Well, as I prayed there in a couple of days, there's the celebration of the nailing of the 95 thesis on the door of Wittenberg. Last night, our family watched the Luther movie. Now, this was the second movie, not the first one, the old black and white. I actually want to watch that one right away, just kind of compare them. Such a good movie, just to think about again what it was that took place so many years ago and the reason why we're sitting here in this church is in great deal because of that. So I'm going to begin by thinking about kind of some Reformation things as we're looking in the creeds this morning. Now at the time of the Reformation, there was one doctrine that it seems to me climbed to the top of the Everest of theological importance so much so that it sometimes feels as if there were no other doctrines that were even on the same mountain. They called this sola fide, Latin for salvation by faith alone. Now there have been so many battles that were fought and continue to be fought over just what the place of this doctrine should be. And I'm not going to go into those this morning. It's not the time for those. I just want to bring to your attention the importance of that subject. Because in doing this, I want to begin, as we're kind of in this second week of a five-part series on the creeds, thinking about the words that are behind our English word, faith. Now in Greek, there is a noun, and it's the word pistis. And the verb is pistou, so they obviously sound similar. But it's interesting because the noun is always translated as faith, but the verb is translated as believe. In other words, biblically speaking, faith and belief are the same thing. In Latin, I believe is one word. It's the word credo. Credo is a present tense, ongoing action of an individual. It's not, I believed. It's not, I will believe sometime in the future. It's, I believe right now. For a group, that word is credimus. We believe. And both individuals and groups can believe in something. Now it's into this that I want you to consider two very different sentiments, or dare I say, beliefs about God. One view is stated in a book about the religious and spiritual lives of baby boomers. This was written in the 1990s, deals with their experiences and struggles with religion, their search for meaning and spiritual styles, and how they were altering the religious landscape back in the 90s. It was a survey book. Wade Clark Roof's intensive survey concluded this. He says, quote, among born-again Christians and ethnic faiths, such as Orthodox Jews, the beliefs held generally by white boomers are not easily articulated, except in the most personal and relativistic manner. Theological language seems to have given way to psychological interpretations. If there's one theme throughout that characterizes the language of a boomer faith, It's the subjectivist character of the affirmations, I feel, I have found, I believe. The focus is not on the thing that's believed. It's on the self doing the believing. For such people, faith is all about me. Now this kind of mentality is easily seen by many of the contemporary Christian songs that were coming out about God at the time. Here are two that I remember that reflect such beliefs. One says, when I look into your holiness, when I gaze into your loveliness, when all things that surround become shadows in the light of you, when I've reached the joy of reaching your heart, when my will becomes enthroned in your love, And that's actually a real line. When all things that surround become shadows in the light of you. Here's the second one. I want to know you. I want to know you more. I want to touch you. I want to see your face. To know God in this song is like a Depeche Mode song. Your own personal Jesus, reach out and touch faith. I want you to consider in light of those, A different sentiment about knowing God that takes us in a very different direction. Stephen Nichols writes this, for some reason, theology often gets pitted against spirituality. We see this tension in such popular songs as, I don't want to know about God, I want to know God. Think about telling your wife or husband that you don't want to know anything about him or her. You only want to know him or her. That would not serve you very well. It makes no more sense to say it of God. Consider the idea of knowing God over knowing about God. On one hand, we can appreciate the underlying desire. God is not some object of our study, like something we would look up in an encyclopedia. We know God in relationship, in the full-orbed context of his covenant faithfulness to his redeemed people. But without knowing about God, we really don't know God at all. God has revealed himself to us, showing both his person and his character. He invites us in to learn about him. Similarly, ponder the outline of J.I. Packer's bestselling book, Knowing God. Now this is a book that by its own title seeks the same thing as the song, I wanna know you, I wanna know you more. But rather than pure sentimentality rooted in the mystical, subjective, emotional experiences of wanting to touch him, the first chapter of Packer's book is called The Study of God. And from there, he launches into all kinds of deeply theological and biblical thoughts, like God incarnate, God unchanging, God only wise, the grace of God, God the judge, the wrath of God, and on and