Maker of Heaven and Earth — The Nicene Creed and the God Who Creates

The reading is taken from Psalm twenty-four.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.

For he foundeth it foundeth it upon the seas and established it upon the floods, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place.

He that have clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he that shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and the righteousness from God of his salvation.

This is the generation of them that see him, that seek thy face.

O Jacob, Salah, lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be lift ye up.

Ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is this king of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is this king of glory?

The Lord of hosts.

He is the King of Glory, Salah.

May the Lord have a blessing for reading God's wonderful word.

Song to the King of Glory.

Wonderful thing.

The clock is running.

They for for for our new ones they complain about how long I speak.

So I've actually got a timer now.

I can only do 30 minutes.

It'll seem a lot longer sometimes.

So what does it mean then to confess anything?

When we confess something, we're we're we're we say don't we say, I mean, we we we use it as a word of going, look, this is it.

We confess up to something, we own something, we we demand something.

For the Romanish people, when we confess things, you're saying it to a man in a box.

It doesn't do any good, but if you feel like it, that's fine.

But when we confess to the world that we believe in one God, the maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and unvisible, we're making an absolutely massive statement, especially against those atheists who say there is no God.

We're going in direct opposition to that.

So we're building another row of that wall of defense.

If you remember last week I said I described the Nicene Creed as a wall of defense for Christians, anything inside that wall, we're perfectly safely discussed.

We can argue about, we can discuss, we can laugh about, we can do anything we want with it.

Once we cross that boundary, we're in unknown territory.

Doesn't mean you can't go up across that boundary, just means that if you do, you have no solid ground to stand on.

It's all unknown.

The creedle phrase maker of heaven and earth is very brief.

And yet its implications are vast and beyond belief.

In these few words, the Church of Christ and Him crucified confesses several essential truths.

That is to say, it owns several essential truths.

Firstly, it's God is the source of all things.

Just let that sink in there.

The first truth, God is the source of everything, all things.

Everything that exists, whether you can see it, like that bit of wood or the contratina down there, or the tambourine, if anybody wants to play it a bit later on, all of that is down to God.

But so are the invisible things, the air you breathe, the particles in the air, the atoms that make you up, the very fibers of your bones that can only be seen through the most powerful magnet uh magnifying, all belong to God.

And that one thing, and they called it, didn't they, when they did the CERN, the CERN piece of God particle, they called it.

The boson particle.

Nobody had seen it until CERN created one with a big explosion.

Belongs to God.

From Genesis 1 through to Revelation.

The Creed is the witness with this one line of all things visible and invisible.

We heard from our reading, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

It's Psalm 24, verse 1.

Psalms 24:1

Everything, the fullness of the earth literally means the whole world belongs to God.

It's not ours, it's not the Americans, it's not the Chinese, it's God's.

And we are at best caretakers, or destroyers, depending how you want to look at it.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, exists independently of God.

Now you may go, what about those people that don't believe?

They don't exist independently without God, whether they believe Him in Him or not.

And as I've often said to people when they've had children baptized and they've sat there saying those words, or I repent, or I turn my back on the devil and accept God, you may not believe in God.

But God knows about you.

Don't you forget that.

Doesn't matter how weak your knowledge is, doesn't matter how good you think you are, God knows about you.

And that's a warning.

That is a serious warning.

He knows about your faults, he knows about your sins, that we call them sins because sins are just when you miss the mark of being perfect.

He knows what you did to the wife or to the husband, they know how you played football, they know how you spent your money, he knows it all.

And it's all his.

Nothing has life without God's will.

That's another scary thought, isn't it?

Nothing has life without God's will.

Everything has to has to have a life.

Atoms have to have a life, they have what we call a half-life, how long they exist.

We all have a life.

Some of us have a good life, some of us have a bad life, heathens, atheists, they have lives.

But nobody has a life apart that God allows it.

And when God sets times up, and he does so in Ecclesiastes, where the the the the the Solomon writes there is a time to live and a time to die, and that time span is sent by God.

There's nothing we can do can change that.

