Well, this morning, my plan is to begin a new series of studies. But rather than focus on a single book from the Bible, which is a really good way of working our way through the Bible, we're gonna do something a little bit different this time. And what we're gonna do is take an overview of some theological topics. Now, I don't plan to turn our Sunday mornings into theological lectures. But in preaching, what I hope to do is to direct us to think together about some of the things that the Bible teaches and which we as believers, and as the church, as a church here in Draleston, profess to believe. And there are various ways that we can do this. But as a rough guide to what we're going to be covering over the coming weeks and months, God willing, what I'm actually going to take is our own church statement of faith. Now, some of you might be familiar with this. Some of you might be not so familiar with this. This document here, and I've got a number of copies of them, if anybody wants to take one after the service, and if we run out, let me know. I can print some more. this short document which also includes our church constitution. It represents to us the founding documents of this church. The Statement of Faith is a very, very brief summary of what we as a church believe and what we teach. The Constitution, which sits alongside that, determines how we as a church operate, how we function within the context of that statement of faith. And we might ask, why do we need a statement of faith when we have the Bible? surely God's words is sufficient in all things." I'll put those down there. And that is true. But to be able, for us to be able to make the statement, I believe in God, or even I am a Christian believer, we need to know what we mean by that. Because simply to say, I believe in God, actually puts us in the majority of the people in this world. Not only today, but throughout all of history. Despite what atheists and agnostics might want to think, or might claim. But as Christians, we want to make sure that we know the God that we believe in. that we know the God of the Bible. For there are many who claim to be religious. There are even many who claim to be Christians. But there are also very many people who are very confused about what that means. It is important, therefore, that we, not only as individuals, but as a church, are able to state and affirm what the Bible teaches and what we believe. It is faith alone, by the grace of God alone, in Jesus Christ alone, that saves. It is not our theology that saves, but that statement alone, that it is faith alone that saves is a theological statement. So it is faith alone that saves, not our theology, but our theology informs our faith. The way we live that faith. So theology is actually vitally important. And in one sense or another, we are all theologians because theology is simply the knowledge of God. And every Christian has a knowledge of God. Whether it's that big or that big, we're all theologians. The question is, are we good theologians? Are we biblical theologians? And so we have a statement of faith. And what that statement of faith does is it states the truth of our faith from the Bible. A statement of faith is only good as in it relates to God's words. Now the church, the wider church, I'm speaking of the global church, has made various statements of faith and belief over the last 2,000 years of its existence. And the main purpose of each one of these has been to establish and defend the truth of Scripture and the Gospel from error. To keep people and the church on a straight path. The first of these statements of faith date from ancient history. And the first few of them established from the Bible our understanding of God as Trinity against those who denied the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. So we have such documents in our church history as the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Constantinople Creed of A.D. 380, and the Athanasian Creed of 450 A.D. Many years later, following the Reformation, Various confessions and catechisms were drawn up to deal with wider theological themes, to correct the unbiblical teachings of the Church of Rome, and to re-establish the Bible as the basis of authority in matters of Christian faith and life. None of these documents is intended to replace the Word of God. merely to express the truth that we find within the Bible. Examples of these include things like the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church from 1562, the Westminster Confession and the larger and shorter catechisms that go with it. The Savoy Declaration of Congregationalists. This church is a congregational church. The Savoy Declaration of AD 1658 is almost identical to the Westminster Confession of the previous year, but it comes at it from a slightly different perspective. And of course, there's the London Baptist Confession of AD 1689. There are many others besides. And they're great. They're important documents for the church. They're valuable. Not just to preachers and teachers like me, but they're valuable for every Christian. They'd be well worth your time and effort to look up some of these documents and to read them. None of them is the Bible, though. None of them replace the Bible. but they express the truth we find in the Bible. Truths about God. If we think of the Bible as looking at the revelation of God, presenting to us the revelation of God along the axis of time, from creation to the end of time in revelation. God reveals Himself to mankind across the documents that we have that make up our Bible. But the confessions and the