on it goes. Now, Packer's goal, of course, is not merely that you know about God. He says one can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of him. The goal is always to know God. However, like Nichols, Packer knows that you can't know God unless you know about him. He cites Charles Spurgeon, who was amazingly only 20 years old when he wrote this, in words that we all desperately need to hear. Spurgeon says, the highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his father. There's something exceedingly improving to the mind in the contemplation of the divinity. It's a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity. so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with, in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, behold, I am wise. But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depths, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man could be wise. But he is like a wild ass's colt, and with solemn exclamation, I am but of yesterday and know nothing. No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind than the thoughts of God. And Packer himself explains the significance. He says, knowing about God is crucially important for living our lives as it would be cruel to the Amazonian tribesmen to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him as one who knew nothing of English or England to fend for himself. So we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life is a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way, you can waste your life and lose your soul. The famous retort of the reformers to the false accusations that they were teaching a gospel that was void of obedience to God was that they are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. And by a faith that is not alone, they were referring to good works, the necessary fruit of saving faith. Today, I have another just as important component in mind. The faith that we have in God must not be void of knowledge. of content, facts, and doctrines. These are not doctrines abstracted from God, but doctrines at the very heart of who and what God is as he himself teaches us through the holy scriptures. And which in fact are the very teachings of the apostles who laid the foundation of Jesus's church at the command of their savior whom they all knew. They tell me what God is like. And now imagine investigating whether or not you should date a certain prospective boyfriend or girlfriend. Some of you are thinking about that in the future. Some of you can go a long ways back and think about that. So what do you do? You ask around for people who know the person. You say, is she nice? Is he kind? Does she worry all the time? Does he have a temper? Does she like children? Is he driven to hard work? Is she high maintenance? Does he only care about himself? These are the kinds of questions you ask. And under ideal circumstances, you want to find out basic things about them before you invest a lot of time in a personal relationship. This is what doctrines and theology about God do. They show you who he is. Now, if you know true things about God, then why would you not want to believe? Theologically speaking, when you believe, you enter into a relationship with God. This is what faith is. This is foundational to salvation. It's critical to know what faith means. Is faith a giant leap in the dark? Is it contrary to reason? Is faith just facts forming in your mind and that's it? Do you even need faith to believe something that's obviously factual? Sproul explains, during the Reformation, a threefold division of saving faith emerged. The constituent elements of saving faith are, one, notitia, two, assensus, and three, fiducia. Each element was regarded as necessary for saving faith. None of these elements, taken alone or separately, is sufficient for saving faith. All three are essential to it. Now, what are these three? Notitia is knowledge. It's the content of faith. A census is agreeing with conviction that the knowledge of true is true. And fiducia is personal trust and delight in it. We might say that notitia is what the mind does. A census is what the intellect does. Fiducia is what the heart does. Now, given that most of you have probably never heard of these three words, and given that this is a threefold definition of faith, I'm going to match our study of the creeds, at least with the next three weeks, with each one of these aspects of faith. In other words, notitia is going to go with what we look at today with the Father, assensus with the Son, and fiducia with the Spirit. Now, of course, we need all three for true faith in the one true God. and yet the three are one, and so to think of these three aspects of faith with each of the three persons is really to think of faith in total with the one true God. Now, the last week, obviously, we'll run out of those three, so we're going to spend the time thinking about how faith is never done in a corporate vacuum. It must exist in its we form as we are members of Christ's church. Now, why am I going to do this this way? It's because perhaps the most overlooked part of most of the creeds is the first two English words of all of them. And it's only one word in Greek or Latin. I believe. Pistuo or credo, I believe, or we believe. Pistuomen or credimus. These two words are found only one time in all except for the Apostles' Creed where you find it twice. However, it's implied many more times throughout these creeds, so it doesn't need to be said over and over. Once is sufficient, but only as long as you understand its importance. It's from this word that we derive the whole point of these documents. Now listen carefully to this, because I can't overstate how important this beginning is. Think about this. These are our creeds. They are my creeds. If you move past this opening, you will have lost the entire point of the creeds. See, you must know what they say right here. And what they say is theologically, frankly, the first half of the creeds, even though it's only two words. All of what follows in the creeds are the flip side, the complement, the match to I believe. And so that puts incredible weight on these two words to make them equal to all that follows. As we go through them, I thought it would be fun, since there's no original proof text, to use those supplied to us by Martin Luther and his small catechism. So we're going to be using that extensively. He gives us three of them here for these words, I believe. Now he lists the creed and then he says, what does this mean? So to the creed itself, I believe, he gives Romans 10, 17. So faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. His aim is obvious. He wants you to come to faith through hearing the word of Christ. And if this is the proof text for the beginning of the creed, I believe, then he's implying that what comes next is the very word of Christ in the creed. Of course, it is, since everything in the creeds comes from the scripture itself. So the question has to be, will you believe? In his answer to what is meant by this article about the father, he gives two more. The first goes with the I in I believe. He gives 2 Timothy 1.12. It says, which is why I suffer as I do, but I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, says Paul. and I am convicted that he's able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me." This is the Apostle Paul admitting that he has believed in Christ. He says so in a straightforward language. The implication is that you are to emulate the apostle who, though he suffered greatly for Christ, knew whom he had believed personally. The second proof text here goes with believe. The verse is a warning, Luther puts this, therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. Luther knows that we easily drift from what we hear, if hearing is not combined with faith. To know a thing, which will be the focus of what follows is not enough. You must combine that knowledge with full fledged belief in it yourself, it must be yours. So do you know what it means that I believe? Is this something personal for you? If so, praise God. If not, then continue with me as we begin to look at the content of our faith. By God's grace, as you hear all that follows, my prayer is that he would grant you the gift of biblical faith so that you can say, I believe. Now for today, let's take our first aspect of saving faith, which is notitia. Notitia means knowledge or acquaintance. Now, every good climber will spend some time reading facts about a route that they are going to take. I've been watching several climbing movies this week, so it came into my mind. But when you want to do something truly dangerous, you need more than abstract factual knowledge. So what I consider the single greatest athletic achievement in human history, that's saying an awful lot, is when Alex Honnold climbed the 3,000 foot face of El Capitan free solo. That is without any ropes in just under four hours in 2017. And to put that into perspective, it took 47 days for the first ascent. He had not only spent hours reading about the route, but he spent 10 years on the wall doing all the moves himself so that he knew with deep personal acquaintance every square inch before he went up there without ropes. This is the kind of knowledge he had prior to putting his faith into the actual climb that for anyone else on the planet would have been suicidal. Now, Titia begins with knowledge of facts, but it's always striving to move to the level of acquaintance so that it becomes personal acquaintance that you have of who God is. If you do not know who God has revealed himself to be, then you do not know God. And if you do not have knowledge of God, you cannot have faith in him. The goal is, as Psalm 46.10 says, be still and know that I am God. This is knowledge that goes beyond an intellectual apprehension and entails both a personal relationship of trust and an ethical ability to obey the Lord. I believe. To say it is to supposed to affirm it yourself, and to affirm it is to know it. To know it this way is to have faith, or better, it's to have the faith. There's an overlap here between full-fledged saving faith, which gets us ahead of ourselves, because we're not going to look at those components of faith today. It's an overlap with your faith and the faith. Irenaeus and Tertullian and the other fathers, in the creeds or the rule of faith that they had in the early days, called this the rule of faith. It's like Jude who said, contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. It's not your faith, it's objective facts. It's those things that lead to saving faith. Now the Latin form notitia appears only one time in Jerome's Vulgate in that form. The