We Believe in One God the Father Almighty — The Nicene Creed and Genesis 1

Reading this evening is taken from Genesis the Home of Chapter 1.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

And God saw the light that it was good, and God divideth the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firm firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.

And God called the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear and it was so.

And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called the seas, and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the hair yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was sow.

And the earth brought forth grass and hair yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And God said, Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for times and for seasons and for days and years.

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and it was so.

And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.

He made the stars also.

And God set them in the firmament upon the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.

And God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath light, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open sermon of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the earth, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every hair bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat, and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the earth, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life.

I have given every green herb for meat, and it was so.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

May the Lord add his blessing to this reading.

The creed begins, we believe in one God, the Father and the Almighty.

The only words of the creeds reflect that central confession that we've just heard.

It's a central confession of our biblical faith.

There is one God, and there is no one else at all.

It's repeated throughout verses of the Bible.

We get in Deuteronomy 6.4 that great Hebrew prayer, Hear, O Israel, the Lord of our God is one Lord.

And in Isaiah 45.5, we get, I am the Lord, and there is no none else.

There is no God beside me.

And in 1 Corinthians 8.4, there is none other God but one.

So it's not a random choice that we say there is one God.

It's actually there in Scripture.

From Genesis through to Revelation, Scripture constantly affirms the oneness of God.

He's not one of many as some would have.

But we have one God.

He's not a local deity of a tree or a wood or a tribal god.

He is the creator of heaven and of earth.

He sustains all things.

Most importantly, he is the judge of all men.

And women, by the way, when I say men, I'm covering you all here.

So he is the judge of all men.

And even better, this great creator God is the redeemer of his people.

Let's take a couple of seconds to let us see.

This God that made heaven and earth and every living thing, be it plant, bird, or beast, is the judge of all men, and the redeemer of his people.

Now it's interesting that word his, isn't it?

Because it means he chooses, not us.

It's his decision, not ours.

His people.

In Genesis 1, God speaks, and the universe the universe itself obeys.

He speaks and the universe.

There's no rival voice out there.

There aren't multiple gods around.

There's no Captain Kerr coming on the Enterprise to actually sort of counteract him.

There's no rival voice, there's no competing power, and there's no cosmic struggle.

The Bible does not begin with a debate about God's existence.

It's an absolute statement.

It's a great being a Bible-believing Christian because I can go, God says He spoken and had it written down for our benefit.

There is no voice, no competing power, no cosmic struggle.

The Bible does not begin with a debate, and neither should we about God's existence.

It begins with the one thing that is indisputable, an action.

It begins with an action.

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

This is the foundation of all Christian belief.

Everything begins and flows from that one single sentence.

If you do not believe that, then everything else you believe is on sinking sand.

On Christ a solid rock we stand, and that solid rock says God created the heaven and the earth.

To confess one God, though, is to reject every form of idolatry, ancient or modern.

It is to say that the universe is not governed by chance, not fate, or a collection of spiritual forces.

It is to affirm that the that life has meaning because it comes from the hand of a personal sovereign God.

Let me repeat that because it matters.

This is the foundation sorry, uh life has it is to affirm that life has meaning because from it comes from the hand of a personal sovereign God.

That is all life.

From the unborn child in the womb to the person getting close to the end of days, to the sick and the disabled, to those who are mentally incapacitated for one reason or another, we are all saved and unsaved, made by God.

And our lives have meaning because God made us.

And for us, in a world of noise, in a world of pressure, in a world of competing claims, this confession becomes an anchor.

It roots us into our faith.

It tells us that beneath everything that goes on, standing and holding us up is one who is faithful, steady and true.

Do you trust in one God?

And then it goes on, the Father Almighty.

The creed does not simply say that God exists.

It tells us exactly who he is.

God as Father.

In Scripture, God is called Father in several senses.

Firstly, he is Father as Creator.

Malachi asks, have we not all one father?

Has not one God created us?

Malachi 2.10.

God is the Father of all in the sense that he is the source of all life.

Then we have Father of Israel.

God speaks tenderly of his people.

Israel is my son, he says, even my firstborn in Exodus 4.22.

And lastly, and most wonderful of all.

Well, not lastly, actually, but thirdly, Father and most wonderful of all is Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the deepest and most glorious sense.

Jesus speaks of my Father and your Father.

This is to all those who are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, he is our Father.

We can pray that great family prayer, can't we?

We can actually say, our Father who art in heaven.

Because you know what?

If you don't believe in Jesus, you can't say that because it's a condemnation.

You're calling God Father when he is not, because he's only your father through adoption.

John 20, 17, distinguishing his eternal sonship from our adopted sonship.

Fourthly, he is father of believers.

Through Christ we are brought into the family of God.

Ye have received the spirit of adoption, writes Paul in his letter to the Romans chapter 8, verse 15.

Romans 8:15

We have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father.

When the Creed calls God Father, it's not speaking in a sentimental type way.

It's declaring that God is the source of all things, the covenant Lord of His people, and the eternal father of the Son.

It is a relational term, but also a theological one.

It tells us that God is not distant or detached, he is personal, purposeful, and faithful.

And he draws near to his people with fatherly care.

God is Almighty, the word Almighty, the Greek pantocreator, means the one who holds all things.

He holds all things.

And he rules over all.

And Scripture uses it frequently.

Genesis 17 1 says, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect.

I wonder how often we fail to be perfect.

And in Revelation 19, 6, the Lord God omnipotent, omnipotent reigneth.

To call God Almighty is to confess his absolute sovereignty.

He is not merely merely powerful, he is all powerful.

Nothing can resist his will, nothing can overturn his purpose.

