OUR MIGHTY, FAITHFUL FATHER

SEEING GOD'S MIGHT IN CREATION

 "Do you like storms - great big crashing, rip-roarin' storms?"
Someone asked me that the other day. I found it a bit of a strange question, till she explained -
"The power in them is just amazing. I think they're great. When I sit back and watch a storm, I see God at work. It's beautiful."
I had to admit - she's right.

Another acquaintance of mine doesn't necessarily go in for storms. The night sky is his thing - to tilt his head back and gaze up into billions of pinpricks of light, suns like our but much more distant. "All of that," he would say with a sweep of his hand towards the stars, "made by God. And he keeps them going, every day. Incredible! What a God! What a universe!"
He too is right.

Think of it - here we are hurtling through space at a speed of almost 110,000 km/h, orbiting the sun, with a diameter of 1.4 million km and an internal temp of 14x10(6) C. We orbit with 8 other planets, forming the Solar System. It is but one small part of the Milky Way galaxy, some 30,000 light years from the centre of the galaxy. Travelling 240 km/sec it will take the earth 200 million years to make a complete trip around the Milky Way.
Our Milky Way galaxy, 100,000 light years in diameter, is but a tiny speck in the universe. There are billions of galaxies like ours around.

And all of this, from the greatest of stars such as Rigel - bright as 18,000 of our suns, through the majesty of the momentary thunderstorms, right down to the tiniest of field mice is made and controlled by Jahweh, the one living Lord God, maker of Heaven and Earth.

Whether you see it through the storm, or a telescope or microscope, or just by standing still in your backyard - DO take note. What a great and majestic God we serve.

How powerful! Almost overwhelmingly so.... frightening, even?
And what intricacy, what imaginative and complex detail. When you think about it, it almost takes your breath away.
And all of that is summed up in the one little phrase which began the Apostles' Creed earlier in this service:
I believe in God the Father ALMIGHTY, Maker of heaven & earth

SPEAKING OF HIS MIGHT TODAY

 I wonder if the greatness and might of God the Creator is something that ever crosses your mind? Do you ever echo the sentiments of Psalm 8:
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth
...when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers...
Would do us all good to focus on that from time to time, wouldn't it?
Especially in light of the way so many people speak of God today. Ever notice how they refer to him?
- "The Big Guy"
- "The Man Upstairs"
Sometimes it comes out a little nicer than that:
- "The Almighty"
But even that is saying very little. For it tends to be a bland way to refer to some generic deity without offending anyone. It won't bother Jews, Muslims, Unitarians or Hindus. Come to think of it, most would suggest, even God should be pleased at being referred to in such benevolent terms - "Almighty."
What is so bothersome about all these labels is not so much the label itself, but the manner in which they are used -- almost flippantly, tossed about thoughtlessly like a piece of candy wrapper.
I wonder whether a single one of these people ever stop to consider a thunderstorm or the night sky or the intricacy of a field flower. I doubt it.
And I wonder what such people would do if one day they turned a corner and were indeed visited by "The Almighty."

I remember a friend I had in Toronto. His father had a terrible habit of calling to the Lord at every turn - "Oh Lord, this..." and "God that...." His wife was a pious woman, and once in total frustration she turned to him - "Gord, what are you going to do when one day he DOES answer you and appear?"
 

MEETING "THE ALMIGHTY"

 God the Father Almighty --
I thumbed through my Bible (actually hit the <pgdwn> key on my computerized bible) looking at what happened to people who actually had a confrontation with the Lord, or perhaps with a representative of the Lord in the form of an angel. A pattern emerges very quickly.

BALAAM: in Numbers 22 -
He travels a path with his donkey.

Nu 22:25 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she
pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam's foot against it.
Later Balaam sees the angel -
Nu 22:31 Then the LORD opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw
the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword
drawn. So he bowed low and fell face down.

SAMSON'S PARENTS: in Judges 13 -
Jud 13:20 As the flame blazed up from the altar toward
heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. Seeing
this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the
ground.

ASSYRIAN ARMY: 2 Kings 19 -
Here instead of believers confronting the power of the Almighty, it is the heathen:
2Ki 19:35 That night the angel of the LORD went out and put
to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the
Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning--
there were all the dead bodies!

RESURRECTION: In Matthew 28 -
Here we see hardened Roman soldiers, the invincible and powerful army of Caesar, meeting heavenly power:
Mt 28:2-4 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of
the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb,
rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

Similar things are said of:
ZECHARIAH: a humble priest in Luke 1
MARY: also in Luke 1 -
SHEPHERDS: in Luke 2 -
CORNELIUS: A Roman centurion, a devout believer, in Acts 10 -
JOHN THE APOSTLE: Even the best friend of Jesus - Rev 1
Re 1:17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be
afraid. I am the First and the Last...."
And of course there is the account of the entire nation of Israel meeting the Lord, as Dave read to us earlier from Exodus 20:
Ex 20:19 [They] said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we
will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."

THAT is what it is like to come face to face with the power of God!

I believe in God the Father ALMIGHTY.
 

ADOPTED INTO THE ALMIGHTY'S FAMILY

 Praise God that through the grace of Jesus Christ we can, in addition to saying "I believe in God... the Almighty", say "I believe in God THE FATHER."

Listen to what the Bible says:

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GALATIANS 3.26-4.7 P.888

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One of the pictures that many Americans remember from the early 1960's is of President Kennedy at work in the Oval Office of the White House. He sat behind a large impressive desk, overseeing the affairs of the most powerful nation on earth. And underneath that desk played a small boy, his son John John. His father even had a trap door cut into the back of the desk to allow him to slip in and out freely.
The story is reportedly told of one visiting head of state leaning over to the little Kennedy during a meeting in that Oval Office and saying, "Do you know that this man is the most powerful person in the whole world?" And John John replied, "But he's also my daddy."

The president of the United States, holding the world on the brink of nuclear war during the cuban missile crisis,
holding his son on his knee during a teething crisis.

The Lord God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth
Abba
He's also my daddy.
Oh, not in a natural way. By nature, as we have seen in weeks past, we are corrupted people - with a dark streak of rebelliousness and sin that goes right to the very core of our being. The only natural son is Jesus Christ.
But because he became part of the human family, and because he took our place in receiving the judgement of God -
because of this we can become part of the divine family.

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus... Because you are sons, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out "Abba, Father.""

One of my colleagues had the meaning of this phrase hit home to him a number of years ago while touring Israel. He was sharing a taxi with a local family. Somewhere along the trip, a little boy sitting on his father's knee wanted his attention. He reached up and touched his face - "Abba, Abba" "Daddy, daddy."
 

REVERENCE TOWARDS FATHER

 All of which leaves some very sincere believers rather uncomfortable. "What about," they say, "what about reverence? Doesn't this Almighty Creator deserve great reverence, great respect? And how can referring to him as 'Daddy' promote that? It seems almost frivolous."
And they have a point. Never do we want to sink to the level of participating in the unbelieving sort of talk about "The Big Guy Upstairs." Never do we want to be caught doing that, treating him with flippant disregard or as some coffee-house buddy. It is the same sort of callous, disrespectful, wrongful attitude that lies behind someone speaking of his earthly father as "the Old Man." It grates. It is wrong. It is cheap irreverence.

But on the other hand, neither do we want to up on a pedestal, up and up and up until we no longer can access him - or only in moments of serious crisis. You know - the suggestion that we not bother God our Father with minor items like mom's headache, Michelle's pet doggy, or Andrew's spelling test. Go and handle those on our own.
That grates, as well. That, too, is wrong. That, too, in it's own way, is a cheap form of irreverence.
Says Christ in Matthew 10:
"even the very hairs on your head are numbered."
I suppose we could take that to mean that anything less significant than an old hair falling out is too insignificant for God. Everything else matters a great deal, and he wants to be in on the action..... Because he is our Father!
 

CONCLUSION

 If you have ever been out in the prairies during a thunderstorm, you know the meaning of power. It can take your breath away. The little pea shooters we get here are nothing by comparison.
Power - unimaginable power, the power of God the Almighty!
And that power, for Jesus' sake, is turned to our good, used for our well-being, providing whatever we need for body and soul.
What comfort. What hope.

For if HE is for us, who can be against us?

As our time together draws to a close, join me in reading what it is we believe: