Col
1. 1-14
Introduction
We
are going to look at the document
called the “Apostles’ Creed”… something
that is so old that we don’t know when it was put together: it
is first mentioned in a letter written in 390 AD. It
isn’t Scripture. But it takes what Scripture says and organises it
for us: rather like Scripture was a hillside with flowers growing
wild and the Creed was a formal garden with everything neatly
arranged. So our first task has been to try to match up Bible
passages with articles from the Creed. Which has been fun!
“I
believe”… goes a bit farther than simply saying “I think this
is true”. We were learning last week that faith is a dynamic,
active thing that results in our stepping out or
speaking out, serving God and others, and expecting god to be at
work. It
is also – and I didn’t say this last week – a relationship with
God. For
Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham it led to sacrifice, intimacy,
obedience, risk-taking – and miracles. To say, the
creed, to say
“I believe”, is going to change our lives.
The
Creed is shaped around who God is – father, Son and Holy Spirit –
and then talks about us and our
relationship with
God. It is Trinitarian
and
it is pastoral. And
it spends a long time talking about Jesus – six of the twelve
articles in the Creed are about Jesus – to is is Christocentric.
But it begins with the Father. It has more to say about the Son,
because “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb
1. 1); but don’t forget the father.
The
first thing that the compilers of this Creed wrote about the first
person of the Trinity, is this “We
believe in God
the Father
almighty”.
That
is not just a description of how he treats us, or
of how we might feel towards God. It is
central to who God
is.
God
is the FATHER ALMIGHTY. The
God who said to Moses, “I am who I am”, Yahweh, the God Israel
worshipped, is The Father Almighty.
But
whose Father
is he?
He
is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the most important thing of all. And he
has always been the God and Father of our lord Jesus Christ. Always.
For ever. Being
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not just something that
“happened” to God. In 1983
I became a father. Early
in 1982 John didn’t exist; then he grew in the womb and on 4 April
1983 he was born. But there was never a time when Jesus didn’t
exist. Jesus was there in the beginning with God the Father, God his
father. (Jn
1.1f – we will be looking at this passage next week!) God
every day causes his Son the be there. That is an amazing mystery.
Acknowledging God as the Father of Jesus, the eternal father of the
eternal Jesus, points us towards the trinity: one God, Father , Son
and Holy Spirit. And the Creed is shaped around the Trinity.
So
to talk about God the Father Almighty, the father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, should leave us feeling a sense of “Wow!”. Our God is
amazing! The Father is and always has been there in
a
relationship of love to his Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit who dances
between them like a flame and a wind.
And
then, in a secondary sense, God is “our Father”.
That
is what we say in the Lord’s prayer. As Christians we claim God as
our Father; or rather, he claims us as his children. We have an old
saying in Scotland: “We’re
a’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns” –
we
are equal in God’s sight as people created in his image: but that
is not the same a s saying “We are all God’s children”. We
are not.With regard to humanity,
men and women, God is Father to his own people. In the Old testament
he is father to Israel. In the New Testament he is Father
to
those who are joined to Jesus.. Col
1. 13f says “For
he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into
the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins”. And
that wee phrase, “In Christ” is one of Paul’s favourites. We
sometimes talk about letting Jesus
into
our hearts. But we need to ask Jesus
to let us in to his heart.
And
it is when we are “In” Jesus God’s Son, that we in turn are
God’s sons and daughters. Gal
3. 26 says, “In
Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith”. In
Christ, we are “adopted” as god’s children. “Now I am your
son, I am adopted in your family...” Jim
Packer says “Sonship to God is a gift of grace”
Remember
whose you are.
And
if we are in God’s family, adopted as his children, two things
follow from that (I did
tell you that believing is relational
and dynamic, not just
about ideas!)
-
Family Resemblance. Jesus put it like this (Mt 5. 44, 45, ) “Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. (Mt 5. 44f NLT) Paul was thankful as he wrote Colossians, because he had heard about the family resemblance in their lives: faith, love, fruitfulness. (Col 1. 4-6). So what does your Heavenly Father want to change in your life, so that you can be like him?
-
Family Reliance. Because God is his Father, Paul “never stops praying” for his friends to have the insight and strength and joy they need. (Col 1. 9ff) Simply, we can trust our heavenly father. Jesus says “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matt 7. 9-11) That’s the Father's character. He know what we need before we ask (My 6. 8) Jesus repeatedly tells us too ask our father for what we need. (see John 14. 13; 15. 16; 16. 23) and assures us that we are safe for eternity with our heavenly Father (Jn 14. 2)
The
second
thing
the Creed says about
God is He’s the
creator
of Heaven and earth.
Gen
1. 1-2 says “In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth
was formless and empty.” That
conjures
up an image of a wild, empty planet. But the Hebrew words “tohu
wabohu”
mean “nothing and emptiness”. … John 1. says “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. Without him nothing was made that has been made.” God
started with nothing and shaped a universe with his creative word.
That is breathtaking. God
cares about the created world and so should we.
Let’s
be clear: God’s
relationship what the Creed calls “Heaven and earth” – with the
physical and spiritual world (including
the earth and every plant and animal on the earth, the galaxies of
stars, and angels and spiritual forces
– is
that of creator and creature. God is not part of his world; God is
not part of the universe, and the universe is not part of god. God
is not part of the “Spiritual realm” and the “Spiritual realm”
is not part of God. There is in other words, a distinction between
God (Father
Son and Holy Spirit) and everything else. As
Matt Redman puts it in one of his
songs “You are God in heaven, and
here
am I on earth,
and
I stand in awe of you...”
We
come
with great humility to this God. But Paul in Col 1. 10f prays that
his friends will “grow
in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according
to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and
patience.” Isn’t
it breathtaking that all the power the dynamite-like power, the
famous-muscle-man power of God, is
there for us as we live for God
in this world. Because
God is the creator of heaven and earth. The
Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, calls us to be his
children.
To
believe in Him is to trust him, to rely, and to be like him.
©
Gilmour Lilly January 2017
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