You may think you can, you may think by getting fitty you might live a few years longer, no.

You may think that if I don't drink and I don't smoke, I may live a few years longer.

You go, no.

You may think if I have too much to drink, I've died earlier than I should do.

The answer is no.

Your time, my time, is set from the day God thinks about us and causes us to be created.

There is a time to live, there is a time to die.

To confess God as creator is to acknowledge a reality.

And it's a reality that only believers in the Lord Jesus Christ actually see clearly.

Everybody else sees it through a uh uh uh what is it through a brass darkly, I think Paul writes to it as.

You know, to confess God as creator is to acknowledge that all things begin with him.

I find it interesting.

Um I'm uh that you get these atheists, these people that say they don't believe in God.

But I'm a I am a theist because I believe God, and there's only a space between the letter A that makes it any difference.

When you think about it, you know, it's the same word, it's only that space, a little space in the letter that makes a difference.

That difference is the difference between spending your eternity in heaven and spending your eternity in hell.

That little gap between the words atheist and theist.

Secondly, creation is intentional and ordered.

Genesis 1 presents creation not as an accident or chaos coming to light as some have it, but as structured, purposeful, and good.

God says, at the end of the day, the evening and the morning was the end of X day, and God said it was good.

And at the end of the seventh day, he said it's very good.

Or sixth day says it's very good.

I do forgive if I've got my quote wrong.

God separates light from darkness.

Isn't that a theme that runs throughout the Bible?

He talks about separating the light from the darkness, and you get the greater light and the lesser light when you create the sun and the moon.

What's that other phrase?

And light came into the world, and the darkness doesn't understand it.

See, Jesus is the light of the world, he separates light from darkness.

Doesn't he?

If you think about it, that's what's going on here.

God separates light from darkness.

Now what else do we say that's dark?

We call evil darkness, don't we?

And we call God light, don't we?

And when we're Christians, we live in the light, don't we?

And don't we actually say that when we don't know Christ, you're in the darkness, you don't understand?

And do you know what's beautiful about the rays?

We can lead people from darkness into light.

We can be signposts for people and say, look, I've got this story about this man who died on the cross.

He said, you may not like it, but I said, you know, it shed a little light on your life.

There is the song in this little lad of mine, I'm gonna make it so.

And there's that other one my dad taught me, uh you and your small short you and your small corner and I am mine.

Jesus bids the shine in the pure, clear, pure clear light, I think, is the face.

My dad used to sing that to me when I was a wee boy.

Um, yeah, and then but you know, the whole idea of Christianity was beautiful in that we are light, we are the light of the world.

Look at the band over there.

It's even better because it talks about the beacon light of Buddha, you know, and I actually thought that was the scroll for the orange body one.

No, it belongs to the church.

This church, it's a light, it's a beacon and light in Buddha.

Why are we alive?

Because we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and hope and salvation.

What more light can we get than that?

And you go, well, there's only ten of us here.

Okay.

I have over 2,000 followers on the internet.

I've even managed to break into Nova Scotia now.

I'm getting worldwide famous guys.

You'll have to pay to get me to speak to you soon.

You know, but no, you know, it's it's it's it's the light.

Shining light in dark places, and we need that light nowadays.

The world is a dark and horrible place, and I'm drifting off my course, and I do apologize.

But I get so excited about talking about the light of Christ and what it means for us.

Uh, what am I up to?

So God separates light from darkness and he separates the land from the sea and he establishes the seasons.

So somebody go and pray to God and please can we have the seasons back, please?

Because it just seems to be wet and dry at the moment.

You know, I don't know about your garden, but my garden I've got a little ark floating around this way to go.

Anyway, uh you know, and he we we inhabit this world shaped by divine wisdom.

God's wisdom said, I'm gonna make this creation, it's gonna want land and it's gonna want water and it's gonna want animals to eat and fruit to eat, and he does it all for us.

One of the things I actually say here, which is wonderful, is that if Christians properly ran the world as God wanted it to do, there would be no hunger, there'd be no thirst, there'd be no depravity, everybody would have housing.

Because God made this world perfect.

Enough for everybody.

Not for everybody somebody to have more than somebody else, but everybody to have enough to survive and to live comfortably.

Who spoiled it?

We did! Man!

We spoiled it when we when Adam and Eve broke God's law.

You ever want to kick your parents?

You know, look what you've done, you've made me have to live in this world when it could have I could have lived in paradise.

It's not blind forces that do everybody likes to say, well, you know, what was it?

Uh oh yeah, well, we will come out from fish, and by the way, we're now humans.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, some of you were at the creation, uh the AIG went, uh, and you know, those guys have it so right.

They really have it right.

Stories in Genesis.

Creation in Genesis, is it called?

Well, answers in Genesis, yeah.

You know, answers to creation.

All the answers you need are in Genesis, yeah.

Absolutely wonderful thing.

We then have to look at humanity is created with dignity.

Genesis 1.27 declares, so God created man in his own image.

Now, this this has caused so many arguments, you know.

Because if you look around, we don't look the same.

You know, I'm the good looking one.

You're all looking at me, so I must be the good looking one.

But I'm looking at you lot, you know, and we're all different.

You know, well, we're all bald, except for the ladies, of course.

But well, you know, but we're all we're all we all look different, don't we?

You know, there's tall, there's there's there's tall and there's short.

Oh sorry, Stu, I'm not looking at you particularly on that one.

There's tall and there's short, there's wide and there's not so wide.

And and we're all different.

So how does God make it in his own images?

And I tell you this, and this is my own thought, and I I think I've got it right.

It's what's inside of us.

It's that bit of the eternal breath of God that lives within us.

Now when we're in sin, God can't see that that's damaged.

Makes us invisible to God in the sense of he doesn't recognise it as part of his family.

He doesn't recognise it as being washed in the blood of the Lamb.

But when we confess Christ, when we g when we acknowledge who Christ is, and when we claim Christ for our own, and we grab hold of him, and that image of God inside of us is fixed.

That makes sense.

So God can suddenly see who you are, and he looks at you and he can see the whole of you, and you can see that bit of him inside of you that says, You're mine, so that when we die, that great and wonderful day when we stand before the throne of grace, and we can walk up and God looks at you and he goes looks at the sun.

And he can say to you, Welcome, thou good and faithful servant into the house of your Lord.

That's my view of the world.

I don't know how scripturally correct it is, but that's how I try to understand it.

God creates man in his own image.

To confess God as creator is to confirm the dignity of every human being.

We are not accidents of biology.

We're not accidents at all.

We are creatures made in the very image of God.

We're accountable to him.

When we are of Christ, we are accountable to him.

We're precious in his sight.

You're more precious than diamonds and rubies and silver and gold, you're precious to God.

And you're endowed with a purpose.

Anyone know what that purpose is?

Here's where I test all of all of you good Presbyterian folks.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Option one.

What is the chief purpose of man?

To what?

To worship God.

Yeah, we the chief purpose of man is to worship and adore God.

Westminster Catechism, question one.

That's the only question for the night.

You're alright, you can all you can already laugh up.

To confess uh, yeah, and we have this purpose.

Creation reveals God's glory.

Psalm 19:1 proclaims the heavens declare the glory of God.

Psalms 19:1

Creation is a witness.

Yeah, that's a perfect comment, isn't it?

We're here because of God, so creation itself is a witness.

It testifies to God's power.

Even with all our science, all our technology, we've never been able to create anything as wonderful as the world with all its delicacies, with all its balances, with all its jets, with its rivers flowing, with its different seasons and different, you know.

Even the fact that while we're here in the dark, actually daylight appearing on the other side of the world.

You know?

We've never been able to create that, but God did, and He did it how?

Just by speaking.

It testifies to God's wisdom.

God understood exactly what was needed for his creation to survive and it testified to us to his goodness.

The natural world a divine creation But it points also beyond the creation itself.

It points to the one who created it.

I don't know whether you've ever done this.

I remember Georgia remember.

Remember we used to have the walking club in the church?

We used to go out walking round with uh two of the islands and all that Brian.

And we were in Delame Forest and I walked past and there was this orange, black, white, speckled butterfly.

Only a little thing, probably about that thing.

Most beautiful thing I've seen, I've still got a photograph of it.

I've never seen any the delicacy of how nature created that to be.

But who created nature?

God did.

It's the delicacy and the wonder of God's creation.

Every time I go out, I see the delicacy and the wonder of God's creation.

When I used to work in Leeds, and I'd be driving up the M62 at stupid o'clock in the morning and you get the sunrise.

There's a part where you go by, you know, the little farm in the middle of the motorway.

You call it the little house on the prairie there.

And as you go around that corner, you go up the hill into Yorkshire Mountain and the sunrise.

I tell you, there's no more beautiful sight than watching that seeing that sun come over the mountain.

Son of my soul, my saviour thee, there is no darkness and thou art never.

That's what it's like.

And it made the day work well, it may get up at stupid o'clock in the morning, have to drive to leave.

Creation establishes the creator creation uh the creator creature distinction.

And this distinction is a is is very essential.

It matters that we know that God is infinite, He is internal, eternal, and He is unchangeable.

But we as human beings and flesh, we are finite, we have a finite time.

This body will only.

Last for a finite period of time.

We are temporal.

We are in time itself.

We are not outside of time, so we are bound by time.

I'm not bound by time tonight, but we are bound by time.

And we are dependent.

We're dependent on many things.

We're dependent on the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink.

Without all of that, we just die and shiver up.

And all of that comes from where?

The creator God.

To confess God as created is to acknowledge our place.

It acknowledges that we are not God.

We acknowledges that we are created by God.

It acknowledges that we are not self-sufficient.

We talk about self-sufficiency, we're not self-sufficient, we are dependent on God.

But as creatures, we owe everything to the creator.

And the creator so loves his creation, which is us, that he gives us everything.

What did he do?

I think it's Genesis 2, it comes out.

God says to Adam, it's all yours.

I've made this, and it's all yours to do with as you wish.

And we inherit that.

So how then does this truth shape Christian faith and life?

Confessing God as creator is not merely an intellectual statement.

If it was just intellectual statements, it wouldn't hold water.

It shapes how we live, it shapes how we worship, and it helps us to understand the world as Christians.

The world is a difficult place to understand.

It's difficult to wrap our heads what's going on, especially at this current moment in time.

But if we understand that there is a creator God and we are just a creator, it helps us to understand that God has a greater plan.

We may not see it, but God knows it.

And there's nothing for us to fear.

Why is that nothing for us to fear?

Because the promise of God is that those that put their trust in Jesus have eternal life.

This is just the waiting room.

Worship begins.

It grounds our worship.

Worship begins with recognizing who God is.

Revelation 4, 11 declares, Thou art worthy, O Lord, for thou hast created all things.

Before redemption, before covenant, before law, God is worthy because He is the Creator.

It shapes our understanding of sin.

Sin is rebellion against the Creator.

There are no such things as big sins and little sins, as just sin.

The creature, us, you may not like me using that word, but that's what we are, and that's a biblical understanding of what we are.

The creature refusing the creator's authority.

We see that in the world today, don't we?

How the world lives against the authority of God.

Romans 1 describes sin as the exchange of the creature of the as the exchange of the creator for the creature.

And when we forget God as Maker, what follows?

Idolatry.

False religions.

And worse.

They all inevitably follow when we forget God as Maker.

And it shapes our understanding of salvation.

The God who created is the God who redeems.

The God who created is the God who redeems.

Redemption is not a new work, but the continuation of his creative process.

Scripture describes salvation as a new creation.

2 Corinthians 5.17, if any man be in Christ, he is the new creature, the new creation.

The creator who brought forth light out of darkness brings spiritual light into the heart of his people.

Remember, we lost that spiritual right when Adam and Eve were evacuated, were kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

And God has spent the whole of the Bible.

You look at the New Testament and the Old Testament.

He spends all of the Old Testament trying to put that right.

He tries to put it right, not us.

