I Believe | The Father Almighty

Message

Welcome all of our Christ Journey campuses — Gables Campus, Kendall Campus —  our soon to launch Miami Beach campus, and all of those joining us online in South Florida and around the world, I greet you today in the spirit of grace and peace, as many of those in our nation and our brothers and sisters in the Bahamas continue their recovery efforts after Hurricane Dorian. We have been keeping all of you closely in our prayers and will continue to do so.

***At 11am - We’re honored today, in fact, to welcome Reverend John McIntosh and his wife, Inid, with us in worship today from the Abacos. And Pastor, our prayers go to you, your family, and your congregation in the Abacos.

Last week, Pastor Bill offered a compelling vision for us as a church on the edge, for a city on the edge, in a world feeling on edge. In order to keep from falling off the edge, beginning today through the next ten weeks, we will be journeying through the timeless, essential statements of the Apostles’ Creed in order to build our vision for the future on the firm foundation of our faith.

The word apostle means ‘one who is sent,’ and commonly refers to Jesus’ 12 disciples. The Creed captures their core teachings as they shared Jesus’ Good News of salvation throughout Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, which eventually included our city on the edge.

As the authors formulated what would become the Apostles’ Creed, they painstakingly prayed over every word, at the risk of their lives, during a time of great persecution, in order to preserve the integrity of the Apostles’ teachings.

Throughout our rich, baptist heritage at Christ Journey, the Creed has guided our thinking, as we study God’s true and divinely-inspired Word, but it doesn't define what we believe. Rather, the Bible, as we interpret it through Jesus Christ, defines what we believe. Here at Christ Journey, we pledge our allegiance to Jesus and only Jesus. Like a signpost on our spiritual journey, the Apostles’ Creed points to the core truths about God, which matters now more than ever in a culture moving at the speed of technology. Take a look…

[[[Play Google Video]]]

Nearly all of us turn to technology in some way shape or form in order to make sense of our world, right? Quite frankly, it’s much easier to ask Google our most pressing questions than to talk face to face with a parent, teacher, counselor, or especially a pastor? It’s much easier to ask Google how to talk to a girl than to actually talk to a girl.

Where was Google when I was in high school? Maybe I didn’t need Google. :) No, I needed Google…

When I first mentioned the Apostles’ Creed a moment ago, how many of you felt an immediate reaction to do this:

[[[Click Siri]]] “Hey Siri, what is the Apostles Creed?”

I wonder how frequently we choose this device as our personal companion in times of trouble?

In a 1965 sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he made a statement that could just as easily be said today, 54 years later:

***We have allowed our technology to outdistance our theology and for this reason we find ourselves caught up with many problems.”

This especially matters for our up and coming Flying Oranges.

In a book released just two weeks ago by the Barna Research Group titled Faith for Exiles, the authors report that for the first time in human history:

***Generation Z comprised of 15-23 year olds, spends 2,767 hours per year, the equivalent of 115 days, connected to devices.

How does one even fathom that?

Compare that figure with how many hours the typical young person of the same generation invests into spiritual formation per year: about 150 hours. That’s only about 6 days.

This means that the average young person spends nearly 20 times the amount of hours consuming screen-driven media than receiving spiritual formation, which begs the question of us as people of faith: How do we hope to shape the hearts and minds of the next generation with the weight of information stacked against transformation?

In Faith for Exiles, the author writes: “The age old questions of being human remain unasked, shriveling like neglected seedlings. Deep spiritual longings, which ought to be lovingly tended and skillfully cultivated, are being choked to death by binge television, immersive gaming, and social media scrolling. Faith for Exiles, p. 17

Choked to death… ugh...

While I believe, on the one hand, that technology enhances our lives unlike any other time in human history, and I for one would never want to return to a time without it… we also need to acknowledge its shadow side, and not just for Gen Z.

In a landmark study that Forbes published just last May, more than half of all Americans (54%) said they always or sometimes feel that no one knows them well. Forbes Magazine May 3, 2019.

My heart broke when I read this. In a world so deeply connected, why do many of us feel so lonely?

Under the right conditions, technology enables us to gain access to knowledge, experience community, and share the Gospel throughout our city and to the ends of the earth through live streaming and church online.

Yet, at the same time of our greatest technological improvements, we feel the most lonely. Is this merely ironic, or could this be causal?

We need to ask new questions about how we use and understand our technology and then apply fresh and faithful expectations to it.

We won’t be asking those questions today, but I do want to highlight that...

[[[Hold up phone]]]

***This device isn’t intended to transform us. Rather, it’s purpose should be to inform us.

Whenever we use this as a means to feel something -- and all of us want to feel something -- to feel is to be human -- we all want to feel alive. Yet, whenever we use this as a means to feel something, then more times than not, our longing results in greater disconnection.

