Main Idea: What a Christian believes about God determines what they believe about themselves.

We’re talking on these Sunday mornings about what Christians believe. Things that are essential to our faith. Today we are saying that Christians believe, as the Apostle’s Creed says, "God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth." What I want you to understand today is that what you believe about God determines what you believe about yourself.

Elaine Pagels, author of the bestselling book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas begins her book with a story about going to a church in a crisis time in her life. The crisis was that during the previous week her 2-½ year old son Mark had been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, an ultimately fatal disease. Rather than pursue further treatment, she and her husband brought Mark home. She said she couldn’t sleep on Saturday night and went for an early morning run on Sunday. That run took her to the Church of Heavenly Rest in New York City.

Pagels recalls entering that church and hearing and observing the church participating in its rituals. It was there in that moment her "defenses fell away exposing storms of guilt and hope." (p. 5) She tells how she gathered new strength and hope to face whatever came for her son and family. Yet Pagels says that while some may say she has faith, her faith is not based on a simple set of beliefs or traditional statements. While she values much and loves much about the Christian church and the Church of Heavenly Rest, her study of what are called the Gnostic Gospels has reminded her of what she cannot love: "the tendency to identify Christianity with a single, authorized set of beliefs…coupled with the conviction that Christian belief alone offers access to God." (p. 29)

Yet, my friends, that is exactly what we are saying! That Christians believe certain things that are essential and that access to God comes through a personal relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Pagels is a reputable scholar whose exposure to what is called Gnosticism presents a view of God that isn’t what the Scriptures reveal. Gnosticism believes that the world and our bodies were created by an incompetent lesser god but that we contain a spark of divinity, and Jesus provided us with the knowledge to free it. This idea was refuted by John’s Gospel and epistles and by early Christians 2000 year ago.

I know you think this is nothing but a preacher’s reaction or overreaction and that it’s nothing to worry about. Can you imagine where Pagels’ book Beyond Belief is being used as a text? Multiple churches around the country are using it as Sunday School curriculum! One member said that the book has inspired him to see his relationship to God as a "sort of a-do-it-yourself kit you are endowed with. You’ve got to grab the stuff in your own soul and work on it to realize your relationship to God" (Time, December 22, 2003, p. 61). What you believe about God does determine what you believe about yourself.

What do Christians believe about God? A Christian says, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth." Those words are based on the truths of the Bible that tell what a Christian believes about God.

A Christian believes that God is uniquely personal. When you read the stories of the creation in Genesis, you understand that the God who is described there is not some mere force, power or philosophical idea but a God who is capable of establishing a relationship with all that has been created. God is described as speaking creation into existence, caring about that creation, observing the beauty of creation, creating humans to enjoy that creation and even described as "resting" from the labor involved in creation.

What you do not see is a portrait of a God who has somehow "got the whole world in his hands" but doesn’t know what to do with it! In other words, what is real isn’t what it seems and God really doesn’t care. Similar to the picture of the world portrayed in the movie The Matrix as Morpheus tells Neo, "The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you t the truth." A God of that world is distant, absent and has left you and me to struggle through life alone and on our own. That is not the God revealed to us in the stories of the Bible or through the life of Jesus Christ.

In Genesis 3:8-9, after the creation of Adam and Eve, God is described as seeking a relationship with the humans he has created. "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:8-9) God called out to those He has formed from the elements of the earth, "Where are you?" They had broken that relationship by their disobedience; yet he came looking for them, calling for them, wanting to be near to them. The rest of the Bible is the story of God seeking a personal relationship with you and me. The ultimate expression of that relationship was in Jesus, his Son.

If God is uniquely personal, seeking a relationship with me, what difference does that make for me? It means I am not alone. No matter how separated I may feel or how distant from God I may be, I am not alone. If I believe that God is uniquely personal, then it changes and determines what I believe about myself and it means I am not alone. The writer of Psalm 139:7-10 says, " [I can never escape from your spirit! I can never get away from your presence!] If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me." God is so personal there is no place where his presence is absent—I am not alone.

A Christian believes that God is uniquely personal but a Christian also believes that God is perfectly caring. We confess that we believe in "God, the Father…." The Bible says "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." (II Cor. 6:18) God’s relationship with his creation is like that of a parent to a child. Jesus called God "Father." In the Lord’s Prayer he instructs us to say, "Our Father…" (Matt. 6:9). When he agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane he cried out more intimately, "Abba (Papa), Father." The scriptures explain and Jesus relates to God as "Father."

Now to say God is "Father" is an analogy. God isn’t human or has a body. Jesus said that "God is Spirit…" (John 4:24). So when we say that God is Father we are saying that God is perfectly all those things that a human father or mother would be to us: caring for us, the source of our existence, bearing their image and showing authority over us. Saying God is Father is saying that we believe that the God that is explained to us in the Bible and Jesus revealed cares for us perfectly.

I realize that the term "Father" can communicate negatively to some because the father you knew is nothing like the caring Father that we mean. Yet that doesn’t diminish the truth that God cares for us perfectly. It may help for you to recall the motherly characteristics of God described in Scripture (Isaiah 49:15, 66:13) or to think of God as what a perfect father should be. Best of all, Jesus said that, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). So what we see in Jesus is who God is! Jesus cared so much for you that he would die for you. Christians believe that God cares for us perfectly.

What difference does that make? It means that if God cares for me perfectly, then I am not abandoned. My heart broke recently to read the stories of the hundreds of children left abandoned by the earthquake in Iran. Children crying out, "Mister, hug me," or, "Hold me," grabbing onto legs of visitors in the orphanage at Kermani, refusing to let go. One pediatrician said, "They are in need of affection. We are trying to partly fill the gap of their parents for them…They need to be taken care of" (Miami Herald, Jan. 1, 2004). No human can fully replace the loss felt by a child when they are abandoned. Yet God says, "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." (II Cor. 6:18) He will care for us perfectly. We will never be alone and never be abandoned. That is what Christians believe.

A Christian believes that God is uniquely personal, perfectly caring and absolutely powerful. We confess that we believe in "God, the Father Almighty." God refers to himself as "Almighty." This means there is nothing that would limit God’s ability to act. God would declare to Abraham in the Old Testament, "Is there anything too hard for the Lord?" (Gen. 18:14). The Angel Gabriel would say to Mary, "Nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37) Jesus would say to his disciples, "…with God all things are possible" (Matt. 19:26). That tells us that when it comes to God that he has the unlimited ability to do whatever his nature wants and purposes to be done.

How is it true that God is Almighty, that he is absolutely powerful? One is that God is absolutely free to do as he chooses. You and I are bound by the limits of our physical world and our human limits. We in and of ourselves are not free. Yet God is not limited by any other force except his own nature. Another reason is that he is absolutely honest or true in all he does. With God there is no hypocrisy, dishonesty or deceit. So, whatever he does will be consistent with his nature of being completely true. Still, we say that God is Almighty because he has the ability to accomplish what he desires. Regardless of how long it takes or the resistance of humans to his purpose, he accomplishes what he desires.

Saying God is absolutely powerful does raise tons of questions in our minds, especially questions about things we see as evil and suffering. "If God is absolutely powerful, then why did he allow…?" Those questions are unlimited and legitimate. The movie Signs is the story of the Hess family in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who wake up one morning to find a 500-foot crop circle in the middle of their cornfield. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) his brother Merril (Joaquin Phoenix), and Graham’s two children, Morgan and Bo, watch TV news reports with growing alarm as they learn that the crop circle in their corn field is similar to others around the world—all the products of an alien invasion force. On the TV screen they see 14 lights in the night sky over Mexico City, visual evidence of the invaders.

Mel Gibson’s character is a pastor who has lost his faith due to the tragic death of his wife in a car accident. When Merril is looking for comfort and hope, his brother Graham tells him, as he recounts the final words of his wife’s death, "There is no one watching out for us, Merril. We’re all on our own." (Signs,Touchstone Pictures, 2002). What Graham believed about God determined what he believed about himself—everything was hopeless!

Yet because God is Almighty, "all things are possible." Therefore, I am not hopeless, my life is not hopeless, my circumstances are not hopeless. God says about himself that he is "the Lord Almighty." Because that is true, there is hope.

A Christian believes that God is uniquely personal, perfectly caring, absolutely powerful and is the only Creator. We confess that God is "the creator of heaven and earth." I love that simple phrase, "The Lord God made the earth and the heavens" (v. 4) and "the Lord God formed the man…" Those words "made" and "formed" tell us of God’s creative power. As Christians, we confess that God is the only creator.

I immediately recognize that this raises questions as to what we mean by "creator of heaven and earth." Does that mean that the earth was made in seven 24-hours days or does it mean that the earth was made over eons of time? Neither of those is covered specifically because all the scripture says is that "the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." What Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 tell us is that God is the only source of creation. The earth and heavens are the result of God’s creative design. Saying that God is the only Creator makes sense of the origin of the universe, the complexity of the universe, the moral values found in the universe, the resurrection of Jesus, and that God can be experienced by you and me.

What is most important about God being the only creator is that people were the ultimate expression of his creative power. When he desired to show just how majestic his creative power was he made you and me. Because of that there is something between us, something in me that is part of who he is and since he made us we ultimately all belong to him. Since we bear his mark on our life as his creation and possession, then that tells us all human life is sacred. From the unborn child to the person on life support, all human life is valuable to God because he is the only Creator.

What this means, then, is that I am not helpless. How? Because if God created all and he created me, then I am not left to struggle through life without his help or relationship. Whatever the arguments might be for the belief that God does not exist or the powerful arguments for the belief that Christianity is true, I have personally experienced the help of God in my life because he is the only Creator. For forty-three years that has been my experience. Christians believe that since God is the only Creator, I am not helpless!

What about you? What do you believe about God? What you believe about God determines what you believe about yourself.

The film Bruce Almighty raises sobering questions about how God works in the world. Bruce (Jim Carey) is a reporter who made a fool of himself on national television, lost his job, was accosted by street toughs, and had an emotional blow-up with his girlfriend, Grace (Jennifer Aniston). With his world falling apart, Bruce takes a midnight ride to clear his head and begins a pleading conversation with God. "Okay, God, you want me to talk to you? Then talk back. Tell me what’s going on. What should I do? Give me a signal." As he utters these words, a glowing road construction sign, directly in front of him, flashes: "Caution Ahead."

But Bruce doesn’t notice. "I need your guidance, Lord," he begs, "please send me a sign. Immediately a large road-crew truck pulls in front of him. The back of the truck is filled with street signs in plain view: "Stop." "Dead End." "Wrong Way." "Do Not Enter." Again Bruce is oblivious. In fact, he becomes irritated to be stuck behind the slow, rumbling truck. In frustration he recklessly swerves to pass the truck and grumbles, "Lord, I need a miracle. I’m desperate. I need your help, Lord."

Losing control of his car, he spins off the road and rams into a lamp post. Jumping out of his hissing, mangles, steaming vehicle, Bruce flings his arms into the air in utter disgust. He rages at God. "Fine, the gloves are off. Come on, let me see a little wrath. Smite me, Almighty Smiter. You’re the one who should be fired. The only one around here not doing his job is you. Answer me." With precise timing, Bruce’s beeper goes off. He pulls it out, and sees the numbers: 555-0123. [In a following scene we discover that God is paging him.] Deadpan, he says, "Sorry, don’t know you. Wouldn’t call you if I did." (Bruce Almighty, Universal 2003)

Because of what Bruce believed about God, it determined what he believed about himself: he was alone, abandoned, hopeless and helpless. God has given you the ultimate sign of his care for you in the person of Jesus Christ. "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:9) Because of Jesus I am not alone, abandoned, hopeless or helpless. What you believe about God determines what you believe about yourself. A Christian says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org