koninck state a god who is:

… ignorant of everything below himself and therefore not in a position to exercise providence

Darwin

Charles Darwin, in his book Origin of the Species, the book that codified his theory of evolution made this statement:

He begins:

I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype.....

And concludes:

..... I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator.

So, even in his defining of a system that removes God from the equation of creation, Charles Darwin still has to conclude that life was first breathed by the Creator. Logically, Darwin couldn’t get past an Unmoved Mover.

The God of the Bible

But an impersonal Unmoved Mover is not the God of the Bible. Hebrews 1:2 tells us that Christ who made the worlds. This morning we will look at Hebrews 1:3 where we read that Christ not only created existence but that he actively sustains existence as well.

If you have your Bible’s open, read with me in Hebrews 1:3

Hebrews 1:3 KJV 1900

3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

This mornings message is the second in our series The Power of Christ entitled The Power of Sustenance.

Pray

Getting Personal

On an Island

It was once theorized, that if you spent your entire life on an island with just a tree and a bird in that tree and that is the only existence you knew. If you knew that you weren’t God you would conclude that the bird was God.

The point is that any reasonable person pondering existence must conclude that some intelligent being set existence into motion.

The first sentence of Psalm 14:1 is probably familiar to you:

Psalm 14:1 (KJV 1900)

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.

It is simply a foolish notion to observe creation and conclude that there is no creator. That this universe has no architect. That there is no God.

But Psalm 14:1 gets to the heart of that very belief. If you are going to foolishly conclude that there is no God then the word of God exposes your heart

Psalm 14:1 KJV 1900

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, There is none that doeth good.

The reason to conclude that there is no God is that you are depraved and behave in a morally revolting way. You are corrupt and have done abominable works.

If you are bent towards living wickedly, the idea of a God who is both perfectly righteous, omni-present and omni-powerful is the last thing you to believe. The God of the Bible is the God of Psalm 139:7-12, please turn with me.

Psalm 139:7–12 KJV 1900

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; Even the night shall be light about me. 12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; But the night shineth as the day: The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

A Christian reads this in the spirit of Romans 8:39

Romans 8:39 KJV 1900

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That there is nowhere we can go where the love of God and the power of God doesn’t have reach. And for the the Christian that is great news, because the Christians know where they stand under the love of God, and the power of God is a power of protection.

If I were walking in the wilderness and came across a mother grizzly bear and her cub and that mother bear reared up on her hind legs and roared at me, it would be an understatement to say that I would be terrified. But that has a lot to do with my relationship with that mother bear. I am an outsider, I am intruder and I have no relationship with that bear. The bear cub isn’t afraid at all of that mother bear. It has to do with relationship. The cub is under the protection and care of the mother bear. So like our relationship with God it is a joy to be under His care but terror to be an enemy or even a stranger.

And so the foolish heart of the wicked decides that there is no God, because to affirm that their is a God requires the person to conclude the need to either repent or live in terror.

The only alternative being to conclude the god of Aristotle or Darwin. This is the god of the deists that we read about when we learn of America’s founding fathers. A god that sets everything in motion, that creates existence and even the dignity of man but then abandons his creation. The god of the deists is no more real than golden calf worshiped of the Israelites in the wilderness. It’s a god of their own imagination.

The God of the Bible uphold(s) all things by the word of his power.

Upheld

Colossians 1:17 reads

Colossians 1:17 KJV 1900

17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

This isn’t a picture of a God who creates and walks away, no our Bible tells us of a God who is holding it all together. That reality itself consists because of him.

Mars Hill

As Paul stood on Mars Hill and preached to the pagan philosophers he spoke of the Unknown God. And he didn’t end in that God was the God of creation. In Acts 17:28 he says of the God that they didn’t know:

Acts 17:28 KJV 1900

28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

This an encompassing statement, we are his offspring but so much more. We continue on because of him: living and moving and having our being.

F. F. Bruce in his commentary on the book of Hebrews says of our Lord:

The Epistle to the Hebrews A. God’s Final Revelation in His Son (1:1–4)

He upholds the universe not like Atlas supporting a dead weight on his shoulders, but as one who carries all things forward on their appointed course.

Strong Atomic Force

There is a theory, and I at least think it is an interesting concept to ponder on how God holds existence together.

Parts of an Atom

You may well remember that an atom, the smallest unit of ordinary matter, is composed of 3 parts: protons, neutrons and electrons. The electrons orbit in a cloud around a nucleus, and that nucleus is constructed of neutrally charged neutrons and positively charged protons.

Nucleus

Repel

The puzzling question is how it is possible that a nucleus can be held together. There aren’t any negatively charged particles only positive and neutral in the nucleus. And you have all seen how this works with magnets. If you put two positive poles of a magnet together what do they do…they repel.

So how do a bunch of particles that are supposed to repel each other pull together to create the nucleus?

The Force

They use the force. Not in the Star Wars sense but it might as well be for as much as scientists know about it. They just call it the Strong Nuclear Force. They don’t know why the nucleus forms against what they know about physics but they know it does so something must be acting upon the particles....so....they just call it a force.

Theory

So, what does physics have to do with theology? Turn your Bible over to 2 Peter 3:10

2 Peter 3:10 KJV 1900

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

In writing of the end of times Peter says that the elements shall melt with a fervent heat.

The word elements here is στοιχεῖον (stoicheion) in the Greek. The Louw Nida Greek/English Lexicon says that in some languages the easiest way to translate this is with the phrase “the substances of which the universe consists”

With todays science when we think of the “substances of which the universe consists” at it’s most basic we think of atoms.

Do you know what they call splitting the nucleus of an atom? Nuclear Fission. We have seen this demonstrated with this principle being weaponized in World War II in the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Atomic bombs that were detonated and with fervent heat melted the elements.

Sustenance?

So how does this relate back to Hebrews 1:3:

Hebrews 1:3 says: Jesus upholds — all things.

Col 1:17 says that: by the power of christ all things consist

It it is the power of God through Christ which holds the very substance of things together, what scientists call a force exists by the hand of God. And if he takes his hand off we find the consequence in 2 Peter 3:10b

2 Peter 3:10 (KJV 1900)

....and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Power

Our God is not the impersonal God of Aristotle. He actively holds the universe together.

I will admit that through history man has filled God into the gaps of what science cant explain away. What is most common today is that God is written entirely out of our understanding of existence.

But it is the power of God that holds it all together. Perhaps in 100 years this message will be outdated as some scientific discovery defines the atomic force in a rationalistic way. But what won’t change is the fundamental truth.

Just like a kid playing the why game until the exasperated parent concludes: That is just how God created it … So will physicists forever be asking why until they they conclude in futile limit of human understanding that existence is held together because God is holding it together.

Same Power

Let me conclude with how verse concludes this morning in Hebrews 1:3

Hebrews 1:3 (KJV 1900)

…when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

This same power that is the power of creation which we read of in v2 is the same power that sustains existence in v3 who is the same power laid down his life and took upon himself the wrath of the All-Mighty to purge our sins. To rescue us from the consequences of our disobedience.

And by extension I will say that this is the same power that we can call upon in our heartache and in our sorrow who will comfort us and guide us.

If you don’t have a relationship with the creator and sustainer of the universe today, let me tell you that this is the message of Christianity. To be reconciled to this great power, this previously Unknown God through the remission of sins offered by repentance and placing our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save us.

If you are here and want to talk more about what it is to follow Jesus and have this relationship with him, As we conclude the service I am available, please come and let’s talk about it. If you are watching from home, you can reach out by sending me a direct message. I promise that whatever you send will remain confidential.

Pray