Nothing can frustrate his plan.

Genesis 1 displays this almighty power.

God speaks and light appears.

He commands and the waters divide, he wills and the springs forth.

Creation is not a struggle.

It's not people dying and being spewed out of the Father's mouths.

Creation is not a struggle, it is a sovereign act.

And for believers, for those who trust there is this is not a cold doctrine.

It's a comfort.

If God is Almighty, then his promises cannot fail.

How can the promises of an almighty God be wrong?

His purpose cannot be defeated.

His purpose is that all men should live.

So John 3 tells us.

And how does he achieve that?

By sending his only begotten Son, so that he will be the light of the world through which we can be saved.

His people cannot be lost.

We've just finished Genesis 40, 37 to 50, where we get Joseph throwing in the well and the tribe, the sons of Israel being horrible and coming into a famine.

And what happens?

Joseph gets sold.

He goes to Egypt, he gets thrown in prison.

Goes downhill rapidly for him, doesn't it?

You know, he gets bought as a slaves.

Potiphar's wife sort of accuses him of stuff, and he gets thrown in a cell for two, three years.

And then he's by the providence of God brought out.

And he becomes chief advisor to Pharaoh.

And by being chief advisor to Pharaoh, he says about Pharaoh's dream.

And Pharaoh's dream he says, seven years good, seven years bad, seven years restored.

And he took a percent of God.

Who benefits the most from the work of Joseph and God's providence?

The children of Israel.

Because they come in from the land of Canaan, and what happens?

Big family reunion.

Big family reunion, and the children of Jacob are given the best feeding lands in Goshen.

Where the Egyptians have to buy the grain, the children of Israel are given the grain from Joseph's only store.

His promise was to Abraham that his seed would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And no famine, and no tossing a wee man into a cell and selling him as a slave was going to get in the way of that.

And just think about what that means.

Because the promise of the gospel is those who are washed in the blood of the Lamb, is that what the kingdom of heaven is ours?

To own and to grasp and to walk into on that day we fall asleep and we cross George.

That too is a promise that cannot be defeated, no matter what the world says.

His people cannot be lost.

And even when our lives feel fragile, even when the world is going on and we're standing on our heads, or we're stripped naked in the snow and we feel like giving it all in, He, my Saviour, my God and my King, remains strong.

Can you say that?

My Saviour, my God and my king.

So what's the protective wall that we're starting to build here?

Why this truth matters?

Why begin the creed with this statement?

Why is it the first stone in the wall of protection around the Christian faith?

Latin word credo just means I believe.

It guards us against false gods.

Every age has its idols.

In the ancient world they were carved images.

In our world they are often ideas or other things.

For example, the God of personal fulfillment.

We all know that one, don't we?

Everybody should be personally fulfilled, so there's a God of personal fulfillment.

The God of political identity.

That's one that's on the rise at the moment.

The God of wealth has been there almost as long as our God of creation and the God of self.

What I ma what I think and what I want matters above what anybody else wants.

To confess one God is to reject every rival's claim to ultimate authority.

So the God of personal fulfillment has no power over me anymore.

And the God of political identity no longer has power over me.

The God of wealth and the God of self have lost their power.

Because I have one God who is Lord and Creator of the world.

It guards us against a very vague spirituality.

I sort of think the Church of England should be looking at this one quite closely because they're so vague about their spirituality just at the moment.

Many today speak of spirituality, don't they?

They talk about the divine.

I love that phrase, the divine.

The universe says, oh, there's a higher power.

These are biblical ideas.

They've come from paganism.

Their attempts to have a spirituality without submission, a transcendence without truth.

The creed anchors us in the God of Scripture, the God who reveals himself, speaks, commands, and saves.

It's all about what He does for us and nothing to do with what we can, and actually cannot do for Him.

We can do nothing for Him.

It guards us against Against fear.

This is an important one.

If God is Almighty, then the believer is never at the mercy of circumstances.

The world may shake, but the throne of God does not.

Nations may rage, but God remains sovereign.

Our lives may be uncertain, but his purpose is sure.

This truth does not remove our struggles.

It doesn't take them away from us.

But it steadies us within them.

Because whenever we face problems in life, we can say in our hearts there is one God and He is Lord of all things.

And He is my God, my Lord, and my King, and He will never let me go.

It guards against you're gonna like this one.

It guards the rest of Christian doctrine.

Every other truth in the Creed depends on this.

Now I've given you the sheet for the Creed on so you can read that.

Every other truth of the creed depends on this one.

The deity of Christ makes sense only if there is one God.

The incarnation is meaningful only if the Almighty enters his creation.

The resurrection is possible only if God has power over life and death.

And the final judgment is certain only because God rules all things.

Magic word here only.

These things can only happen because there is one God.

And if we lose the opening line, if we change it in any way, shape or form, we lose the foundation of the entire Christian faith.

So how do we conclude?

The first words of the Nicene Creed are not a physical are not a philosophical statement.

They are a confession, a confession of faith rooted in Scripture and affirmed by the Church Universal across the centuries.

They remind us that the God we worship is not a projection of human imagination, but the living God who created all things, rules all things, and redeems his people.

And to stand within this truth is to stand within the protective wall of historic Christian belief.

Inside this wall, as I've said many times, we have freedom to explore, we have freedoms to discuss, we have freedoms to grow, we have freedoms to argue, we have freedoms to eat and meet and drink together.

Outside of it, we step into uncertainty, we step into speculation, and more importantly, we step into error.

As we continue through this series and there's a couple of weeks of it, we are going to see how each line of the creed builds upon the foundation, forming a strong and ancient boundary around the faith once delivered unto the saints.

Amen.