***In our information age, we need transformation. Thus why these confessional statements written centuries ago still matter for us today.

The first words of each section say “I believe,” which means transformation.

“I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”

“I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord”

“I believe in the Holy Spirit”

When we believe in something, we’re caught up in it, ready to give our lives over to it.

As we become a church on the edge, for a city on the edge, in a world feeling on edge, Jesus offers us the real and true transformation for which all of us long here and now.

***Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

We believe in God, the Father; God, the Son; and, God, the Holy Spirit. One God in three persons.

As the Apostles began gathering and teaching the early church all about what Jesus did, they formed a trinitarian view about God in order to describe one God, not multiple gods.

And as these young, teenage fisherman, who grew up to become Jesus’ 12 apostles, attended their local synagogue youth group, they more than likely recited this verse from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, the Torah, during morning and evening prayers:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4

One God, not multiple gods.

So as they followed Jesus and watched his life, they thought: this guy teaches and acts just like the one true God that we know from our scriptures, which eventually led Peter to affirm Jesus as the: “Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16).

In the beginning of Peter’s first letter, in fact, this same Peter, Jesus’ lead disciple, described God as three persons in one, saying:

God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace. 1 Peter 1:2

Friends, listen:

God the Father has chosen you.

God the Son has redeemed you.

God the Spirit is at work in you right now, making you holy and set apart for his work in the world.

***God is all three in one. The Father begets the Son who gives the Spirit. All three persons united in perfect union together as one.

As we gain a fuller understanding of God as three in one, then in turn, we will gain a fuller understanding of God’s presence in our life.

(Pause)

The first statement of the Creed reads:

***I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I want to unpack this statement with you for the next few moments.

Now, perhaps like some of you who grew up in the church, I addressed God as Father or my Heavenly Father without really understanding why. I did it, in large part, because everybody else did it, which is no reason to do anything in the church, by the way...

Now, personally, as a man who grew up in a divorced home without my father present, I liked calling God by that name. I felt fulfilled calling my God, Father, as a little boy, since I didn’t have a human relationship with someone who I could call a ‘Father.’

Now, this isn’t everybody’s story. Some people who grew up in a similar situation as mine or with a human father who treated them poorly resist calling God their Heavenly Father because their notion of father conjures up so much pain. I understand.

But I also want you to know that our Heavenly Father didn’t reveal himself as one defined by pain, distance, chaos, or dispassionate apathy, just floating around somewhere in the cosmos or in the halls of a philosophy building or library. Now, some people may believe those attributes about God based on cultural assumptions or misguided philosophical arguments.

The God that Jesus revealed, however, as our Heavenly Father…

The God that these Jewish boys taught throughout the early Christian Church and for whom they ultimately gave their lives…

This God is radically different than those cultural assumptions or misguided philosophical arguments.

Our Heavenly Father is an up close and personal God with us.

Our Heavenly Father bound himself to us by a promise that he ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, and the fundamental message of the Bible is that your Heavenly Father won’t ever let you go!

In fact, God drew so near to us that God entered into our world fully as a human being through His Son who showed us just how much our Heavenly Father loves us.

Often, my wife and I say to our kids that we love them to the moon and back. Your Heavenly Father loves you from Heaven to Earth and then back again.

The Apostles, themselves, witnessed firsthand the close, intimate relationship that Jesus enjoyed with the Father... and they wanted it!

So Jesus’ disciples asked him, show us how to pray, show us how to enter into this same kind of closeness with the one true God who you seem to know on an intimate level. Then, Jesus said, “When you pray, and enter into conversation with this God, don’t call attention to yourself or pray with phony superstition or even pray to get something in return. Instead, say “Father…” Luke 11:2

Imagine, this God, who at once stands apart from us as holy and righteous, all-powerful and just, the creator of the heavens and the Earth, wants you to come to him in the same way that you would with a good ‘Father.’

Do you know what Fathers do? Fathers get close. [[[kneel down]]] They kneel down on bended knee to toss a ball, teach a lesson, discipline a wrong, give hugs and kisses.

Imagine coming to God like that. It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? It’s a very personal, relational understanding of God. This may be new for you. But friends, this isn’t my word. I’m not making up this word to you. Jesus said this. As the Son of God, Jesus says, consider him your Heavenly Father.

Now, this requires a kind of personal humility and surrender to God as your authority, not an equal of powers.

This is a radical concept.

And you know what, you don’t need to have had an earthly dad to know how to do this. In fact, your Heavenly Father can be the perfect substitute.

As we come to God in prayer, Jesus taught us to acknowledge God’s holiness, kingship, will, provision, forgiveness, mercy, deliverance, power, glory, and eternal nature, but first and foremost, Jesus taught, begin by calling God your “Heavenly Father,” for indeed, he is a good, good Father.