context is the opposite of what I'm talking about. This is Romans 1, 28. It says, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not be done. Or you could translate it, and as they like not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense. The Greek word it translates as epigenosis. That word refers to a willful recognition, a conscious acknowledgement and understanding of what? Well, in this verse, it's of God. Paul's point is that humanity has willingly given up their knowledge, notitia of God. That is a horror. We're seeking to regain this knowledge in worship and in his church. which is something that we all deliberately forsook. The root word is the word gnosis, which is the word knowledge in Greek. We get gnostic from this word. Gnostics were those who sought and to this day seek mysterious knowledge, hidden knowledge, secret knowledge, forbidden knowledge. Of what? Of God. But the knowledge we're going to be looking at is not something that comes from a mystery school. It's not from an esoteric lost text. It's not from a cult leader in the know. It doesn't come from knowing the high arts of geometry or astronomy or the secrets of astrology or theurgy. Instead, we will seek our knowledge from the found, from the spring himself, as he has told us, not just in nature, but in his very public word. And thus we will see the fulfilling of the prophecy of Isaiah and Habakkuk, the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So let's move now past the I believe to the creedal counterpart, which is everything that follows. To affirm I believe is to affirm the second half of the creeds, the content, the meat, the doctrine, Now the second half of these creeds is something you obviously can't look at all at once. There's way too much to do that. And I said that I believe is implied many times throughout that content. So I'm going to divide these for the sake of our series into God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the things that remain. Just as I told you last week, that's how Calvin's Institutes are divided. I believe in God the Father, it says. That's the words that immediately follow. This is our focus today. The article on God the Father is the shortest of the four. Here's how the old Roman creed puts it. I believe in God the Father Almighty. And then it ends. It's short, it's simple, it consists of three parts. God, Father, and Almighty. I believe in God. What do we mean by God? Are we affirming that we believe in the gods? That they are real? Are we denying that there are other gods? It's interesting that Luther gives two proof texts for this word God. One says this, 1 Corinthians 8, 6, Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. But the previous verse helps us answer the question. For though there be that which are called gods, whether in heaven or earth, as there are gods, many, and lords, many. The Bible affirms that there are other entities called gods. These are what we today call the fallen heavenly beings. The word angel came to be used of them by the time of the New Testament. So yes, they are real entities, but nevertheless, the focus of the creeds is not on them. This is made clear in other versions of the creed. The first and second Nicene creeds add one word here. I believe in one God. We believe in one God. And God, of course, is singular, not plural. But they didn't just make this up. It was found already in the second century in Irenaeus's extremely early creeds, the word one. To say that we believe in one God isn't affirming that there are no other gods, but like the Apostle himself, for us, there is one God. And this is in line with the greatest of all the Old Testament creeds, Deuteronomy 6.4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Now we're going to need to find out more about this God in order to see who it is that we're affirming as the only God. So let's continue. If the focus of our knowledge and belief is on the one God, then what is he like? What the creeds say is crucial, for they give us more context for what it means that we believe in this one God. Is he just one among many? Are we Mormons who affirm polytheism, that our God was once like us? We differentiate in English between little gods with a little g, and God with a capital G, right? To show that there's only one God that's like this God. He's God alone, none compare in any way. This is made clearer by what we next affirm about this one God. So we're gonna begin with the title, The Father, but importantly, we're not going to end with God as Father in this overall study, as if the only thing said about God is that he's Father, No, the creeds go on to say that this one God is also Son and Holy Spirit. But it needs to be said right now so there's no confusion. It's not just that God is the Father and what comes later is not God. But today we're just gonna stick with this first article of the creed on God the Father. Let's tease out some implications that God is Father. First, it's interesting that in the Old Testament, the gods are called sons. I said, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. Now, gods is the word Elohim, which is the same word as God. The word is plural in form. It's like the word sheep, or deer, or fish. Only the context can tell you how to translate it. Is it God or gods? Here, the context is obviously plural because