We Believe: God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth

Welcome to the Gospel Focused Family Moment. I'm your host, Eric Novak. Each week, we pause as a family to remember what matters most — the good news of Jesus. This podcast is brought to you by gospelfocused.com. For our opening liturgy today, I'll be your leader and ask a question, and then you follow along and repeat with your family. Christian family, what do we believe? We believe in God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth. We believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. We believe in the Holy Spirit, who gives us life and makes us one. Our scripture reading today will be in Genesis 1, verses 1 through 2. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." This is the word of the Lord. Hello, friends. Welcome to a new month of the show. It's September, and I'm excited to begin a new season here — a two-part season continuing through October where we'll be studying the Apostles' Creed together. So, a creed is basically a list of things that people believe. That's what the word means: Credo, "I believe." This creed is one that the church has believed since almost the very beginning, and it goes like this: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. Wow, that is a lot. It's simple, but there's a lot going on there that we can uncover together. Today we're just going to start with the first two lines: "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth." The verse we read at the beginning of this episode is a key verse in our faith because it describes God in an important way: first, that He existed at the beginning, and second, that His Spirit was hovering over the waters. Already we know three things about God that are so important to understanding who He is. First, we know that God exists outside of time. He has always existed. Just this line of reasoning is crazy for us to think about, because as humans we tend to think about everything in terms of time. When will this podcast be over? When will we have dessert? When is bedtime? We're finite people, meaning we have a beginning and an end. But God is infinite, meaning without beginning and without end. Second, we learn that God is immensely powerful. He created the heavens and the earth. I can't imagine what that even means — to be so powerful that you can speak things into being from nothing, but also so kind and so good that you want to be part of a beautiful community together. Third, we learn that God is not just a person, or one person. God is the Trinity — the first community: three persons, one God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In this passage, we hear about the Father and the Spirit. And later in the Bible, we know from John 1:1 through 3 — and I'll quote it here: "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 was not anything made that was made." So, these are very basic Christian teachings about God. They are the foundations of our faith, and they mean a lot, because as we grow in our faith we'll keep returning to them again and again to understand how everything fits together. And ultimately we'll learn who God is, and we'll keep learning more and more about Him. That's what a relationship with God is all about: learning, reading His Word, and talking with Him — just like you would want to talk and hang out with a best friend. You know, at our church, our pastor gives something at the end of his sermon called a benediction, which is basically a blessing. He says, "Go, and go with Jesus. He is the best friend you've always longed for." And I always love that, because Jesus is our best friend. And how do we communicate with our best friends? We get to know them, we communicate with them, we have a relationship with them. Guys, doctrine or creed — what we believe and why we believe it — doesn't have to be boring or scary. It can help us to understand and grow closer to God. We don't just know these things; we believe they're true, just like the definition of creed at the beginning of this episode: I believe. I'm so glad I get to help teach you and your family what the church has believed and lived out for such a long, long time. Our memory verse for today is going to be Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That's a great memory verse — it was the first memory verse I memorized when I was a kid, because it's so easy to remember. Let's pray together. Father, Son, and Spirit, it's such an honor that we get to pray to the Holy Trinity, who has existed outside of time and space forever. You're an infinite, powerful God, who wants to have a relationship with us. We thank you for sending your Son Jesus to make a way for that to happen. We love you, we praise you. Teach us to number our days and follow your ways — everything to the glory of your holy Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Thanks for joining us for this week's Gospel Focused Family Moment. I'm your host, Eric Novak. Until next time, keep your eyes on Jesus and your hearts focused on the gospel. Go as a family in the peace of your Savior and closest friend, Jesus Christ. See you next week. Thank you for being part of what we do at gospelfocused.com. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. Every person we reach brings us closer to our goal of sharing the gospel with every family around the world, by the grace of Jesus.