InPerspective

Announcer: The first article of affirmation of what we believe: Credo Deum. I believe in God the Father Almighty. And in those few words, the distinctive of the God of glory and grace, the one true and living God, are affirmed and declared, upon which the rest of the creed is built and upon which our life is built.

Announcer: Putting life in biblical perspective with Dr. Harry L. Reeder. This is InPerspective, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Harry Reeder: Who and what we worship will determine how we live. And how we live will ultimately reveal who and what we worship. God's word reveals to us His nature and character, not through human imagination, but by divine revelation. We learn that He is one God in three persons. He is our heavenly Father. He is almighty, and He is holy. Truths we affirm in the Apostles' Creed.

Announcer: Stay with us now as Dr. Reeder takes us to Romans chapter 1 and verses 16 through 23, as he brings us today's teaching, part two of the message, I Believe in God the Father Almighty.

Harry Reeder: Romans chapter 1, and follow along with me in verses 16 through 23. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world.

In the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish heart was darkened, claiming to be wise, they became fools. And they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

Harry Reeder: When you begin to go to the Bible, you find out that this is one God who dwells in three persons, and that's the way He reveals Himself. But isn't it interesting, even when He reveals Himself as one God, as He is, one God, in the Old Testament, He begins to anticipate, accommodate and initiate the doctrine of the Trinity for our understanding. Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is...

But the word is Echad. Echad means a single with plurality. Doesn't say what plurality, but with plurality. That's why you use it to speak of a grape. The cluster, but a grape in singular. Echad.

Or you go to the creation account. In the beginning, God, singular, created the heavens of the earth. And then it says, God said, let us make man in our image. Now, there's not the doctrine of the Trinity articulated, but anticipated and accommodated.

As it begins to unfold in the Old Testament for us step by step, through the names of God, the acts of God, until you get to the full declaration of it in the New Testament. And as it comes forth in the New Testament, we find out with abundant clarity that we can see it in the Old Testament, in the shadows and types and promises and precepts and symbols. Now we see it in its articulation and declaration in the New Testament, that there is one God in three persons.

One God, that's His being. God is God. One God in being who exists in His singular being in three persons. You are made in His image. You are a being with one person. God is a being in three persons.

We are a being with one person and have multiple dynamics in our life. For instance, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a parent, I am a pastor, I am a citizen. You're constantly talking about these things that I am in my roles and responsibilities and acts of life as one being made in the image of God with personhood. God exists as one being. Three persons, and multiple acts: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, Judge, Completer.

As the Trinity creates. The Father authored our creation. All things were created through the Son and for the Son. And the Holy Spirit hovered over the creation and ordered the creation. In redemption, the Father authored our salvation. The Son accomplished our salvation. The Holy Spirit applies our salvation. God's work in Providence, not only creation and redemption, but God's work in Providence. The Father loves us, the Son intercedes for us, and the Holy Spirit indwells us. We have one God in three persons. Folks, you've got a Trinitarian act of creation, a Trinitarian act of redemption. We have a Trinitarian gospel.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through the preeminent Christ, by whom we fix our heart and minds to the glory of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. We are even taught to pray this way: Our Father who art in heaven.

So we're taught to pray Trinitarian, we're taught to worship. The Father seeks true worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. We worship the Father through the Son and in the Spirit. So in our confessions, our hymns, our worship, our witness, it is clear, one God, three persons.

Now let me go much quicker. Number three, Father. He is our Father. Can I ask you all a question? As the Bible unfolds the doctrine of God progressively in Old Testament to New Testament. I'm giving you a little hint there. Who is the first teacher of Israel? Who is the first rabbi to inform us that God is our Father?

Okay, pretend like you are eight years old, and I'm doing a children's sermon, and I ask you, who made the ark? What will Johnny say when I ask him who made the ark? Jesus. Because that's never wrong. So I'm going to ask this again. Who is the first rabbi, teacher of Israel to let us know that God is our Father?

Jesus. When did he first say it? Well, he had just become a man formally, and his daddy and mother left church, and they left him there. Some of you have done that because I've kept your kids until you came back. And they came back, and they began to look everywhere. They couldn't find him. Finally, they found him. And he said, "You knew where I was. Why are you so worried?" Here's his first statement. "Did you not know I would be in my Father's house?"

God our Father. Now, we're mothered because God the Father sent His Son, who purchased His bride and set up His bride to nurture His people. But God reveals Himself in the focus of the first person of the Trinity as our Father. Our Father.

Jesus fills the New Testament with it. Why are you anxious about anything? God clothed the lilies of the field who don't toil or work. How much more does your Father love you? Peter, "flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." When you pray, pray this way, "Our Father." That's unheard of. Go find that kind of prayer in the Old Covenant.

That now, only because of Christ, not because God's been diminished, only because of Christ. Now, this great God who is so glorious, I now can say He is my Father. He is our Father. We have that glorious relationship with Him. And as a Father, this teaching pervading the New Testament to teach us.

And you see this glorious Trinitarian work at the baptism of Jesus. The Father from heaven speaks, "This is my son." By the way, you see the Trinity is not one God with three uniforms, but one God in three persons. Yet not three gods, one God, but not one God with three appearances, but one God in three persons. Even at the baptism, what do you have? You have the Father speaking from heaven, His Son being baptized, and then the Holy Spirit being poured out upon Him. And the Father says, "This is my son, in whom I am well pleased."

And brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ and Christ is in you, then God is your Father, and through Christ is well pleased with you, that you are now been adopted into the family of God through the work of an elder brother, Jesus, your redeemer. And you can call God your Father.

I had a very special relationship with my dad, one that I only wished was even more special for many ways, in multiple ways. But I'll never forget when we had moved to Charleston, South Carolina. We lived in North Charleston first, and we were living at Calhoun Way, and then I walked out one block. I got on Durant Avenue, which was a dirt road. I walked down and there was this thing called Park Circle. And because it was a circle, it had eight roads running off of it.

And down one of those roads was my second grade elementary school. Park Circle Elementary School, now North Charleston Elementary School. And so Saturday my dad and mom said, "Well, you're going to walk, it's only two miles, no problem." We can walk and I said, "Okay." So they walked me down there. "Here, go out here, go to Durant, walk down Durant, get to Park Circle, go around the circle. And when you get over here, pick up this road right here and follow it, and two blocks down that road is Park Circle Elementary. Go in the front door and to the right is your second grade class." Great. Got it. So we worked on all of that.

So Monday morning came. Here's what we forgot. North Charleston, 1950s. Two things. It's on the coast, and there is the largest paper mill in the United States. Therefore, every morning, marsh mist and paper mill smoke, long before cleansing scrubbing, paper mill smoke, together produced a layer of cloud that, A, smelled like you wouldn't believe, and B, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. I left that morning, I made my way down Durant, I got to Park Circle. I was looking for that road. I kept going around and around, and then I picked one. Guess what? Wrong road.

And the clouds got thicker, and the odor got more intense, and everything got worse. And I was convinced I had just walked into oblivion. I was dead. That was it. Then I thought, no, no. My daddy will miss me and come find me.

Well, I think my dad realized when he looked out and saw everything, "I better check on him." And right at the moment I thought, "My dad will find me," I looked up, and beside me was a '54 Chevy, and the door opened, and my dad looked out and said, "Son, are you lost?" And I said, "Yes, daddy. I'm sorry." He said, "Don't worry. Get in the car. I'll take you to school."

You know, I love that moment for so many reasons, but I love that moment because it was a precursor. Because 13 years later, I had taken a wrong road, and I was lost in my sin.

I was lost in the depths of my sin. I was headed to a Christless eternity of a place called hell. And the heavenly Father sought me by the Spirit of God. And he said to me in a gospel message, "Are you lost?" And I said, "Yes, I'm sorry." Get in. I'll take you to school. And he brought me by grace into the school of grace and through that has taken me home.

I believe in God the Father. But can he pull it off? That's why the next one's so dear. I believe in God the Father Almighty. Don't you love Genesis 17 when God says to Abraham, "I'm going to make you a nation, I'm going to give you a child, I'm going to give you a seed that's going to become a redeemer, and then I'm going to give you a land, and that land's a down payment of the heavens and the earth and the new heavens and the new earth. And in your seed and through your nation, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." And Abram said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm 99. She's 90." And what does God say? "El Shaddai, I am God Almighty."

Nothing is impossible for me. There's only one thing God can't do: He can't quit being God. And that God in all of His glory and His attributes declares, "I am God Almighty."

I'm going to stick with my daddy since we're on the Father thing here. I bore my dad's name, Harry Lloyd Reader III, and he's Harry Lloyd Reader Jr., and Harry Lloyd Reader Sr. In many holidays, our family, almost all holidays, our families would get together. And then my dad early on, before my three sisters came along, he loved to do this. He would take me and put me on top of a Frigidaire. I have just dated myself. Frigidaire, not refrigerator. That's what you all call it. Growing up, there was only one company that you would buy from, and that was Frigidaire, so it was a Frigidaire. And my dad would put me up on the Frigidaire, and he would stand me up, and then he would back up, and he would say, "Son, jump." And all the family was around watching me. Folks, I've had to count three-two bases loaded in baseball games, and I've never been more nervous than that moment, standing on that when my dad said, "Jump."

Now, I'm not the sharpest knife in the tray, and I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. But I knew to process that, and I did process it. I looked at me, I looked at him, even as a little, little boy. I looked at me, and I looked at him. He said, "Jump." That means, A, is he going to catch me, or is he going to move? B, if he is going to catch me, can he catch me? And I became convinced I could trust him, and he was able. And I jumped. God's revealed himself to you. And he's given you your promises, and he says, "Cast yourself upon me. I won't move, and I am able. I am able to create." He didn't need six days. He did it in six days for a reason. He could just speak. I am able to create. I am able to save, and I am able to sustain you. In me, you live and move and have your being. I am able.

Fifthly, you begin as you go through the rest of the creed to realize God is holy. The word holy means unique, one of a kind. God is one of a kind. There's not another one like him. He is holy. He is wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y. He is wholly other. He is righteous, pure, no sin, no ability to sin. And he is sovereign, and he is holy. He alone can create. You can't create. I can't create. Anything people make, they worked with something He made from nothing.

Because we're in His image, we can be creative, but we can't create. Bring from nothing something. We can't save. You can't save yourself. You can't save others. You cannot sustain humanity. But the God who creates, redeems and sustains is wholly other. The Father Almighty. And He alone is worthy to be praised, which is why when you know Him, the sign that you know Him, you are unstoppable in your desire to worship Him alone in a way that He alone is pleased.

That begins to fill your soul. If I was to ask you, give me one word for God, but you can't use any of His names. What would you say to me? Most people would say, God is love. And God is love, but that's not the one you would look for.

The one you would look for is the one that when we look into heavens, and the angels are worshiping in Isaiah and Revelation, they are crying out, "Holy, holy, holy." When He sends the Spirit to you, who knows the intentions and thoughts of the living God, who is God. He's not called the love spirit. He produces love, joy, peace, kindness. He's the Holy Spirit. God is holy.

His name is not to be taken in vain, only used to His praise and worship, as He reveals Himself in His word. That God is to be glorified in all that He is, and all that He has, and all that He does, and He is all in all to be praised.

So here's the takeaway from this first article of faith. Who and what we worship. Who and what we worship will determine how we live. Now flip that. How we live will ultimately reveal who and what we worship. Who and what we worship will ultimately determine our lives. You'll set your calendar, you'll write your checkbook, you'll make your budget. Your life will be oriented about who and what you worship.

And if you sit with people long enough, and watch people long enough, and listen long enough, they'll ultimately reveal to you who and what they worship. My daughter came to me and she said, "Dad, do you know about," and she named this personality interview test that businesses use. And I said, "No, I don't." I said, "Explain it to me." She said, "Well, it's really interesting, Dad." She said, "Look, I'm not going to go through all the details and everything, but let me just tell you this. They give you some questions, and you ask the questions, and basically, the questions are designed and listed out really to get the person talking. And when they talk, you talk for at least a couple of hours. And if you'll talk for a couple of hours using those questions, eventually, you'll find out who and what is important to them."

Eventually, how we live and what we say will reveal who and what we worship.

My friend, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, who I quote all the time for valid reasons. He read the book, Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. Anybody ever heard of it? It's to debunk Christianity's God. But Sinclair read it, and he said, "There's a lot we can talk about." But here's what he said. He said, "Here's the giveaway. The God Delusion to tell us that the God revealed in the word of God is a delusion. When you read it, it soon is informative."

He said, "I read it, by and far, no comparison. Nothing is in second place. What one word is used the most in the book The God Delusion?" "I." "Me." That's his delusion. He is his God, of his vain imagination. And he is not almighty, and he is no everlasting Father.

We boast in the Lord. I believe in God the Father Almighty. I got all kind of issues in a broken world, but my first article of affirmation fixed point, I believe in God the Father Almighty.

You want to know this God, did you know you're asking the question of eternal life? John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that you know God and and His Son whom He sent from heaven." God the Father has given His Son that you might become the sons and daughters of God through Christ.

Harry Reeder: May I invite you to Him.

Announcer: You are listening to InPerspective, featuring the teaching of Dr. Harry L. Reeder. Make a one-time contribution or become a monthly donor. Call 1-800-488-1888 or visit inperspective.org. Reformation21 and A Place For Truth are websites of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, featuring articles from today's most influential reformed thinkers. Our purpose is to proclaim biblical doctrine to foster a reformed awakening in today's church. Connect to the blogs, podcasts, and more at inperspective.org. Join us again next time, as we turn back to the scriptures to put life in biblical perspective.