the next word is sons, which is plural. The gods are sons. They are called sons of the Most High. That these sons are heavenly beings is clear in Psalm 89. For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of God is like the Lord? Now clearly these are heavenly beings, because they're in the skies. And the ESV even translates them, sons of God, as heavenly beings. Job 38.7, in one of the songs that we sang this morning, calls them sons of God, or stars. Saying that they were singing for joy at the creation of the world before God even made Adam. The point is that God calls certain of the invisible members of the heavenly host sons, which means he is their father, right? But it isn't just them. Paul told the Athenians, using one of their own poets, that their unknown God was actually the God of the Bible, God the Father, and that we are indeed his offspring. In fact, Adam is called the son of God in Luke 3. So in a sense, all the sons of Adam are God's sons. He is the father of all. In fact, one of Luther's proof texts for this word is Ephesians 4.6, which says he is one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all. but there's a special sense in which only Christians call God Father. See, Jesus did not teach the crowds to pray our Father who art in heaven. He taught his disciples to pray that. In the Old Testament, Israel is called God's firstborn son. That's the son of prominence, the son of the promise, the son who inherits the blessing. Deuteronomy 14, one says, you are the sons of the Lord your God, Israel. And in the New Testament, this identity is transferred to Christians. Paul says, all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. He says, in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. Interesting that it takes faith, right? True belief to be God's son here. If we have faith, then it's because we're adopted into the family of God as sons. And by the Spirit, we call God Abba, Father. Now that word Abba truly brings home what it means for us that God is Father. Luther explains this. He says the Hebrew word Abba, which as the Apostle himself interprets it means father, is the word which the tiny heir lisps in childlike confidence to its father, calling him Ab, Ab. For it's the easiest word the child can learn to speak. Or as the old German language has it, almost easier still, Itha, Itha. Now it just makes me wonder, isn't it remarkable that God makes the word for father so simple in every single language? It's usually the first word that a child will learn. In Spanish, it's the repetitious Papa. Same in Swedish. In French, it's Papa or Perry. In Nepali, it's Bubba. In Chinese, it's Baba. Same in Swahili. In Italian, it's same as English, Dada or Daddy. God wants his people to see, by way of earthly analogy, that he's the first and easiest person to speak to. Indeed, very often in the New Testament, especially, God is simply a synonym for Father. To speak of God is to speak of the father. I believe in God the father. That is, I believe he's my father. But some people have not had good fathers. And some people have not had fathers at all that they remember. A great problem here, maybe this is a problem for every one of us, is to superimpose our own fathers onto God, as if what it means for him to be our father is exactly what it was with our earthly fathers. If you had a terrible father, then if you do this to God, you will certainly not appreciate that God is your father. In fact, you might even hate it. And in this, you must not create God in your father's image. Whether you had a good father or a bad one, a present or a totally absent father, a father for 70 years or one for only a handful of years, you must never impose your earthly father onto God the father because he is unique. How so? Well, 2 Corinthians 6.18 says, I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Now this time the word Almighty is found near the context of sons. In Greek, this is one of my favorite words, Pantocratora. Very often the Septuagint translates this from Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts. This is the word that's next in the creed. I believe in God, the father almighty. In fact, this word is found in all four of our creeds and in nearly all of the early creeds as well. It was a title that gets at the heart of describing God as a warrior, but also as the head, the captain and the ruler of all. If you don't know him through faith, then you could fixate on this word as if it means the God is out to get you. But if you trust in him, then guess what? He fights for you. That's why Father precedes this title. The truth of the matter is that this is a glorious promise that God, the Lord Almighty, the Lord of hosts, ruler of the nations, should tell those who have rejected the very knowledge of him that he will be their father. Who can imagine what such a privilege as that even means? Now the old Roman Creed ends its article on the Father right there. I'm going to keep going because the Apostles Creed adds more. In it, the title Almighty is followed by creator of heaven and earth. A most obvious verse here is Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Luther gives us three other verses here to think about. In all of them, the Father is creating. But curiously, in all three of them, They also speak of the Son and the Spirit as the powers the