Scripture Lesson: Psalm 89:26, Malachi 2:10, Romans 8:15

Sermon Transcript for August 24, 2008

By Pastor Bob Coleman

Whether these words are read by a youth, a middle-aged adult, or an older, grey-haired guy like me, they both deal with a great concept. In fact, a huge concept! And one of the challenges of preaching is always to take the grand and greatest concepts that God has made available to us and make them interpretable, make them something we can connect with. Pastor Andy and I are going to attempt to do one of the largest concepts possible—to tell you about God in the next three Sundays. Not that it takes only three Sundays to do, but it fits very clearly with what the church has attempted to do over the generations, centuries, millennium, since it decided to try to describe God in what is called the “Trinitarian form”. One of the reasons for doing that was early on, after the life of Jesus Christ, the church began to recognize that there were needs to know—spiritual needs to know, mental needs to know as much as possible about God since it seemed that Jesus was not going to return as soon as they thought. So the church in the 300’s set down in councils what we’ve already shared, the Apostle’s Creed, for the express purpose of trying to take that huge concept of “Who is God?” to a point where we can begin to identify, understand and connect.

So in three Sundays we are going to talk about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Today is God the Father. God is a creator first. I think that’s one that maybe more people will identify with even though the prayer, “Our Father, who art in Heaven” is almost universally known. But the creation is even more evident. Whatever you interpret the scientific or biological means of creation, most people, at least in our culture, attribute that God did something in that process. God is creator. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker (the creator) of heaven and earth” we have said.

It is important what we call God and how we call God. It is important because the name that you give something will tell you something about that person or object. It also tells you something about yourself. The picture that God painted by Isaiah was one of a fearsome God going into the Temple filled with smoke and the trembling of the ground underneath and the word of God being spoken. A frightening experience! And yet today when we call God, it’s flippantly or even without meaning. The most recently I became aware of was a summation of what I’ve heard on TV and did not like. It’s a text message. It’s the shortened text message. And if you are not a text messenger, by the way I’m not either; my thumbs just won’t work that well, but it is a shorthand. It’s a quick way of communicating by symbols and abbreviations. And OMG is one of those. OMG—do you know what it means? You’ve heard it on TV, if you’ve watched it at all, on sitcoms and such. Oh, my God! OMG—it’s an expression of surprise or just something you tag on to give you a communication awareness of “Oh, this is exciting” or something like that. We describe God in a flippant way. I’ve heard that phrase used and it is not meant to call upon God. And OMG, if you talk to teenagers, most may not even know what it means or they don’t think that it relates to the God that you worship in church.

But it is important what we call God. Or even as you pray at night, for example, if you do pray at night. And let’s say that you pray at night and I’m so easy to fall asleep so what does it say about me if I pray to the great God, creator of all heaven and earth, and fall asleep while talking to this God? It probably recognizes what a little creature I am in the midst of a great universe.

We can casually mention God’s name or a euphemism. Mother Nature—that’s one that really grates me sometimes. Or just mumbling, “Thanks God, for this food.” Or as we did in camp, “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, Yeah, God!” Or you’ve maybe even done something close to this or heard it said, “Oh God, it’s too hot!” or “Oh God, it’s too cold!” And I don’t really think it’s a prayer. I really don’t. A flippant, casual way we use God is telling us how we view God. We drone on in monotone even in our own service. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” etc., etc., etc. Think about that. How do you call upon God?

What we name people is important. Relating to the Olympics that we are just about finished with this time; this is the Winter Olympics I believe two times ago when there was a skier whose name was Peekaboo, Peekaboo Street, right? She was a decent skier. Well, the story goes now, whether this is true or not, it’s on the Internet. You have to check those things. But Peekaboo is now a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit in a metropolitan hospital. She is not allowed to answer the phone because it would be, “Peekaboo, ICU”. Be careful what you name your children. Be careful what you call God. It’s important.

God is creator, God is all powerful, God is all knowing. And putting that together, the second point I want to share with you that God is not just creator, but God is creator in the past, at the very beginning and beyond time, in the present, and God is still going to create the future. Jesus said this in John, Chapter 5 when He stated, “My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working.” Now next week, Pastor Andy and I will do a dialogue sermon where we will get more into the meaning and understanding of who Jesus is and that’s one of the transition statements.

God is creator past, present and future. And God is also a provider. Now it was my parents that I first recognized as providers. They were the ones that put the food on the table. First my mother who made it, created it sort of I thought or at least prepared it. And later understanding that Dad went off to work to earn something called money and that helped to buy food. They were the providers; they were the Gods of my life as well it should be. And then somewhere along the line, as they took me to church, I began to understand when they said that God has created you and God is the provider. It is through parents that God provides. Jesus says even about the bread of life, not the bread that we put on the table but when He said, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from Heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from Heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.” Now we are getting a little more personal. You see, you can go and keep God up there in the creation of the universe, and keep Him distant in that way. “Yeah, God created the earth a long time ago. That’s too powerful for me to conceive so therefore, God’s out there.”

But we want you also to understand that God doesn’t stop with the creation, but offers a transition to a relationship. And I’ve chosen to put together a visual, an audio interpretation of this. The visual I chose because it spoke to me about creation. The words that you are going to see with the pictures are God’s word from the scripture. And through that I hope you will catch the transition to a relationship. And audibly for music I went to Sarai and Roger and asked them to come up with music that could help interpret God in the great, huge concept of things but also in the personal relationship that God offers. So let’s watch and listen now as we see God expressed before us.

YOU MAY NOT KNOW ME, BUT I KNOW EVERTHING ABOUT YOU. Psalm 139:1

I AM FAMILIAR WITH ALL YOUR WAYS. Psalm 139:3

I KNOW WHEN YOU SIT DOWN, AND WHEN YOU RISE UP … Psalm 139:2

FOR YOU WERE MADE IN MY IMAGE. Genesis 1:27

IN ME YOU MOVE AND HAVE YOUR BEING. Acts 17:28

FOR YOU ARE MY OFFSPRING. Acts 17:28

I KNEW YOU EVEN BEFORE YOU WERE CONCEIVED. Jeremiah 1:4-5

YOU ARE FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE. Psalm 139:14

I KNIT YOU TOGETHER IN YOUR MOTHER’S WOMB. Psalm 139:14

AND BROUGHT YOU FORTH ON THE DAY YOU WERE BORN. Psalm 71:6

I AM NOT DISTANT AND ANGRY, BUT A COMPLETE EXPRESSION OF LOVE.
1 John 4:16

IT IS MY DESIRE TO LAVISH MY LOVE ON YOU. 1 John 3:1

SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU ARE MY CHILD…AND I AM YOUR FATHER. 1 John 3:1

I OFFER YOU MORE THAN YOUR EARTHLY FATHER EVER COULD. Matthew 7:11

FOR I AM THE PERFECT FATHER. Matthew 5:48

IF YOU SEEK ME WITH ALL YOUR HEART, YOU WILL FIND ME. Deuteronomy 4:29

I AM ABLE TO DO MORE FOR YOU THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE. Ephesians 3:20

FOR I AM YOUR GREATEST ENCOURAGER. 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

I AM ALSO YOUR FATHER WHO COMFORTS YOU IN ALL YOUR TROUBLES.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

ONE DAY I WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM YOUR EYES. Revelation 21:3-4

AND I WILL TAKE AWAY ALL THE PAIN YOU HAVE SUFFERED ON THIS EARTH.
Revelation 21:3-4

WHEN YOU ARE BROKENHEARTED, I AM CLOSE TO YOU. Psalm 34:18

I AM YOUR FATHER AND I LOVE YOU, EVEN AS I LOVE MY SON, JESUS. John 17-23

FOR IN JESUS, MY LOVE FOR YOU IS REVEALED. John 17:26

HE CAME TO DEMONSTRATE THAT I AM FOR YOU, NOT AGAINST YOU.
Romans 8:31I

AND I TELL YOU THAT I AM NOT COUNTING YOUR SINS. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19

IF YOU RECEIVE THE GIFT OF MY SON JESUS, YOU RECEIVE ME. 1 John 2:23

MY QUESTION IS—WILL YOU BE MY CHILD? John 1:12-13

I AM WAITING FOR Y OU. Luke 15:11-32

LOVE, ABBA, FATHER, DAD

For some that might be a stretch because Luke had grown up and lived a life with God being far and distant and powerful. And that is what the one true God does in the revelation—to open a relationship for us as personal as calling God “Dad” or “Daddy” as Abba is translated. It’s clear and truthful that God is the creator and is most powerful. But it is also clear and truthful that God is caring and comforting in an equal way. That’s why Paul says in II Corinthians, “Praise be to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion, the God of all comfort.”

We are to receive a new understanding of God as Father when we open our hearts to the awareness, to the reality that God is waiting for us. This is to partake in a very distinct relationship that we cannot conceive on our own nor even create. It is one that is given to us. Remember they stress “of giving to us” the opportunity to know God in a personal and heartfelt way. In both Romans 8 and Galatians 4, Paul says that the spirit of Christ given to the leaders enables them to cry out “Abba, Father”.

This “Abba, Father” term for some it is a difficulty to call God even “Father” because you grew up and you know of father’s who are not perfect as human fathers. I was fortunate that when I grew up I did not have that negative image. I didn’t even call Dad, “father” that often. That felt too formal. To me Dad was a dad. And so when it came, this opportunity to understand the word as a personal relationship that I could identify as a child the parent, my mother or my father, at one point heroes of my life, the one who would come and kiss my scraped knee and dry my fresh tears. And when I understood that was what God was offering in a deeper, more spiritual way, then Abba for me would be a word that I could use. Familiar, available, trustworthy, comforting, literally “daddy”.

Now maybe that is a stretch. But I offer that to you to stretch your spirit this morning, to understand that as we come to an awareness of who God is, it is going to depend upon your own experience how God has touched you so far or you have allowed God to touch you. In Matthew 6:8, Jesus says, “Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” And many people do not believe that to be true. But truly, before we speak upon our own lips with our tongues, God knows what our thoughts are, what our needs are. So Paul says, “He who did not spare His own son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things.” The things that are of eternity. For James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of the Heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows.” God chooses to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of “first fruits” of all that He has created. In Ephesians, Chapter 2, “For through Him we both have access to the Father by one’s Spirit.”

To know God as creator is to give God the credit for creation—past, present, and future. For many people, that’s not too difficult. But it also recognizes there is a breath and height and depth of what God has and is doing in creation that is not meant just to be continuing as an artist only. But as an artist who creates and connects with His creation. To know God as Father is to accept a more personal relationship with the one true God. And it leads us to know Jesus Christ in the same light.

To know God as Abba is to experience first-hand that God is present for you in the depth of the night when your heart is breaking, in the brightness of the day when it’s easy to ignore because things are going well, in the full journey of life. That is why we say, “God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.”

So on this first of three Sundays to look at a new understanding of the Trinity, may I share with you one closing analogy that has worked well for me and has also worked well for our understanding of who God is in these three forms, in these three revelations, three persons. I was my parent’s child. I was their number one son. I was their only son. I became a husband, but I was still Bob Coleman. And then God blessed us with two girls and I became a father. But I’m still Bob Coleman. I know who I am through all of that, but my parents know me one way, Joyce knows me another, and our girls know me in a third way. But I’m still the same one. And hopefully today you’ve been able to understand better God as creator and God as Father of us all and of you.

Let us join together in prayer. “If we have held up barriers because of past hurts, may your Spirit help to take them down. If we have distanced ourselves from you because we don’t want to be engaging with the creator God, then help us to hear and to receive a relationship as Father. Most importantly, gracious God, help us to know and to believe and to receive that you are present here and now waiting for us as your children to call upon you “Abba, Father”. Amen.”

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