I invite you to turn with me tonight to Galatians 3, beginning at verse 26, reading through chapter 4, verse 7. Also turning in the back of the Psalter Hymnal to page 16, where we find Lord's Day 9, dealing with God the Father. Page 16 in the back of the Psalter Hymnal, Lord's Day 9, question and answer 26. Reading together Galatians 3 beginning at verse 26 as we now give our attention to the reading of the Word of God. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, we pray that in this evening hour You would indeed open our hearts, that You would illumine us by Your Holy Spirit to hear the truth of Your Word as it is proclaimed, that we might indeed be refreshed, O Lord, in the beauty of what it means that You are our Father who art in heaven. That we might leave this place tonight, Father, more receptive as well to Your will and Your way because You are our Father. And more encouraged of the care that You take, that You place over Your people. Give to us all that we stand in need of, Father. Open our ears that we might hear and bless us that we might believe. And may You, O Lord, be praised. In Jesus' name alone, we pray these things. Amen. Page 16, in the back of the Psalter hymnal, Lord's Day 9, question and answer 26, as we recite the answer together, confessing what we believe, the question asks, What do you believe when you say, I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth? That the Eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by His eternal counsel and providence, is my God and Father because of Christ His Son. I trust Him so much that I do not doubt He will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because He is Almighty God. He desires to do this because He is a faithful Father. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, what kind of God do you serve? It may seem like a strange question since we just gave expression to what we believe. It might seem like a strange question all around, But is it a legitimate question? Absolutely. What is He like? What is it that you believe about Him? Well, as we know, as Reformed Christians, we profess a summary of what we believe in what we call the Apostles' Creed. A summary as taught in Scripture. And in the very first article of that creed, we profess some powerful things about the God in whom we believe. We profess, I believe in God the Father. Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth. And if you think about it, this really is quite a profession, especially in our day and age. Do you really believe this? We say, Maker of Heaven and Earth. But society and science says, no, evolution is how we got to where we are today. Everything constantly changes. And when we die, that's it. Nothing more. It's the survival of the fittest. We also claim that God is almighty. And here again, many say, no, this isn't quite right either. God is maybe needed here and there once in a while, but He isn't sovereign. He isn't in control of every detail of my life. I control my own destiny. Life is pretty much up to me and what I do with it. We claim that God is Father. Wow. Now that offends some for different reasons, of course, but what about mother? Or even it? What's wrong with having a generic higher power? You know, as we said a week or so ago, there are so many different kinds of people in the world and we have to be more inclusive. We cannot limit the different kinds of people to just one kind of God. So then what's left? We're just God. But what kind of a God? Well, the only kind there can be, a man-made God, a God made in man's image, but certainly not the God of the Scriptures. That's what many believe today, in their own man-made kind of God or idea of God. So then, do we really believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth? We say, yes, we do. But why? And what does that mean? The Lord's Day 9 of the Catechism summarizes what the Bible teaches. Again, the question, what do you believe when you say, I believe in God the Father, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth? Beloved, the believer confesses the fatherhood of God. That's the true believer's confession. And I want to draw your attention to two details tonight. First of all, that this is a confession rooted in Christ. And secondly, it is a confession reflected in trust. First, a confession rooted in Christ. If we read the main clause of the first part of the Catechism's answer correctly, we read that the Eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is my God and Father because of Christ His Son. You see, our confession about what we believe about God the Father begins with a confession of Jesus Christ. That Jesus is the Son of the Eternal Father And because of Christ, His Son, He is my God and my Father, the believer's God and Father. Galatians 4 verse 5 says, Christ came to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons. Apart from Jesus Christ, He is not my God and Father. We may claim God as our Father only because of Jesus Christ. Paul also says in verses 6 and 7, Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. And John says in his Gospel in chapter 1, Yet to all who received Him, that is Jesus Christ, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. And later on in John chapter 6, Jesus is speaking about the will of His Father and He says, For My Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Beloved, do you see what these verses are driving at? Very simply and clearly, it is because of Jesus Christ and His saving work and that alone that God is also our Father. Jesus redeemed us with His blood. He bought us back for God, His Father, so that we are now adopted sons and daughters of God. And of course, we know, don't we, how beautiful that is? That idea of adoption? But it's even more so than our human understanding of adoption. Indeed, a new status, a new relationship, but also a new image. God the Father gives us the image of His Son and gives to us the Spirit of His Son. Through Jesus Christ and faith in Him by the grace of God, our Heavenly Father treats us as His children. Christ's Father is our Father. His Heaven is our home. His angels are our guardians. And we as believers are co-heirs with Jesus. And what a glorious inheritance is waiting for us. Now, beloved, we know what an inheritance is, don't we? It's not something that we earn. It belongs to the parents or the one giving the inheritance and is passed on down to the children or the heirs. It is a gift freely given. The heirs don't buy it with money. They don't earn it by the sweat of hard work. It's not won through some sort of a battle or a contest. It is freely given. Jesus Christ brought us back into fellowship with God the Father when He suffered the curse of the cross and died for our sins and our status has been changed forever from slaves to sin to sons of God. Brothers and sisters, we can only understand and know God as our Father through salvation in Jesus Christ. Paul says in chapter 3, verse 26, you are all sons of God through faith. in Christ Jesus. We live at peace and in harmony with God only because of our confession of Jesus Christ, because of faith in Him. This is truly a confession rooted in Christ. But what that means is that God is not the Father of all men. He is in the creative sense, but not in the redemptive sense. Instead, He is the Father only of those who acknowledge and honor Christ as God's Son and their Savior. you know as parents we teach our children to pray lord bless this food for jesus sake amen and that little phrase with which we end many of our prayers for jesus sake it becomes so routine not only for our children but also for us as adults we often say it without thinking but beloved do you realize just how meaningful that little phrase really is for example Sometimes we might send a person, say you are an employer or you send one of your employees to someone else whom we might call a VIP, a very important person. You send your employee with a message and say, just tell him that I sent you. That carries a little bit more weight. Or you might give your business card to a person to help them get in to see someone they would not otherwise have gotten in to see. That's what happened to me with my very first job in California many years ago. I went to apply for a job at a bank, and one of the shareholders of the bank gave me his business card, which said, shareholder, stockholder. And I went in and to the main secretary, I put the card down, said I'd like to see the president of the bank. It was a small bank, of course. And within minutes, I was sitting at his desk. Or when a parent asks one of their children to tell another one of their children to do something, For example, take out the garbage. And that first child goes to his brother or sister with the authority of their parents. Boys and girls, you go and you say to your brother or sister, take out the garbage. They might look at you and say, why? Who says so? Because it makes a difference. You say, mom said so. Dad said so. It makes a difference. You go with the authority of your parents. That's how Jesus sends us to His Father with this message. Just go freely with assurance and know that all that you ask of the Father in My name, He will grant. Go with My authority. That's what happens when we say, for Jesus' sake. We can only understand God the Father through Jesus Christ who said, I and My Father are one. and who said, you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. And only when we are in Christ and when we believe in Jesus Christ by true faith do we begin to understand what the fatherhood of God is all about. The catechism answer says that God is the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, of course, we cannot begin to fully understand what it means that our Heavenly Father is eternal. And that's because we are finite. We are finite creatures. We are limited. Boys and girls, we might describe eternal as being without beginning and without ending. And when we say that God the Father is eternal, we are saying that He is without any limits or without any boundaries. He is not limited when it comes to time. And He is not limited when it comes to space. And being the eternal Father, there was never a time when God was not Father. He did not become Father at some point in time. He didn't depend on us making Him a Father. He always has been and always will be Father. And because of this, then, we see that part of His fatherhood means that He is also the Creator. He is the Creator Father. The catechism says, Who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by His eternal counsel and providence. The congregation here, by the very fact that He is Creator, we see the awesomeness of God, our Almighty Father. Our Father is the Creator. We are a creation-conscious people, aren't we? We watch the weather every day to figure out what to wear. We pay attention when the storm clouds come. We are captivated by reports of earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes in different parts of the world, we recycle. We are conscious about that little piece of ground surrounding our homes called our landscaping. And as children of God, we understand that God controls all of these things. And when we think about His creation, we must also consider the universe and the galaxies in it and all of the stars and planets trillions of miles away. God created all of that. And at the same time, He also created the tiniest insect and microorganism. It's amazing. All of this is by His fatherly hand. But now, what are the implications of knowing and believing and confessing that God our Father created heaven and earth out of nothing? It means, beloved, that we cannot understand this world apart from the creative work of God. That means that when we talk about science, for example, we can't understand science apart from the One who made the elements. Or we can't understand the flow of history apart from our Father who directs the events of history. We can't understand the environment or the soil or the chemicals that we use to treat the soil or the results of those chemicals onto the soil apart from God of whom the psalmist says, the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness thereof. You and I can't understand the purpose of our work or of our money or the use of our time apart from God who gives these things and determines the purpose for these things. We confess in the catechism that God not only created heaven and earth and everything in them out of nothing, but also that He still upholds and rules them by His eternal counsel and providence. Very simply, He takes care of all that He has made, as we'll see the Lord willing more clearly. with regard to Lord's Day 10. Beloved, we cannot even begin to understand creation apart from Him who makes all things. Yet our society would have us teach our children that none of this is true. That it all happened by chance. That there is no Heavenly Father who perfectly cares for His creatures in His creation, including His redeemed children. But there's no comfort in that. And that's why we must not place our children in situations and circumstances that contradict the biblical instruction they receive at home, at school, and in church. These three must agree. And He also created you and me. The One who created us is our Father. In His vast creation, God the Father upholds and rules all things so that as Jesus says, The very hairs of your head are all numbered. And beloved, this is true comfort and assurance. As we meditate on the fatherhood of God and His creating power, we are to be humbled. And we are to be brought to our knees as we think about the fact that this earth that we live on is just a pinprick in this vast creation and we are nothing more than dust on that pinprick called earth. And we are to be humbled that if we belong to Jesus Christ, we have the privilege to call God the Creator of all of that. Our Father. It is true comfort to know that our Father is the One who created all things. There is nothing that He has not touched. All things happen according to His will. Nothing happens by chance. And again, we can only understand and believe these things because of Jesus Christ. it is a confession rooted in Christ. And when we do understand this, then we see that the believer's confession of the fatherhood of God is also then a confession reflected in trust. Demonstrated in our lives, the children's lives, by trust. Sons trust their fathers. Children trust their fathers. Boys and girls, if you're stuck high up in a tree and you're afraid to come down, if a stranger comes by and says, it's okay, jump. I'll catch you. You might have a hard time jumping because you don't know the stranger. You don't know if you can trust him. But if your dad comes and says, it's okay, my child, jump. I'll catch you because I love you. You will jump because you feel safe. We experience this in different ways, don't we? As dads, we tend to throw our kids up in the air and we catch them. We catch them. We spin them around. Some might say these are dangerous things to do, but our children love it. They say, Daddy, more. Because our children trust us. They trust us. Sons trust their fathers. Children trust their fathers. Paul says God has given to us as believers His Holy Spirit in our hearts who gives us the confidence that we are children of God. We call Him Abba, Father. We have been brought into that intimate relationship with Him so that we have no doubts about His love and His care for us. We trust Him. The Catechism says it this way, I trust Him so much that I do not doubt. He will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world. Galatians 4, verse 7 says that in Christ you are no longer a slave, but a son. And since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. You see, a slave obeys out of fear, but a son obeys because he trusts. We trust that our Heavenly Father will provide whatever we need for body and soul. We can expect this. Why? Simply because He says so. Jesus says, look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Now, we need to be aware of two things here. The Catechism rightly says that He will provide, first of all, what we need. Now, it doesn't say as our ears often would like to hear. It doesn't say what we want, or even what we think we need. Remember, our Heavenly Father knows best what we need. But it also says what we need for not only our bodies, but also our souls. There may be times when we only think of what we need for our bodies. That's what's important to us. And we kind of forget about our souls. Well, what is necessary for your soul? What is necessary, we might say, in a sense, for the redemption of your life? For the redeeming of your life? Is it necessary that you never get sick? Is it necessary that you never experience hardship? Is it necessary that you never have to stand at the gravesite of a loved one? Is none of that necessary to draw you closer to the Lord? Or might it be necessary for God to wake you up from spiritual laziness and complacency and maybe even unbelief by dealing with a tragedy. Sometimes when a child continues to ignore verbal warnings and nothing else is working, he or she may need a physical punishment. They may need a little physical pain to awaken them from disobedience. And sometimes God, our Father, allows pain, whether physical or emotional or some other way, to wake us up from unbelief or complacency. That pain may be necessary. We may not like it. But what a wonderful promise, beloved, that our Heavenly Father will give to His children whatever is necessary for body and soul. And we should want whatever God knows we need, even if we might not always like it. We should want what God knows we need. And if you stop to think about this, it becomes clear that this places a great deal of responsibility on those of us who are earthly fathers and mothers who, because of circumstances, must play the role of both father and mother. In a very real sense, the care that our Heavenly Father gives us is introduced by our earthly Christian fathers. As children, we trust that our earthly fathers will provide what we need physically. There is a high level of importance placed on earthly fatherhood in the Word of God. Not in society. We know that it's being wiped out. Society says children don't need fathers anymore. All they need is mothers. But there is a high level of importance placed on earthly fatherhood. In truth, it's an important task. The care of an earthly father is to be a model. of the care of our Heavenly Father. And this, of course, is important especially because God's care is care of the body and the soul. In fact, only God's care is complete. Only God can completely care for our body and our soul. But earthly fathers also introduce care for our souls. God has placed you and me as earthly fathers in the role of being the spiritual heads of our homes. So I ask you who are fathers, including myself, how am I, how are we introducing God's body and soul provision to our children? What do you do for your children that shows them that God cares for them both physically and spiritually? Are we establishing and cultivating in them what will become no doubt trust in God? A complete, faithful trust that never doubts in the promises of God? An earthly father's care must be a picture or a carbon copy of the heavenly father's care. He is the blueprint that we must strive to follow. It's a high calling, dads, isn't it? It's one that not one of us can even begin to measure up to, not even in the least. but we strive to do that with the confidence that even our failures, our sin in our failures, is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. But we must confess, too, that we trust God will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world. Yes, God sends adversity. Not moral wickedness and sin, but He may send things our way that are not pleasant like grief or pain or suffering or financial loss. Of course, our human nature doesn't want to think this is the case. Earlier we talked about God being eternal, that He has no limits, and the same is true with His care over you and me. But we like to limit God in a sense. We like to say that a loving God would not discipline us at the same time. We tend to forget that God is also just. We don't play His love off against His justice. And Hebrews 12 makes it clear that the Lord disciplines those He loves as parents. You see, we know that we discipline our children. When we discipline our children, it's because we love them and we want them to do what is right. Our children might not see the love at the moment. They might not necessarily experience it that way, but it's true. We know that as parents. We do that because we love them. If God's care over us includes the fact that we need to be disciplined as His sons and daughters, then He isn't limited. He will discipline. But we believe that when it pleases our Heavenly Father to deal harshly with us, that He has a further plan in His love. He has a further plan for our good. The Bible says, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. and beloved the catechism sums up this confession with these words he is able to do this all that we have said because he is almighty God in other words there is nothing that our heavenly father cannot do all power belongs to him and he desires to do this because he is a faithful father he desires to give us what we need as human fathers There are times when you and I are willing, but we are not able to produce and perform. There are other times when we are able, but we are not willing. But that's not the way it is with our Heavenly Father when it comes to the things that we need. That He knows we need. He is both able and willing because He is Almighty God and Faithful Father. And beloved, what is our response to be to all of this? To our Father who art in Heaven. Children, we know, for the most part, like to please their dads. We are called to strive to please our Heavenly Father. To please Him by adoring Him for His greatness. To please Him by acknowledging His law to be holy and righteous and good. To please Him by confessing that salvation is only by His hand. To please Him by confessing Jesus Christ. The only way to the Father. To please Him by living for Him and being good stewards of all that He has given to us. You see, beloved, there is no greater assurance for us as children than this, the perfect care of our Heavenly Father. But there is something just as certain for those who reject Jesus Christ and do not know God as Father, and that is His judgment. That is certain. But for those who repent of their sins and look only to the Lord Jesus Christ and who believe on Him, they enjoy a new relationship with His Father and that is that they can say in confidence, Our Father, who art in heaven. And they are heirs. Heirs of His promise of grace and salvation. Theirs is an inheritance, as Peter says, that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for them who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed. How can we be so sure about this? Because our elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, has already given to us a down payment. His Holy Spirit, who as Paul says, is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance and who alone testifies with our spirit that we are, right now, today, children of God. Human fathers are not able to keep an eye on their children all the time. But our Heavenly Father never takes His eye off of us, but gives to us His perfect care. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, we must confess that all of these truths are sometimes hard to imagine, let alone believe. Because indeed we cannot see You, You are Spirit, yet we do see Your work in our hearts and lives by the power of Your Holy Spirit. We see with the eye of faith all that You have done for us in Jesus Christ our Lord, and therefore we see through the eye of faith that you are our Father. Father, continue to bless us even though we don't deserve it. Continue to give to us all that we stand in need of for body and soul and may we be ever grateful not only for that which we need but for the abundance you give to us far beyond that which we need. And may we ever live to praise your most holy name. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.