Father uses to create, which is fine because there's only one God. I'm going to just use Jeremiah 10, 10 through 12 for us this morning. It's a powerful passage. But the Lord is the true God. He's the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath, the earth quakes and the nations cannot endure his indignation. Thus you shall say to them, the gods who did not make the heavens and earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens. It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. Yes, there's a power here that you and I cannot possibly begin to understand. To say that we believe in the God who made all things is to contemplate the impossible because only God can contemplate all things. To have this kind of power aligned against you should terrify you because what will he do to you for your rebellion against him? But to know that this God is your father, to have that kind of power aligned for you rather than against you, that should also make your knees buckle, quite honestly. Now, there was a context into which this idea of God as creator of heaven and earth became so important to the early church that most of the creeds talk about this. The context is, again, Gnosticism. Isn't it curious? We're focusing our attention on the knowledge we need to know about God so that we might have faith. The word Gnostic is the word knowledge. Gnosticism has a long and interesting history. It predates, in some ways, the early church, having its roots all the way back in pre-Kabbalah Jewish Babylon. But as it developed in the Greek world after the close of the New Testament, the Gnostics began to pose a clear and present danger to the burgeoning church, especially as they taught that matter was evil and spirit was good. To put that another way, the material universe, the stuff that God created, they said that's evil. Gnostics, both then and ever since, have in their own ways sought to escape this what they call prison house of the body and become free spirits untethered by material evil. This is the primary context behind all the creeds insisting that God is the creator of heaven and earth. This kind of statement safeguards young Christian minds from being tempted to abandon the biblical truth when slick snake oil salesmen come into their midst and tempt them to live the higher spiritual life and they demean God's good creation. What did Genesis 1 31 say? God saw everything that he made and behold, it was very good. We should have one point here to reinforce this. First Nicene Creed changes the language of the Apostles' Creed from creator of heaven and earth to this, maker of all things visible and invisible. Now you might think, well, those are the same thing. But the second Nicene Creed has them both, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. So clearly they're not the same thing. This addition of that which is visible versus that which is invisible was also targeted language against the Gnostics. For the Gnostics had a whole series of powers that they called Aeons. These are essentially gods who preceded both the Father and Jesus, who in fact they believed were distinct, totally different Aeons. But the creeds here insist that God didn't just make the material universe of the sky and the earth. He also made everything that is visible and invisible. And that necessarily includes any so-called gods. The Father is not under them, he is their creator. And this again is purely biblical language. Curiously, the closest that this language comes to the scripture is Colossians 1, 15 through 17, which is a text all about Christ. It says he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, By him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. But I also want you to remember what we saw earlier, because it's not just Christ, it's the Father. For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and for whom we exist. and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. So when the Creed says that the Father created all things, he did. But so also did the Son and the Spirit because there's only one God. And here we see that Christianity is unlike all other religions. The religions of the East insist that God is the universe and the universe is God. It's called pantheism. Some insist that the universe is indwelt by God, that he's in Everything. That's panentheism. Christianity insists that God the Father is before everything and is distinct from his creation. We see this in one of Tertullian's early statements in his rule of faith. There is but one God and no other besides the maker of the world who produced the universe out of nothing by his word sent forth first of all. And of course, that's biblical language too, because God calls into existence the things that do not exist, as Romans 4 says. That's creation ex nihilo, out of nothing. But this visible and visible edition includes even more. it would have to include all things you can see with your eyes, but also things so tiny that you need a microscope, or so far away that you need a telescope. In fact, this reaches beyond even those instruments. Some of these things are astronomically gigantic. There are things so large that 400 of our Milky Way galaxies could be contained in one of them. Others are even bigger. but we cannot see them because they're so far away. The Father made those. There are things that are