Rev. Tatiana Cantarella

Psalm 89:2-3; 113:7-9, 19-26; Genesis 1:1-5; 2:1-7; Acts 17:22-30; Revelation 4:1-11

Series of sermons on the Apostle's Creed

02: I believe in God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth

Last week we said that what one believes in defines his/her destiny. Everyone believes something but it's not only important to believe but what to believe. We said that despite a popular conviction that everyone has their own truth, not everything is the Truth.  We said that in this world that is not sure of anything, Christians are a people who in the midst of all the many voices claiming to be the voice of truth, have heard that divine voice in the heart, that knock on the door of their life and made a decision to open their lives to God's light that has helped them boldly proclaim: «I believe!» And by that they mean "I made a decision to build my life on what God says is the Truth”. And today we will begin exploring what according to Scriptures is true about God. Who is God? What is He like? What kind of God do Christians believe in?

Unfortunately too often people’s picture of God has nothing to do with reality (and perhaps some of you today might discover that you also have some non-biblical images of God). But in order to understand these false views of God we need to turn to the words of Ecclesiastes 5:2 where he says: "God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few”. Main misguided images of God are directly related to a misunderstanding of what the Bible means by "heaven” and "earth”. "Heaven” in the Bible can both mean "a visible heaven” – what we call the sky and also "God’s realm” that is different than our realm of being. Those who didn’t realize that began thinking of "heaven” as some place in our universe "where the people of God will enjoy all the good things when they join God there after their death”. With such understanding "heavens” are just an end goal, a purpose for God’s people, a place that is the opposite of "hell”. But we never find such picture in the Scriptures. Heaven is not just something spatial but a way of thinking, a way of being, the divine being. And in this way heavens can be right here on earth when God’s way of being is present here. In the same way "the earth” in the Bible is not just earth under our feet but a human world, the human way of thinking and of life in contrast to the life of God.

But when we misunderstand those two Biblical terms we come up with misguided vies of God as well.  Some people believe, for example, that God is in everything, everywhere, in fact that He IS everything and everything is God. So, for them heaven and earth are one and the same thing, and there is no distinction between God and us, He is in each one of us.  In such faith in God our goal is then to get in contact with the divine that is in us and in the world around (in trees, flowers, waterfalls), all you need to do is get in tune with the divine.  It might seem romantic for a moment but for any thinking person such a faith will quickly lead to confusion.  If God is in everything and is everything does that mean that he is also in flies and cancer cells, in viruses and tsunami? And if God is in everything then there is no answer to the problem of evil in the world, there no "supreme justice” to whom we can come for help. There is no one to come to our help and all we are left with is to get used to the world as it is or to try to escape this world and its sufferings.  Faith in such a god leads to despair.

Another well spread understanding of God is this: there is a god but he is somewhere there in heaven and between god and humans is a great distance.  This god has a life of his own and he does not participate in our earthly affairs.  A person that believes in such a God can only try to learn on independently in this world for while God does not mess with his life, he doesn’t help either. Such faith in god may be satisfactory for a person for a while. If he or she is well off, is successful in what one does, they can live ignoring that "distant god” and enjoy life. But if a person live like most of us in a harsh world, knows poverty and pain and loss, then somewhere deep down he realizes that something is wrong with this world and there must be something else in life that we crave for. But this faith in a "distant god” has been so engraved into modern thinking since the 18^th century that most of us are convinced that faith doesn’t relate much to every day life. That is why people can say that they "believe in God” and at the same time never go to church, never pray, know nothing about the Bible, never think about God (or think about Him only during special seasons or hardship times).  N.T. Wright said it well: "I don’t blame such people: if I believed in such a distant and impersonal God I also wouldn’t be able to get out of my warm bed on Sunday morning”. Faith in a distant God does not require me to change my life. But you know what is the main problem of those who believe in a distant God? They constantly have to close their ears to the echo of that voice and of that knocking of God in our heart with which He remind us that He is not far, that He is right here.  But there is no place in such faith for God’s calling: God doesn’t care about me, so He couldn’t be calling me. And in our busy and noisy world it’s not that hard to mute that voice and that knock in the heart. We can sit in front of a TV or a computer and at the same time send an SMS with one hand and talk on a land like phone with the other.  But as soon as we turn off all the electronics, pick up a book or go outside to look at the sky and you begin hearing in our heart that voice of God who turns out to be not as far as we thought.

One of the variations of this faith in a "distant God” is a view of God as an old man with a long white beard, who sits on a cloud up there in sky and looking down with a discontent look upon the mess that we’ve created here in this world.  And while this image of God has nothing to do with a true Christian faith, many people assume that is the Being we Christians mean when we talk about God.  

Is it possible that among these misconceptions or even outright caricature views of God you’ve discovered your own views which never helped you find any answers to those important questions of life that we’ve asked: who are we and where we came from, what is the purpose of our life and where are we going? So, it’s time for us to talk about a third view of God, an understanding that Christians inherited from the people of Israel. Christians believe that the Bible contains a true story of God and the world that this story explains the voice, which constantly echoes in our hearts as we long for goodness, spiritual things and peace.

So, Who is God according to the Bible? There very first words of the Bible are: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), and of the Apostle’s Creed: "I believe in God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth”.  That means that God is Someone completely separate from creation. He was before everything was created.  He created this world (you and I included). Everything begins with God who created us. And every time we try to start somewhere else everything gets confusing.  The Bible says that God created everything and everyone and continues to sustain everything by His will.  He is not a distant God who created things and withdrew into His heavenly mansion in order to watch how we mess up and wonder around aimlessly. The Bible says that God from the very beginning God participated and continues to participate in this world and in the lives of people.  Yes, Scripture says that God is not like us at all, a very different Being. But it also constantly shows how much our life is connected to the life of God and that’s why we can hear, see and understand that God is present here on earth and that He is close to us.  That’s what Paul is trying to tell the Greeks who believed in a distant indifferent God. Paul says: "God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:27-28а).