We just keep getting it wrong and going against what he wants.

And then Jesus comes.

God goes, You can't do it.

You're not going to obey what I say, so I'm going to solve this my way.

The Creator who brought light out of darkness brings spiritual light into the heart of his people.

That's what the Holy Spirit does.

When the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin, that's what he does.

He brings you spiritual light.

He's shining a torch in your heart.

And I'm going to use the word heart.

I don't particularly like read the scripture, but that's a traditional Bible word.

In your heart, and he sees your sin, he sheds light on your deepest and innermost sin.

All those things you think you got away with and you think God doesn't know about.

And he goes, I know.

I know all about you.

And you and me.

I know all those things you've done when the lights are out and you think I'm not watching or can't see.

I've done all those things I you know you you you sort of think aren't wrong, but I'm telling you they are.

He knows he sees all of that.

And then he goes, I've got a solution.

Then he's happy to say to you, I'm going to fix this for you once and for all.

I'm going to make you perfect in my sight.

I'm going to make it you eligible to come back into E.

I'm going to use E as a descriptor.

I'm going to make it you eligible to do that thing which I had to evict Adam and Eve for.

I am going to make you eligible for eternal life.

And how does he do that?

Well, in a couple of weeks' time, remembering that event.

On that cross where Jesus died, the wrath of God is satisfied.

The blood that was shed by the pure, spotless light on an evil world.

That greater idea is love.

Those gates are open and they've never been sure for anybody to come to Christ.

That's how he fixes it.

That's how he makes a new creation.

The creator who brought the light out of the darkness brings spiritual light into the heart of his people.

It also shapes our understanding of Providence.

If God made all things, he governs all things.

Psalm 33 links creation with Providence.

The counsel of the Lord abstandeth forever, verse eleven.

The God who created the world is not indifferent to it.

He rules over nations, guides history, and cares for his people.

That's what the glorious revolution is about.

God caring for his people.

He removed evil and he brought in hope.

It shapes our understanding of human responsibility.

As creatures made in God's image, we are accountable to him.

We are stewards of his creation.

We're not owners, we're just stewards.

And we are called to live in obedience, gratitude, and trust.

How does all of this build into this protective war?

Why this truth matters today?

In our age, the doctrine of creation is under constant pressure.

The creed's affirmation that God is maker of heaven and of earth forms a vital part of the protection war around Christian belief, and it is Christian belief that is under attack.

The creed rejects it.

It rejects materialism.

The claim that the physical world is all that exists.

It affirms a creator who is distinct from his creation and who gives meaning to it.

It guards against panatheism.

Many modern spiritualities basically.

They blur the balance between God and creation.

The creed maintains the biblical distinction.

God is not the world, and the world is not God.

It guards against nihilism.

If the world is accidental, life has no ultimate meaning.

But if God created the world, then life has purpose, direction, and value.

You are valued.

You are valued because you are alive in God.

And it guards against human pride.

So confess God as creator is to confess ourselves as the creatures.

It humbles us, it reminds us that we are dependent, we are not autonomous, accountable, but we are not sovereign.

And it guards the gospel.

This is important.

If God is not creator, not the creator, the gospel collapses.

The sobering thought.

If Christ is not the creator, his deity is undermined.

If humanity is not created in God's image, sin loses all its meaning.

If creation is not real and good, resurrection becomes unnecessary.

The doctrine of creation is not an optional extra.

It's a foundation upon which the entire Christian faith rests.

So how do we close?

To confess that God is maker of heaven and of earth of all things visible and invisible is to stand within the ancient and biblical truth that the universe is not self-made, self-sustaining or self-explaining.

It is the work of a living God who created all things by his word, upholds all things by his power, and will bring all things together at their appointed end.

This truth forms a strong and necessary part of the protection war around the Christian faith.

Inside the wall, as I said before, we find meaning, purpose, and hope.

Outside of it we encounter confusion, speculation, and mostly despair.

And as we continue through the creed, we will see how this foundational truth prepares the way for the confession of Christ, the eternal Son, through whom all things were made.

Let us pray.