statements of faith that we have, rather than looking along that timeline, take instead a top-down view. And ask big and wide questions of the Bible about what does the Bible actually say about God? What does the Bible tell us about Jesus? What does the Bible say about us? And so it's well worth our time to consider these things. In fact, we must. Our New Testament reading we took from the second letter of Timothy. And the Apostle Paul, as he's coming towards the end of his life, he writes to his friend and his protege, Timothy, and gives him a number of encouragements and instructions. He says in verse 12, I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day. He says in verse 2 of chapter 2, the things which you have heard, he's charging Timothy with this, the things which you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others too. And so these documents and others like them help us to teach one another what the Bible says. It gives us a place to stand. And so, when we begin to read our own church statement of faith, and where do you start? Where do you begin when you start to talk about the knowledge of God? When you start to think about who God is and what He has done, where do you begin? Well, historically, statements of faith and confessions have done it one of two ways. You either start with God himself, or you start with Scripture, because Scripture is the revelation of God. Our statement of faith tries to do a bit of both, in fact, because it begins with God, then talks about the Scripture, and then goes back to talk about God as Trinity. And so what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna put on the screen in a moment the very first statement in our statement of faith. It's a series of statements about God and about the Bible, about man and about Jesus, about the grace of God, and various other matters as well. And so I'm gonna put the very first part of it up on the screen now. And what I'd like us to do is read it together. It's only short, it's only a couple of sentences. but I think it would help if we read this together before we start to look at it. So, let's see if we can sort this out. There we go. Can we see that, everybody? Everybody see that? So we're gonna read this together. The living God, God is almighty, eternal, and unchanging. He is just and holy, gracious and merciful. He is the maker and ruler of all things and deserving of all praise and glory forever. I'm going to leave that up there so you can see it while we talk about it. There's an awful lot to unpack in those couple of sentences, isn't there? There's a lot there. Almost every word we could take and plumb the depths of it. And there's no way on earth we're going to get through all of that statement in the time that's left to us this morning. But it's also worth noting that this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, all that can be said about God. It is not all our statement of faith says about God. It is not all the Bible says about God. but it is, in that sense, a summary statement. We could look at a similar summary statement. This is from the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter two and the first point. It's similarly, in the Savoy, it's identical. These words, there is but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts or passions, immutable, immense, immutable means unchanging, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory, most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and withal, most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. And coming back to our own statement of faith and the things that it says, I'm going to start, I'm going to spend the rest of our time, what we have left to us this morning, by thinking about the first three fundamental things, the first three fundamental words, if you like, that are in our statement of faith that it says about the living gods. And that is that God is almighty, God is eternal, and God is unchanging. You may say, I've forgotten one. What about living? Well that's implied in everything because God is. God is. Full stop. We don't need to say anything after that in a sense. God is. God exists. God is in and of himself. So the first thing I want to look at then is this word almighty. God is almighty. One of the best ways that this has been described, there's a quote from an 11th century medieval monk of all people by the name of Anselm, and he wrote that God is a being than which no greater, nothing greater can be conceived. God is a being than which no greater can be conceived. The ultimate being. The supreme one. The almighty one. Because we're talking about more than just power and strength when we say that God is almighty. That greatness. is what the Bible speaks about when we read of God Almighty. It's a name that's used throughout Scripture. One of the many names of God in the Bible is El Shaddai, which describes Him as the overpowerer, the self-sufficient One. The One, as Anselm writes, that no one, nothing greater can be conceived. This is how God introduces Himself to Abraham in Genesis 17. Genesis 17, where He makes covenants for the first time, in a sense, well, for the first time with Abraham anyway. Genesis chapter 17. Verse 1, When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said to him, I am almighty God's. Walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. That very phrase, the way that that is described to us in the text there. tells us of God's almightiness, if you like. I can't think of a better word than that. His almightiness. Because usually when you make a covenant, it's between two people, isn't it? Two people come together and they agree together on the terms of a covenant. But when a covenant is made with Almighty God, what does man bring? What could Abram bring to the covenant that God, the agreement that God was going to make with him? Nothing at all. So it is Almighty God who establishes that covenant with him. He establishes it, he says, between you, Abram, and me. Because God is so much higher. God is so much more abundant. God is infinitely greater than Abraham was. Infinitely greater than you or I am. So what can we have to do with Him? Our statement of faith speaks about this ultimate, almighty, supreme being The one who defines himself by the very words, I am. God who made the world and everything in it. Lord of heaven and earth who doesn't dwell in temples made by hands. The one who needs nothing and no one outside of himself to be who he is. The self-existent one. who upholds and who rules this universe which he fashioned himself out of nothing. Paul's words to the people in Athens flesh out something of what we're trying to express here as he does the same thing, as he tries to explain to them who God is. Acts 17 verse 24, God who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshipped with men's hands as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. Because this is not the God of the Greeks. This is not the God of the Romans. He is not the God of the ancient tribes of South America. He is not the God of the pagans. He's not the God of Athens. He's not the God of Droyleston in that sense. He is God with a capital G. There's a reason we use a capital G when we refer to God. He is God. Many people have believed in different gods through history. But this is God Almighty who we're talking about. This is God with a capital G. God Almighty, the Father, the Creator of all things, of all life, of every molecule of this creation, He made it! There is nothing and never will be anything greater than Him. And what that means for us is something really important. because what it means for us is that when God commits to do something, when God speaks, there is no power and there is no authority that can prevent Him from doing all His holy will. Not a thing, not a one, not a power, not a nation, not a king, No one can stop Him from doing what He desires to do because He is Almighty God. And so, we can rest assured in the promises of Almighty God. We can rest assured in the promise of forgiveness of our sins in Jesus Christ because of Almighty God. We can rest assured in our salvation through new life in Jesus Christ because it is established by Almighty God. And there is nothing beyond His understanding. There is nothing beyond His work. Nothing beyond His power because He is Almighty. There can't be two Almighty's. Only one. And He is it. Our God is almighty, but our almighty God is also eternal. If you've spent any time talking perhaps with friends or colleagues, you may have come across the question that people get to eventually when we talk about God. Who created God? Where did God come from? Or some question like that. But this little word, this little phrase that God is eternal makes it clear both to us and to anybody reading it that the question of who created God makes absolutely no sense when asked about the God of the Bible. It just doesn't make any sense. It's not a valid question because it makes the false assumption that the God of the Bible is a creature Like us, and by creature, I mean a created thing. But here's what God's Word says, Psalm 90 verse 2, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are gods. God is eternal, and we often think about the idea of eternity in terms of time, because we are finite beings, we have a beginning, don't we? We progress through time as a series of events, and it is true that God is eternal, He is infinite in time, He has no beginning, He has no end, But He is also eternal in space as well. Because He is, to use the theological term, omnipresent. He is all present, everywhere, at all time. There is not a place in the world that we can go and hide from God. The Scripture is abundantly clear on that. But He is not only infinite and eternal in time and space, He is absolute in His virtues, in holiness, in love, in justice. He is eternal. The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Not a creature like we as created beings, He is absolute being, absolute life itself, and our life is derived from Him. He exists because He exists. He is because He is. I am, He says, because I am. He cannot be more or less than what He is. because he simply is. While creatures and all creation had a time when we did not exist, while we experience change over time and decay, neither space nor time nor matter have any effect on God. If it did, he would no longer be God. One theologian, renowned theologian, Herman Bavinck, writes this, he says, a deep chasm exists between God's essence and the essence which pertains to every creature. Because of his majesty, divine God is able to condescend to the level of the creature. Though transcendent, he is able to be imminent in every creature. And that's something we must remember when we're thinking about God. We've said a lot about God's might and power, his otherness, his difference to us, but He is able to condescend. We often think of that word in a negative sense, don't we? When we're condescending to someone, that's usually not a good thing. But because God is eternal, because God is almighty, He has to condescend to have to do with you and me. He has to come down. He came down on the mountain in Exodus 33, in our reading a little earlier on. He came down to Moses and Israel. He dwelt among them. And of course, He has come down to us in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might know Him and know salvation in Him. But He is known even in creation. Romans 1 verse 20, Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that we are without excuse. But it is in Jesus that that Almighty, eternal God is revealed to us. perfected in that revelation. The eternal words. John chapter 1 and verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him. Nothing was made. That was made. In Him was life. And that life was the light of men. The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy in 1st Timothy, "...to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible to God alone, who is wise, be honour and glory forever. Amen." This is our God. The Almighty God, the Eternal God, and also thirdly, the Unchanging God. The Unchanging God. This is just as important for us to understand what we mean by this. Now God is said in Scripture to repent. He is said in Scripture to become angry and to turn from His anger. In the fullness of time we read in the Bible that He takes on flesh. when God the Son came to dwell among us as one of us. But the resounding testimony of Scripture is that He ever remains the same. Because if He were prone to change, if God could be changed either by His own will or by something outside of Himself, He would not be eternal. He would not be almighty. A change would imply either something, either an improvement or a making worse of God, wouldn't it? And if God can be improved, then He is not almighty. If God can be made to be less than who He is, then He is not eternal. No, God is almighty and therefore He is unchanging. In His character, In His will, and in His covenant with mankind, He is unchanging. Though everything perishes, though all of creation passes away, He endures in immutable, unchanging perfection. He is the Great I Am, the Eternal Being One. His name is an unchangeable name. And His covenant grace, His peace, and our salvation as believers rests in this. I am the Lord's, I do not change, therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Malachi 3 verse 6, that's an Old Testament quote. I do not change, therefore you are not consumed. I remember talking with a Muslim friend of mine from work some years ago. And we were talking about various things. We got on to talking about faith and belief. And I asked him, how can you be sure that when you die Allah will receive you? Oh, we can't. We just have to do our best and hope, he says. Hope that he's in a good mood when we get there. Otherwise, we might not get in. But the God of the Bible is not like that. He is not fickle in His moods. He is not changeable in His words. His promises endure and His salvation is sure. And only in an almighty, eternal, never-changing God can we really, truly put our trust. Some put their trust in the things of this world. Some put their trust in fickle, little, tiny gods that are no gods at all. Some put their trust in wealth and power. Some put their trust in their own strength and ability. All of those things will fall away. All of those things will fail. and fades. All of them will let you down. But the Christian believer can stand firm and sure and strong in the strength which God Himself provides through His Son Jesus Christ. We can be, you can be assured of salvation in the promises of God, by faith in the Son of God. Assured of forgiveness. forgiveness of your sins, a new life, because that is what God has promised to those who come in faith and repentance to Jesus Christ. And His Word, like Himself, is unchanging. And in the power of a crucified Saviour, we can be convinced that nothing, not even death itself can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ. Do you know this God? Is this the God you believe in? Is this the God you trust? Are you trusting in some other God, some manufacturer of your own imagination or somebody else's imagination? because all else will fail you. Mankind will fail you. The thoughts of your heart and your imaginations will fail you. It will let you down and at the end of your days land you in hell for judgment and wrath. Do you know the everlasting love of the Almighty Eternal, unchanging God in His Son, Jesus Christ. Can I encourage you this morning to immerse yourself in Him. Get to know Him. And in knowing Him, find eternal and abundant life for your soul. Here is what Jesus says, and we'll finish with this. John chapter 17, verse 3. This is eternal life, He says, that they may know you. He's praying. He's praying to God, His Father. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So I ask you again, do you know this God? Do you know the Savior? closing hymn which we're going to sing in just a moment says this first verse loved with everlasting love led by grace that love to know spirits breathing from above thou has taught me it is so Oh, this full and perfect peace. Oh, this transport all divine in a love which cannot cease. I am His and He is mine. Only an almighty, eternal and unchanging God can offer you that love. Because He's the only one who has it. And it is to you through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are who you are. You are the great I AM. And we can trust in you. We thank you for your salvation. We thank you for Jesus Christ. And we pray that we would truly be yours. In Him. By faith in Him. So forgive our sins and make us to know our almighty, eternal, unchanging God. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God alone who is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.