The Psalmist wrote:

His name is the Lord—

rejoice in his presence!

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—

this is God, whose dwelling is holy.

God places the lonely in families

Psalm 68:4-6

In real adoptive families, yes, but also in families like this one, the wider extended family of Jesus!

Here, we come to God together, as the Christ Journey familia, in order to experience God as holy, yet knowable and personal, with us.

God made room for us, and likewise, we need to continue making room for each other and those not yet here to join the family.

Hence why we wear this red bracelet. This reminds us that Rahab let down the scarlet cord to make room for more. We need to follow her lead and keep doing the same. We need to keep making space for more.

If you want to know the Father, Jesus says, then look to the Son. I think all of us resonate with Jesus’ disciple, Philip, who said,

“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Can’t you just hear in his voice, Philip saying: C’mon, Jesus, can you help us out here?!

9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? That phrase “I am” by the way is an intentional, direct link back to God’s name in the Old Testament, Yahweh, which means “I am who I am.” Jesus is saying, don’t you know who I am? I am Yahweh God! I am the great I am! Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. 11 Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.

Friends, we know the Father because we know the Son, and we know Jesus because he gave us his Holy Spirit to help us understand and live with the courage to trust in what we cannot see.

(Pause)

12 “I tell you the truth, Jesus said, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. 13 You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. 14 Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it! John 14:8-14

In order to bring glory to God, the Father, through you!

Friends, If you feel apart from God today, isolated and alone, lost in the endless sea of “connection,” while the God of real and true connection seems distant and unknowable, then friend, may I say, “perhaps it wasn’t God who wandered.”

The consequential nature of our sin resulted in all of us becoming separated from God’s holiness and righteousness, drifting on our own, feeling like no one knows us, let alone God, leading us to think and act in ways that isolate us from each other and our Heavenly Father.

***“For the wages of sin is death.” Paul wrote Romans 6:23

Which means spiritual, physical, and eternal separation from God.

But do you know why we call Jesus’ message Good News? Because, even then, amidst our greatest separation, the whole witness of Scripture bears witness to the surprising faithfulness of our Heavenly Father, who revealed God’s persistent, never-ending, relentless, up close and personal love for every one single one of us, even when we wander from it.

Now, did you notice that the Creed also added a descriptor with the word ‘Father?’ God is not just a Father, but he is Father, Almighty! POWER and STRENGTH!

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, young Susan asked Mr. Beaver, “Who is Aslan?”

Mr. Beaver says, “Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"...

"Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

***Our God is Father. Our God is Almighty. Our God is King.

Our God isn’t a safe God. He isn’t safe to sin. He isn’t safe to hatred, violence, and injustice. Safe requires boundaries, but our God is boundless! Our God crossed the boundaries of Heaven and Earth to save you through his Son. Though your Heavenly Father isn’t safe, he is trustworthy because he is a Good God defined by love. True love isn’t always safe, but it’s always good.

Last, in this first line of the creed, we confess:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, “creator of heaven and earth.”

God is a Father. God is Almighty. God is also a Creator.

The Psalmist wrote:

***The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.

The world and all its people belong to him.

For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas

and built it on the ocean depths. Psalm 24:1-2

Make no mistake, this Psalm declares that we breathe God’s air, we live on God’s time, and we use God’s resources. Everything in the heavens and on the earth, including everything that makes up our bodies, belongs to our Heavenly Father. We are not self-made men and women, but the good news is that we're not here by accident.

Your Heavenly Father created you, formed you, pieced you together, and even now, is still creating in you and through you.

The Psalmist wrote: ***For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths.

In Hebrew theology, the seas represented chaos and evil, which our sin against God caused. Sin disrupted God’s created order. It still does. Sin breeds chaos. We experience it everyday.

In this passage, however, the Psalmist portrays how our Heavenly Father creates order from chaos, laying the foundation of all the world upon the depths of the ocean seas. In God’s creation, chaos doesn’t get a voice. God subdues it, and then creates order in its place. Sin is our creation, not God’s. Since we cannot make right what we broke, our Heavenly Father chose to send his Son to fill the gap and redeem us into something new.

Friends, if there has ever been a time when the world so desperately needed to feel something new, the church’s love, and know what we believe, then that time is right now.

But it begins first... right here... with you:

***Where could God’s fathering presence make a difference for you today?

In providing for, protecting, forgiving, healing, inviting, giving to, and loving those within your influence, including yourself.

This week, may we leverage the best of our technology in order to inform us.

Transformation belongs solely to your Heavenly Father, so instead of asking “Hey Siri” for help in times of need, what if we say, “Hey Father.”

Let’s talk…

PRAYER: During salvation prayer, ask:

Today, are you ready to receive God’s fathering by allowing him to bring you into his family, loving you into his salvation, and forgiving you into eternity with him?