so small that the only way that we know that they exist is through mathematical formulas that prove it. The Father made those. Supernovas, galaxy clusters, atoms, quarks, strings, God the Father made all of them. Of course he did. It's irrational and absurd that they exist eternally themselves or came into being and order through chaos. Now, you know, David once pondered, when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what did he ask? He said, what is man that you're mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? Curiously, someone explains, when one looks at the scale of phenomenon from the human up to the largest macro scale that we know of, and from the human down to its smallest micro scale that we know of, where is man within that hierarchy? Right smack in the middle. There's as much above as there is below, there's as much greater as there is lesser than man. In other words, man's the centerpiece of God's entire creation. We were made in God's image, and we were made to have knowledge of him. All humans willingly gave up their knowledge of God and traded it in for sin. And in doing so, they lost themselves. To have any knowledge of yourself, you need to have knowledge of this God that we have seen in the first article of the Creed. When you do, it's not possible to have a greasy familiarity, a kind of lackadaisical emotional tryst with God, where you just want to reach out and touch him, because now you know who this God actually is. However, you must move beyond mere knowledge. The question you must answer is, do you believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things both visible and invisible. Not just so you know about him. Now you know about him. If you just know him in that sense, even the demons believe that there's one God and they shudder. What, you thought demons were atheists? You don't want to be like a demon, friend. Do you? Do you believe in him? Allow Luther to give you the deep sense of what this belief entails. Now of all the works of Luther, believe it or not, there's 127 volumes of Luther's works in German. He once said, you could burn everything I wrote except two things, the bondage of the will and the small catechism. After stating for us the article on the father from the creed in this catechism, So he states the article, I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. He says, what does this mean? Here's his answer. I believe that God has created me and that all exists, that he has given and still preserves to me my body and soul with all my limbs and senses, my reason and all the faculties of my mind, together with my raiment, food, home, family, all my property, that he daily provides me abundantly with all the necessities of life, protects me from all danger, preserves me, and guards me against all evil, all which he does out of pure paternal or fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me, for all which I am in duty bound to thank, praise, serve, and obey him, this is most certainly true. Hence his last two proof texts for the Father, I think are a great way to conclude this morning. John 17 three. This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. That's our doctrine of God the Father. This is intimate knowledge. Do you believe? May the prayer of David be yours. This is Luther's last proof text for this. Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. Father, we thank you for revealing yourself to us today. If we did not have your word, we would be lost. We could know about your power, We can see what you've made, but we would not know that you are our father. Thank you for revealing yourself as such, and thank you for what that means as it implies that we are your children. Now, Lord, as we've seen, all humanity are your children in one sense, but only those who have faith in Christ can truly call you Abba Father. I would pray for those who don't know you as their father. please show yourself to them as father so that they may come to know you and that they might be saved and have true knowledge of themselves in this world. For those who do know you as father and who struggle with that idea and concept because of their own fathers, I pray that you would encourage them with the truth of who you are as father. You are not their dads. You are infinitely greater and perfect in all ways. Help us each not to superimpose our own fathers upon you, but help us to know what it is that you are father in all the ways you have revealed yourself. And today in the creed, we have seen our father that you are the maker of all things. and you are almighty. But next week we will see that you have sent your son so that we might have eternal life through nothing that we've done of our own, but only of your kindness and mercy. And we're going to see in the weeks after that, that you sent your Holy Spirit to us and that you gave us your church and that you give us all these great and sure promises. These are all part of what it is that you're our father. Help us to trust in you as our father more. And we give you praise, our Father in heaven, for all that you've done for us in salvation. Please accept our worship today as it is sinful and covered with problems, but nevertheless, that's the point. All we can give back to you is our praise. And so we thank you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen.