The Father - Nicaea 1700 Pt 1

[00:00:00] Hey, that's a heavy way to start the sermon, but necessary. [00:00:05] As I said a few minutes ago, we're starting a new series. [00:00:08] I'm calling it Nicaea 1700, which is a weird name, I admit. I'm calling it that because this year, 2025, marks the 1700th birthday or anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. [00:00:24] Now, I apologize, you're just all going to have to indulge my inner church history nerd for about 95 seconds to get us set up for this series. But I promise you, I believe this is worth it for us. The Council of Nicaea was the first, what's called ecumenical council of the Church after the closing out of the New Testament. And if you don't know what that phrase means, that's fine. An ecumenical council is when all representatives of Christianity around the world get together to talk about something. [00:00:53] We see a version of that happen in the Book of Acts over the doctrinal discussion about whether or not Gentiles had to convert to Judaism before they could convert to Christianity. The Council of Jerusalem happened in the Book of Acts. The Council of Nicaea was the first time this happened after the closing of the New Testament. And guys, it's really interesting. [00:01:15] I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to guess we're citing the creed together. A few minutes ago, for a lot of us was a little weird, right? [00:01:23] Just maybe a little bit of an uncomfortable. Maybe it felt a little too Catholic for those of you who grew up in that context. But you gotta understand something. [00:01:31] Practices in our faith, like creeds, are actually incredibly important for a couple reasons. One of them is they they ground us in the history of our faith. It can be so easy to forget this when we step into spaces like this in 2025. But when you engage in Christian faith, you are stepping into a tradition that is thousands of years old and is unified amongst literal billions of people throughout space and time. [00:02:02] You're stepping into something huge and ancient and transcendent. And creeds can help us ground us in that truth. [00:02:11] The Nicene Creed is actually the product of two councils, both called Nicene Councils, and they happened in the early church in the 3002. [00:02:21] There's an interesting truth within Christianity that, by the way, holds true today, even up to individual churches and individual elder boards, which is that, generally speaking, Christians don't clarify doctrine until we have to. [00:02:35] And what I mean by that is this. [00:02:37] Until someone questions or challenges particular belief within the faith, Christians tend to just assume everyone in the room all agrees that's just how it works. We're like, jesus is awesome. He saved me. We all get that right? And then we just move on. And until someone comes along and goes, so what's the deal with this? We just don't really talk about it. We don't do much work to clarify the specifics of doctrines until something forces us to. [00:03:08] Well, in the late 200s, heading into the early 1300s, the tide was turning in Christianity. It had. Up until that point, it had been an underground movement. Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire. It experienced tons of persecution. It was considered a movement of slaves and poor people. There's historical records of people within the Roman Empire mocking Christianity as a movement for impoverished people and slaves. But by the late 2000s, it was becoming much more socially accepted. It was working its way into the upper echelons of Roman society. And that's most clearly illustrated in the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine. [00:03:49] And while the diminishment of persecution is worth celebrating, the flip side to the rapid growth of the faith was the emergence of heretical teachings. [00:04:00] As Christianity spread through the Roman Empire like wildfire, people began to mix biblical Christian teaching with the prevailing philosophies and thought processes of Roman culture. [00:04:14] One in particular, the most prominent, and the one that is actually the reason why we have this creed, was the Arian heresy. A guy named Arius of Alexandria began to mix biblical Christianity with some Neoplatonic thought. And what he landed on was that the Trinity is a nuts idea. It makes no sense. Obviously, if Jesus had a physical body, he could not be divine in the sense of God the Father. He had a spiritual perfection that is important that we must obtain to. And he's worthy of our worship, but he must be a created being. [00:04:53] God must have made him as a special created being that's better than us, but worse than him for the purpose of saving us on the cross. [00:05:01] That's kind of the way Arius fleshed this out. There's more to it than that. But he took this theological idea that Jesus is a created being, but just a higher level created being worthy of worship, but not worthy of being called divine. He took that idea and he popularized it by writing poetry and pop songs. [00:05:20] I think that part's hilarious and a really stark warning. [00:05:25] He wrote worship songs and pop songs that helped further this theological idea, and those spread like wildfire. [00:05:35] And the Arian heresy starts to become the dominant teaching in the church among slave people. [00:05:41] It's nuts. It works its way up into the upper echelons of government And Constantine is going, oh, no, this Arian thing sounds kind of cool. Seems like it makes sense. [00:05:51] You have to remember, guys, people don't have access to the Bible. There's no printing press. You might have two or three dozen churches that share one copy of the Scripture. Most of the people attending church are illiterate. They have to trust their pastors and priests to find a copy of the Bible to read it to them. So when they learn some cool hip hop songs that teach them doctrine, they switch to those they believe, those they submit to those readily. It's a warning to us about the art we take in, because art affects us in powerful ways. [00:06:24] But the Council of Nicaea was called to address this issue. [00:06:28] It was called to say, we have to settle this out. We have to decide what the Bible actually teaches about God, how it is God revealed in Scripture. [00:06:38] And so they get together, representatives from the entire church, from all movements, from every corner of the globe where Christianity is practiced. And they spend months in Bible study and prayer and debate, working through the doctrines. And they eventually decide the Trinity is the biblical teaching. Arianism is a heresy. They condemn it. They give Arius a chance to repent. He refuses. They exile him. And they write the Creed as a response to this entire experience, because they looked at how it happened and they said, Arius wrote all these songs that were so memorable, and people don't really have access to the Scriptures. And so heresy spread through the church faster than we could even keep track of it. We need to come up with something to counteract that. And so the Creed was written not with any authority in and of itself, but. But the Creed was written as a way of distilling the biblical teaching down to something memorable and something that could be recited in church services for illiterate people to memorize and to keep them safe from heretical teaching. At the end of the day, the Creed exists to help us differentiate between primary and secondary doctrines. [00:07:54] It's an incredibly useful tool for believers today. It grounds us in history. Awesome. But it really helps us as a dividing line between primary doctrines. You see, we use this term in theology, primary and secondary doctrines. And it essentially comes down to this. Secondary doctrines are things that the Bible teaches, but how you interpret them is up for debate. And Christians in good faith have interesting discussions about secondary doctrines. For instance, should you baptize the child of believing parents before that child has professed faith in Christ? Or should you wait until the child professes their own faith in Christ? We fall on the Baptist side of that debate, and we Wait until individuals profess faith in Christ to baptize them. Our Presbyterian brothers and sisters say if both their parents are believing Christians who are involved in the church, then they live as children underneath the authority of their parents and baptizing them into the church is appropriate. And we disagree on that. We disagree on that passionately. We debate about it and it's interesting and you can geek out on that theology, but we both do so understanding that both movements are Christian movements, right? We're talking about something that's a secondary doctrine. [00:09:03] Primary doctrines are the ones that draw the line between Christian and non Christian. [00:09:10] If we don't agree on primary doctrines, we're no longer talking about the same faith. [00:09:15] And in general, primary doctrines center on the word of God and the Trinity. [00:09:23] That's where the vast majority of heresies that have risen up in the Church in the last 2000 years come from. They come from breaking our understanding of the authority of the Word or breaking our understanding of the Trinity. [00:09:34] And so the Creed was written as a way of defining out primary doctrines. And here's why, in our little Baptist Church in 2025 in St. Louis, we're doing a series in the Nicene Creed is because for 1700 years, all Christians have agreed on this doctrine. [00:09:53] Guys, that's wild. [00:09:55] That's wild. [00:09:57] You go across the entire swath of Christian belief, you go to Christian movements that reject the concept of creeds, and you outline the doctrines described in the Nicene Creed and they'll agree with all of them. [00:10:14] The truth represented in the Nicene Creed is a unifying belief statement amongst all Christians for 2,000 years, in all places and times. It's wild. [00:10:24] It's a really useful tool because we live in a world that challenges the doctrines of Christianity and we're surrounded by faith movements that try and co opt Jesus's likability or Christian ethics and say, well, we're kind of in the same camp too. [00:10:46] And the Creed helps you really quickly and biblically divide where that happens and doesn't happen. [00:10:52] I'll give you a for instance. [00:10:55] The Mormon Church says that Jesus is not God, but a created being, your spirit brother. [00:11:02] That is not biblical Christianity. [00:11:05] Right? [00:11:06] There's a difference between the difference between Baptists and Presbyterians and Baptists and Mormons. [00:11:12] And it's an issue of whether or not you're speaking about Christianity or a different faith movement. [00:11:18] The Creed is an incredibly helpful tool. It gives us this really good question. The question is, do we affirm that God's character is as he has revealed it in Scripture. [00:11:32] The way God has revealed himself in Scripture. Is that actually how he is? [00:11:38] That's what the Creed asks us. [00:11:40] These are the things God has shown us about himself in the Word. Is that actually as he is? [00:11:46] Or is he some other way? [00:11:48] Has the Scripture gotten him wrong? [00:11:51] Documents like the Nicene Creed help us differentiate these things. [00:11:57] Remember, the Creed has no authority in and of itself. It's meant simply as a distillation of biblical teaching. It was written in a time when people didn't have access to the Bible the way we do. A great example of this is Ephesians 4:1:6. This text isn't trying to do the work of a creed, but see if you can. How many facets of the creed you can hear in this text as I read it to you. [00:12:18] Therefore, I, prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. [00:12:45] How much of the Creed did you see in just that one little text? [00:12:49] The Creed is supposed to help us distill the complex teaching of Scripture into these base level primary doctrines, and just as much as its benefit, to help us with doctrinal fidelity. [00:13:03] One of the main benefits of the Creed is that it reminds us that there is this beautiful unity within our faith. [00:13:10] If you're a follower of Christ, you are a part of something amazing. [00:13:15] You're part of something greater than yourself. You're part of something greater than even your local church, even greater than your faith tradition. You are stepping into a large tradition, a great wide river that is biblical orthodox Christianity. [00:13:34] It's true. It's transcendent. So for the next several weeks, we're going to work through each tenant of this Creed. [00:13:42] We're going to recite it a few times. [00:13:44] It'll probably feel awkward for us. We'll zone in on different parts, we'll look at their biblical basis, and hopefully this will help ground us in some of the truths of the primary doctrines of Christianity. But more than that, my prayer is that this will ground you within your place in the family of God, that it will remind you that you have been adopted into a massive, beautiful family that spans cultures and generations and even faith movements. [00:14:16] You've been adopted into a family that is the church of Jesus. [00:14:20] And it's huge. It's beautiful, and it's wonderful, and it changes everything. [00:14:25] So the first tenet of the creed, the first point today, teaches us about God the Father. [00:14:32] We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. [00:14:39] You didn't recite it with me, but that's fine. I didn't expect you to. It's simple. [00:14:44] It's beautiful. [00:14:46] It really is, by the way, the absolute bedrock foundation of our faith. It's my main point today. It's going to be simple. It's going to be this. [00:14:54] We worship the God who made all things and holds authority over them. [00:15:00] That is what this beginning part of the creed is really telling us. God is real and he made all things. And because he made all things, he also carries authority over all things. [00:15:14] But let's be honest for a moment. [00:15:17] That's the actual hard part, right? The second part, the authority part. [00:15:22] I think it's a strange reality that most human beings don't really have a hard time with the idea this universe was created. [00:15:31] We often disagree about what created the universe and us. But the idea of creation is actually pretty intuitive for most people. [00:15:39] I think the issue comes when we realize the Bible claims that our Creator is Yahweh, who is personal, who is involved with his creation, who has deep authority over his creation, who bears authority over you and me, right? [00:15:56] That's the wall many of us run up against. [00:16:00] If God made you, he has claim over you. [00:16:05] God has authority over you. He sees you and he has a wonderful plan for your life. [00:16:13] But here's the thing. [00:16:15] He has a wonderful plan for your life. [00:16:18] And he has the authority to tell you this is the plan for your life. [00:16:25] That's hard. [00:16:27] Many of us don't like that. It's a hard truth to accept. [00:16:31] But beloved, you must know that is where true life is found. [00:16:35] Living into your design, living into God's plan for you. Living with trust in your Creator. [00:16:43] It's a life of joy. It's a life of fulfillment. That's a life with meaning. Turn in your bibles to Psalm 33, if you don't mind. [00:16:52] We believe in the importance of the Bible here. If you don't have a Bible with you today, there are house Bibles around the room. Just look under the chairs in front of you. Psalm 33 is where we're going to be today. [00:17:03] It's a classic psalm of praise. It speaks to this foundational understanding of God the Father. While you turn there, I'm going to pray for us and then we're going to jump straight into the text. Jesus, we ask today as we read through this word, that you would be our teacher, be our discipler, be our reminder. Lord, I pray that you would call us back to the beauty and truth of your character, of your heart. For us, Lord, speak through your word in the way our heart needs. [00:17:31] Convict us, encourage us, remind us. [00:17:34] Let us leave here today having met with you. We love you, Jesus. Amen. [00:17:40] Psalm 33 starts in the first verse like this. [00:17:45] Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous ones. Praise from the upright is beautiful. Praise the Lord with the lyre. Make music to him with 10 stringed harps. [00:17:54] Sing a new song to him. Play skillfully on the strings with a joyful shout. For the word of the Lord is right and all his work is trustworthy. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the Lord's unfailing love. [00:18:11] So, as I just said, Psalm 33 is a Psalm of praise because you have to remember the whole book of Psalms. It's a collection of worship songs for ancient Israel. Many of them directly invite the reader to sing praises to God for all sorts of wonderful things. And this is how our text opens up. It's a very clear and simple call to worship. Our text reminds us that everyone who loves the Lord should worship him, should worship him excellently. [00:18:38] Those of you who are musicians, like, do your best. [00:18:42] Now, there is a thing in there about playing the strings excellently, and I hope Kurt specifically was listening to that part of the text. I feel like I don't normally name people from the pulpit, but if there's a text that's going to challenge you. [00:18:54] Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:18:59] It is his call to worship. It's very clear. But in verses four and five, the psalmist then takes it a little further and says, why we praise God. [00:19:09] We praise the Lord because of his love and his goodness. [00:19:13] You see this in the text. [00:19:15] God's word is right. God's work is trustworthy. God loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the Lord's unfailing love. [00:19:26] I love this whole section here. Beloved, we worship a God who is good. [00:19:34] Our God loves us and wants what is best for us. [00:19:39] One of the fundamental truths of the entire biblical teaching. [00:19:43] God is good and he wants what is best for you. [00:19:46] It's the bedrock of the gospel story that he's good, that he's trustworthy. To know God is. Is to know love. [00:19:55] I think many of you in this room struggle with that idea. [00:20:00] More than you struggle with even the existence of God. [00:20:04] I think many times the struggle is not with whether or not God is real, it's with his character. [00:20:09] Because we live in a broken and sinful world where awful and evil things happen. [00:20:16] You've experienced enough hardship, you've experienced enough betrayal, enough hurt in this life that you begin to wonder if God is actually good. [00:20:27] But beloved, don't lose the truth. [00:20:31] The invitation of the gospel is to know a Creator who loves you, who designed you, who made you, who cares for you. And I know that's hard for many of us, but the psalmist gives us this wonderful window into how you actually engage that the whole earth is full of the Lord's unfailing love. [00:20:52] And many of you who've experienced the darkest parts this life has to offer, you go, I don't know. Feels like the whole earth is full of evil, like there's suffering and wrong everywhere I go. [00:21:06] And the psalmist is not a fool. [00:21:09] The psalmist has experienced the dark and sinful, painful parts of life. [00:21:13] But he still says, the whole earth, if you look around you, the whole earth, the whole creation, it's full of evidence of God's unfailing love. [00:21:22] And then he expounds on it for us. Look, look how the text continues on. [00:21:31] The heavens were made by the word of the Lord, all the stars, by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the water of the sea into a heap, he puts the depths in the storehouses. Let the whole earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke and it came into being. He commanded and it came into existence. [00:21:55] The psalmist says, one of the ways you know the Lord is full of unfailing love is that he made all of this. [00:22:03] Look around you. [00:22:05] Yes, there is evil and justice and betrayal and sorrow. [00:22:09] But look at the context within which the curse happens. [00:22:13] Right? [00:22:15] I think the psalmist invites us to take a step back and go, yes, you have experienced the reality of the curse. But take a step back. [00:22:23] Look where you are. [00:22:26] You're in this beautiful universe, this beautiful universe full of stars and planets and atoms, with things like the laws of physics, with creatures as weird as duck billed platypuses, with beaches and mountains, music and wind, with campfires on a fall night and crickets in the background, right? [00:22:54] You just look at where you live. [00:22:58] Look what God has made. [00:23:01] The sin, the evil, the curse that happens within God's creation can't negate the fact that the creation itself is beautiful, is wonderful, is a gift, is an expression of love. [00:23:17] Right. [00:23:18] One of the most fundamental truths about God the Father, as Scripture reveals him, is that he is our Creator. [00:23:28] He made us. [00:23:29] He made this universe. He made all things. The psalmist here in this chunk of the verse, he's beckoning back to Genesis 1 and 2 in the creation story. [00:23:39] By his breath, by his voice, God makes all things. He spoke all of reality into existence. The heavens, that space, the stars, the oceans, the whole earth. God made all of it. [00:23:51] I don't want to linger here too long, but I think it's actually really important to take a little bit of a rabbit trail here. [00:23:59] Creation and origins of the universe are actually often a really big sticking point for people in their struggle with faith and working through doubts. [00:24:07] And according to both the Scripture and the creed, this is actually a primary doctrinal issue. [00:24:14] God is creator. It's how the Bible has revealed Him. [00:24:19] We must submit to the truth that God made all things. This is a matter of whether or not you're talking about Christianity. [00:24:25] And yet we live in a culture in a moment that hands us this false dichotomy between faith and science. Right. [00:24:33] We've all heard versions of this before. Whether it was your own experience, or maybe you went to see the God's Not Dead movie just a couple too many times, that's fine. [00:24:43] If you listen to your high school bio teacher about evolution or the age of the earth, then you're rejecting what the Bible plainly says. [00:24:50] Yeah, well, let me take a quick detour here. We're going to come back to the psalm because it's way more important. But I think this is an important discussion, especially in our cultural moment. Genesis 1 and 2 both present the creation story. Genesis 1 tells the story poetically. Genesis 2 tells it narratively. But they're the same story with the same point. [00:25:13] And the sticking point of this debate comes in the language of Genesis 1. [00:25:19] While not a poem precisely, if you look at Genesis 1 in Hebrew, it very obviously follows a poetic structure, and it structures the story around seven days of creation. You guys, if you have any memory of Sunday School or vbs, right, Day one, it was evening, it was morning, Day two, and God said it was good. And there's that whole structure to it. It's very beautiful. It describes God creating all things day by day, simply through the power of his voice. [00:25:49] And in the several thousand years since Genesis was collected and put together, there have been tons of discussion about this opening text of the Bible. [00:26:00] And while it's actually really complex, if you want to really nerd out on this, there's a million different branches that can go. There are three basic understandings of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 from a Christian perspective today. [00:26:14] So let me outline these three perspectives for us really quick. I think this is an important thing in generally speaking, when Christians talk about Genesis 1 and 2, they're going to talk about it from the perspective of young earth creationism, old earth creationism or theistic evolution. And again, there's more complexity to it than this. But this is a good way to kind of simplify it. [00:26:34] The young earth creationist view is based on a very literal reading of Genesis 1 and a study of the years described in the genealogies of the Old Testament. This view is represented by teachers like Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. If you've ever been to the Creation Museum or going to the Ark experience, it's that guy. [00:26:50] But also it's held up by teachers as well, known as John MacArthur or Al Mohler of Southern Seminary. This view says that God created all things exactly and specifically as Genesis 1 describes seven literal 24 hour days. [00:27:04] Because of that, evolution is totally rejected in this view because God made every kind of creature specifically and supernaturally, and there's no death before the curse. And so this view also tends to reject the things like modern carbon dating in the standardized fossil record. They must be inaccurate. They must have had their ages affected by things like the flood. They generally hold that the earth is 6 to 9,000 years old. In that range, then you have old earth creationism. [00:27:31] This interpretation is based on discussion around the word day in Genesis 1. I know we're getting into the weeds of theology here, right? But in Hebrew, this word yom that we read is day. It can mean a little 24 hour day, or it can mean the same way we use age or epoch of history. [00:27:48] As far back as St. Augustine, theologians have pondered whether God created in seven literal 24 hour days or slowly over differing spanning ages of time, with specific moments where he stepped in and intervened in supernatural ways to shift or establish or move different parts of the creation. This view is often generally suspicious of some of the sweeping claims of evolutionary theory, especially like cross special evolution, but totally accepting of the fossil record and the modern scientific understanding of the earth's age. [00:28:25] Teachers like Hank Hanegraaff, the Bible answer man, William Lane Craig, the Christian philosopher, or Francis Schaeffer, they hold to this some version of this view. [00:28:35] Then you have theistic evolution. This view holds that Genesis 1 is meant to be read entirely poetically. It's meant to Be read as something that's beautiful imagery. It's theological, not literal. And because of this adherence of this view, except every aspect of modern scientific teaching regarding evolution, the origin of life and the age of the earth, they hold that God created these systems in the universe and he sovereignly directs them. And you don't have to read Genesis 1 as anything more than a beautiful poem. Adherence of this view. This may shock you guys include people like Billy Graham, C.S. lewis, who actually saw evolution as an apologetic for God's existence, and Francis Collins, the scientist who helped the lead the Human Genome Project and mapped out human DNA for the first time. It was written a long book about this. Okay, I bring all that up for this reason. [00:29:30] We live in a moment that puts you in a world of pressure on this issue. [00:29:36] Even some Christians will say if you don't have the right view on creation, you are not a Christian. [00:29:44] Right? [00:29:45] And this is very strong. And I'll say his name because he says it very publicly. Ken Ham answers in Genesis, says this very plainly. If you do not hold to a literal young earth view, then you are not a Bible believing Christian. You reject the truth of scripture. That's pretty intense. [00:30:01] But here's the thing, guys, that's not true. Sorry, Ken, it's not true. [00:30:07] See, the reality is the Bible unapologetically teaches that God the Father is the maker and sustainer of all things. He is your creator. [00:30:14] That truth is a primary issue of Christian theology. [00:30:18] God is the Creator. You can't get away from it if you believe the Bible. [00:30:23] But your conviction of how he went about creating, because that is an incredibly secondary issue. [00:30:29] It's interesting, it's cool. [00:30:33] You should explore it. You should dig into it. You should have convictions. You should geek out on it. Go watch a million YouTube videos and buy some books and read about it and decide what you think. [00:30:44] Because it's interesting. [00:30:46] Because as the psalmist said, the creation is an expression of God's love for us. And exploring the creation and understanding it more is a way for you to fall more in love with your creator. It's beautiful. You should do it. [00:31:02] But you have to understand that we don't actually know. [00:31:05] We don't actually know which of those views or even if those three views are the correct one. [00:31:10] The issue is that God created. The issue of how he created is something that's open to debate. An interesting discussion. [00:31:18] You don't have to check your brain at the door to be a Bible believing Christian. You don't have to reject good and well done science to Be a Bible believing Christian. [00:31:29] You do have to reckon with the truth that Yahweh made the universe and made you and has a claim over you. [00:31:35] His identity. Creator as creator gives him authority over his creation, you included. Like, you have to reckon with that. [00:31:42] But you don't have to say, my faith and everything I've learned and every science class I've ever taken, they're somehow in conflict and I gotta pick one or the other. And I'm telling you guys, if you create that false dichotomy, you are pushing people away from the faith, you're pushing them away from Christ. [00:31:58] It is an unnecessary challenge. [00:32:02] Unnecessary. [00:32:04] You're gonna look at every geologist you've ever known and said, well, if you believe what your career tells you, you're not a Christian. That's not helpful. [00:32:12] It's not helpful. [00:32:14] The issue is that God made how he did it is incredibly interesting, but there's a lot of really good faith debate about how he did it. [00:32:25] Exploring how he did it is part of how we worship him and we can come together in our diversity of opinion on that and be unified in our worship of the Creator God. Amen. [00:32:37] What you have to reckon with is how God has authority over you and how his identity as Creator gives Him authority over you. Look how our psalm continues in verse 10. [00:32:51] The Lord frustrates the counsel of the nations. He thwarts the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever the plans of his heart from generation to generation. Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord the people he has chosen to be his own possession. The Lord looks down from heaven. He observes everyone. He gazes on all the inhabitants of the earth. From his dwelling place he forms the hearts of them all. He considers the all of their works. A king is not saved by a large army. A warrior may not be rescued by great strength. The horse is a false hope for safety. It provides no escape by its great power. [00:33:29] The psalmist takes what might at first seem like a really hard left turn here. [00:33:34] He shifts from God as Creator to the idea that God watches over nations and peoples. And that may seem strange at first, but it's actually really interconnected here, here. [00:33:44] We're going to come back to this text in more depth next week when we talk about Jesus the Son. But God's role as Creator gives him unique authority. [00:33:52] In speaking of Jesus role in the creation as God the Son, Paul says in Colossians 1, all things were created through him, and for him, God the universe, guys, the universe belongs to God. [00:34:06] It's His. [00:34:07] He made it. [00:34:09] He sustains it. And you need to hear this. [00:34:13] He made it for himself. [00:34:16] He made it for him. [00:34:19] From the stars in the universe, the black holes, all the way down to atoms and electrons and quarks and all the way back up to you and to me. [00:34:30] All of this was made by God and made for God. [00:34:35] Notice this emphasis that verse 13 that the Psalmist puts on the eye of the Lord. [00:34:40] He isn't just a God who speaks or who's actively involved in doing things in creation. If God made all things but stayed away from them, he would be distant and disconnected. [00:34:51] But God is not distant. He's not disconnected. He knows us. [00:34:55] He doesn't just make us, he knows us. He loves us. And as the psalmist said, he sees us. [00:35:03] He's relationally involved because that has a real impact on the world we live in. [00:35:10] The psalmist says that because God is creator and because God takes authority over his creation, his eye is over everything. [00:35:18] This means the best power the world has to offer cannot stand up to the authority and power of God. [00:35:24] Nations and people can plan and scheme, but the Lord's plans are are what come to fruition. And this isn't just broad like swathes of nations. Yes, God's eye is on people and nations, but his eye is on individuals. He forms our hearts. He considers our thoughts. He sees our works. He sees the minute details of your person. [00:35:47] Beloved, you are completely known by God in all the beautiful ways and all the time terrifying ways. [00:35:56] You stand completely exposed before Him. [00:35:59] He knows every facet of your person, from your molecules to your private thoughts. [00:36:06] He knows all of you. [00:36:08] The psalmist says, kings are not saved by armies. [00:36:12] Warriors aren't saved by their war horses. [00:36:16] This is a way of saying the earth's biggest powers and threats cannot stand up to simply the eye of God. [00:36:24] Seeing and knowing. [00:36:27] You cannot keep yourself from Him. [00:36:29] In a different psalm, the psalmist says, where can I hide from him? [00:36:35] You can't. [00:36:37] The eye of God, the very sight of God, is more powerful than the greatest strength this earth has to bear. [00:36:44] And here's the thing that's kind of terrifying, right? [00:36:50] That's scary. [00:36:52] I've said this a lot from the pulpit, but it's so important. [00:36:55] The Bible says all the time we are to fear God. [00:37:00] And we take that and we kind of neuter it and we go, oh, yeah, that means you're supposed to honor him. Yeah, you're supposed to honor him. But listen, did you hear what I just described about the eye of God that he sees every facet of you, that you're fully and completely known and exposed to him, that the most shameful thing you've ever done or thought is completely and totally open to him at all times. [00:37:26] That he has complete power over you, that you can't hide from him, you can't escape him, you can't stand up to Him. [00:37:34] That's scary. [00:37:36] That's scary. Scary. [00:37:38] And if that God who, who has that power over you were distant and unattached, that terror would end right there at terror. [00:37:48] You would live your life going, what the heck can I do? I'm helpless. [00:37:52] And heaven forbid if that God were relationally involved, but he were vindictive and angry, oh, my goodness. [00:37:59] Life would be nothing but terror and torture. [00:38:03] But the scripture tells us that God is loving, that he loves you. [00:38:11] He perfectly loves you, that he sees all those facets of you, that you are naked and exposed and helpless before Him. And yet he passionately loves you and cares for you. [00:38:24] He desires your good desires, your flourishing man. [00:38:31] How powerful. [00:38:32] Look how the psalm ends here. [00:38:35] But look, the Lord keeps His eyes on those who fear him, those who depend on his faithful love to rescue them from death, to keep them alive in famine. We wait for the Lord, because He is our help and shield. [00:38:47] Our hearts rejoice in him because we trust in his holy name. May your faithful love rest on us, Lord, for we put our hope in you. [00:38:58] The word of the Lord, the eye of the Lord, his action, his knowledge comes together in this wonderful truth that although God the Father is mysterious, although he is above us, although we cannot understand him, although his knowledge and power are terrifying, even though all those things are true, we can trust Him. [00:39:23] We can trust Him. [00:39:27] I love that he made us. [00:39:30] He's active in his creation. He sees us. He's involved in our lives. And this part is so necessary, beloved. He loves you. [00:39:39] That terrifying God who made all things and controls kings and black holes, who knows you and your failures and your sin, loves you. And you can trust who your heart to Him. [00:39:51] You may say, then why do I experience suffering? [00:39:54] Why is life so hard? It's a great question, actually. Going to explore that more in the next few weeks as we look at God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. But today we start with this truth, simple bedrock of the Christian faith. And if you want to come back up, we start with this. [00:40:13] God is real. [00:40:16] God is good. [00:40:17] He made you. [00:40:19] He has a claim over you. [00:40:22] But you can trust Him. [00:40:25] You can trust Him. [00:40:27] You can trust his love for you. [00:40:31] You can trust that he's watching over you, not in judgment and anger and disappointment, but in love and care. [00:40:41] You can trust that even when life is hard, even when you experience suffering that you don't fully understand, even when people treat you as they ought not treat you, when you experience betrayal and loss and sorrow, you can trust that God's eye is upon you, that he loves you and cares for you, that his heart is for you. [00:41:06] So what do we do with this text today? I want to give us three thoughts just to kind of land us out today. [00:41:12] I'm going to invite us in just a minute. As we do each week, step into a little bit of time of just prayer to consider the Lord, consider His heart for you, to prepare your heart to come up and respond to him and worship him through communion. [00:41:29] And as we do that, I want to ask you to give thanks thought to three things. [00:41:34] What does it look like for you to praise this God today? [00:41:38] The psalmist opened by saying, if you stop to think about how good God is, you should praise Him. [00:41:45] I think that is worth your attention. Today you have an invitation to take a minute to stop, to consider the world within which you live, the sky, the oceans, the storm, stars, whatever you love about this creation, and to praise the God who made it and placed you in it. [00:42:07] The text also invites us to wait on God. [00:42:11] And if you're in this room and the weight of the curse is hitting you in fresh and stinging ways today that bring about doubt, hurt and sorrow, the invitation of the text is for you to wait upon God. [00:42:26] This life is confusing. The curse is painful. But because God is so powerful and so good, you can wait upon Him. [00:42:37] You can let him know what in this life burdens you, hurts you, causes you doubts, causes you suffering. [00:42:45] And you can wait on him to respond. Because the reality is God sees you and there's nothing that happens in this world that is beyond his gaze. [00:42:55] And there is no wrong ever done to you, no injustice you ever experienced that the Lord does not take into account in his care for you, his plan for you. [00:43:04] And lastly, you can choose to trust God. [00:43:09] I know some of us in this room today, we just need to be brought back to that truth. [00:43:15] Those of us in this room who haven't yet submitted to Christ in the confession of sins, for the forgiveness of sins and salvation. Yes, you need to trust him as your Savior. [00:43:23] But even those of us who've been following Christ, some of us need to be challenged today to come back to the truth of trust. [00:43:32] You have no control over your life you don't. [00:43:37] You don't know what tomorrow brings. [00:43:39] You don't know what evils the curse has in store. [00:43:44] But you know the God who does. [00:43:46] You know the God who is in control of all things, whose plans are not thwarted, who cannot be stopped by the power of kings. [00:43:54] You know that God. [00:43:56] And you can know that he loves you. [00:43:58] He sees you. He has a plan for you. [00:44:02] You can choose to trust him afresh today. [00:44:05] Beloved, I want to invite you to take a few minutes in response in prayer, to sit in the quiet of the moment to reflect on these three ideas. What does it mean for you to praise God, to wait on God, to trust God. [00:44:19] And when you feel ready, I want to invite you guys to partake in communion. Those of you who are in Christ, you know this. But communion is one of the ways that we palpably, intangibly remind one another of the power of the Gospel. The scripture says when we take of the elements, we proclaim his death until his return. [00:44:37] We remember the night when Jesus was betrayed and he shared the meal, and he said, this is my body broken, and this is my blood poured out. And when we as believers take that today, that tangible expression, it is an act of trust. [00:44:53] It's an act of worship praise, and it's an act of waiting on the Lord. [00:44:58] As we say, your work is sufficient. [00:45:01] I trust it to save me, and I await your return. [00:45:06] Those of you who are in the room, who are believers, when you're ready, I invite you to come partake of the elements. If you're in the room and you don't have the ability to come up front, that's fine. You can raise your hand and Brittany will bring them to you. [00:45:17] Beloved, let's take a few minutes in prayer and response and reflection. And as you're ready, let's respond through communion.