The Bible is clear that after God created the world He continued to take part in it. Abraham regularly met with God and God even called him His fried! To Jacob God gave a vision of a ladder that connected the heaven and the earth and the angels climbed up and down that ladder.  Moses saw a bush that was burning but not burning up and realized that he was standing on holy ground, that is where heaven met the earth, the divine met the human.  Later when Moses brought the people of Israel from Egypt, God was going ahead of the people in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.  Then God met Moses again on the mount of Sinai and gave him the Ten Commandments and continued to lead the people into the Promised Land.  As they are traveling God tells them to build a Tabernacle – a mobile sanctuary, which will be a sign of God’s presence with the people.  Eventually in the Promised Land the Tabernacle will be replaced with the Jerusalem Temple – a more permanent reminder of God’s presence in their midst which influences how they live.  This Temple will become for them a place where heaven and earth meet. The Temple stood on the hill and as they walked up the hill it was as if they ascended to the place where heaven and earth met, a place of encountering God.

Some people believe that God and the world is one and the same thing or that God created the world and then left it to fend for itself but Christians believe that God created the world and continues to act in it with love.  We believe the Bible that creation of the world was the free expression of God’s love. The One and Only God created the world that is different than Him because that’s what love does.  And after creating the world God continuously stays in a close and intimate relationship with it.  God never left His creation and continues to call it back to Himself.

If we believe the Bible that says that God is the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth it means that He is our Source.  We’ve not just appeared out of nowhere, we were created and that explains a lot.  It explains the voice that we hear inside, the know on our hearts with which God continues to remind us about Himself and our desire to understand who we are and what we are here for.  Pope Benedict XVI said it well: "We are not just some случайный and meaningless result of evolution. Each one of us is the result of God’s idea.  Each one is sought after, each one is loved, each one is needed”. Even if we might have been a surprise for our parents, we were not a surprise for God. We are His children and He is our Father, we belong to Him and can never get away or hide from Him. And we won’t be happy unless we come to know Him for there is a God shaped vacuum that no one else can fill.  St. Augustine understood it well when he said: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confession 1: 1).

That’s why Christians pray: "Our heavenly Father”. That’s why the Apostle’s Creed says: "I believe in God the Father Almighty”.  The Creed the whole nature of God squeezes into two words that don’t even seem to go together”. "Father” in the Bible is translated from "Abba” that is better rendered as "daddy”. It’s a very personal word that implies intimate relationships.  We call God the Father meaning that He is close to us and He cares for us.  And the word "Almighty”, the translation of  "El Shaddai”, is used in the Bible the first time when God appears to a 99 year old Abraham and promises that he is yet to become a father. It thus points to the unlimited power of God and that He is not like us.  And when we call God "the Almighty” we believe that He is able to do anything He wants, there are no limits to His power.  One of the few places in the Bible where those two words are used together is Malachi 1:6: "Son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty.” Malachi reminds us that if we believe that God is the Father Almighty, then we being His Creation owe Him honor and are called to understand that we are NOT god and are not to play God like those who believe in a distant god and thus need to take matters into their own hands. 

There is a proverb to help us understand that.  There was a peasant who always thought that if he could be in charge of the weather, things would go much better.  God saw his thoughts and told him: "if you think that you know better what kind of weather you need, then this summer you’ll be in charge of the weather”.  The peasant got really excited and immediately wished for sunny weather. When the ground got dry he wished that it would rain at night. The wheat was growing like never before.  Everyone around was so happy seeing such big ears of the grain. In the fall when the fields were all yellow the peasant began harvesting. But he quickly got disappointed: all the ears were empty! He harvested nothing but the straw! And he began complaining to God that the harvest was so bad.  "But you ordered weather as you thought fit”, said the Creator. "I’ve done everything the way it should be and I don’t understand why the ears of the grain are empty?” "Have you forgotten about the wind? That’s why nothing worked. You need the wind to carry the pollen from one ear of the grain to the other. Then the grain cross-fertilizes and you have a great harvest”. A peasant became so ashamed and thought: "No way, let God be in charge of the weather.  We’ll only mess everything up in the nature with our own "wisdom”.

Being the Almighty God can do anything that He wants for there is nothing impossible for him. And being the Father God will do anything that is necessary for our good.  In God the Father Almighty meet both an unlimited power and an unlimited love and that is a great blessing and promise for us.  Isaiah 40:28-31 pains a beautiful picture: "Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.”

When we believe in God the Father Almighty we have the strength and courage to face any difficulties and trials for we find answers to many questions that bothered and even depressed us for years and we begin to understand who we are and why we are here.  And therefore if I truly believe that God is The Father Almighty, Creator of heave and earth”, then:

• I will trust Him more and complain less
• I will not find it hard to get out of bed on Sunday morning
• I will stop playing God and will let God be God in my life
• I will not be living in fear for I am secure in the love of the Father
• I can confidently say: "may Your will be done” because I know that my Heavenly Father is not my enemy and know best what is good for me
• I will pray more and pout less
• I will not regret the things I don’t have and will enjoy what I do have, knowing that if I need anything else my Heavenly Father will give it to me. 

So, what kind of a God do you believe in? Do you not know? Have you not heard? Our God is the Father Almighty, our Creator.  This is the God we believe in. Therefore heed His voice, hear Him knock, open to Him the door of your heart for He can be trusted and His arms we can be secure and live a meaningful life.