The Message
I
want to ask you a question. It's a pretty simple question,
but at the same time, once you stop and think about it,
you may want to re-think it. The question is, how big is
your God?
We
have been looking at Creation and we have looked at the
various days. Today we are going to talk about day
four, where God sets the lights in the sky.
Genesis
1:14-19 says, "And God said there be lights in the
expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night and
let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years
and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give
light on the earth. And it was so. God made two great lights,
the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light
to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them
in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth to
govern the day and the night and to separate light from
darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening
and there was morning, the fourth day."
How
big is your God? My goal today is to expand your mind
and let you know how big your God really is, because we
see on day four God created the sun and the moon and all
of the stars that we look upon when we look into the sky.
Did
you know that you can actually buy a star and you can have
your name put on a star? You know, I looked into that. It
costs twenty-five dollars and ninety-five cents. You know,
I thought to myself, are there really enough stars to go
around. What if everybody decided they all wanted to have
a star. So I did a little research. Do you know how many
stars there are? In our Milky Way, this galaxy, there are
over one hundred billion stars, just in our galaxy! The
next question is how many galaxies are there in the universe?
There are between a hundred and two hundred billion galaxies,
with each galaxy having an average of over one billion stars.
I have a feeling there may be enough stars to go around!
It is an amazing thing to think about how many stars there
are. Now, you know, you hear the word billion, and we just
throw that number out as if it is not that big of a deal.
How big is a billon? It is difficult for our minds
to grasp that number, but we know there are billions and
billions of stars in the universe. Who created these? How
big is it? It is difficult for our minds to understand,
but we have to stop and think about the enormity of this
universe. The sun is one hundred and forty-nine million,
five hundred and ninety-seven thousand, eight hundred and
seventy kilometers away, on an average, from the earth.
I don't know about you, but I think that is a long distance!
Our
nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is four point three light
years away. That is only a few years away right? What is
the speed of light? According to Einstein, the speed of
light is six hundred and seventy-one million miles per hour.
It is four point three light years away. That is so far
and the number is so big that I can't even write it down.
That is the closest star. The closest galaxy is two million
light years away.
David,
author of the Psalms says in Psalm
8:3-5, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your
fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man
that you care for him? You made him a little lower than
the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor."
When
we look at the universe that God has made, we discover that
it is truly one of the most beautiful sights in the entire
world. There is nothing I appreciate more than going out
in the desert when the night sky is perfectly clear and
you can see everything. My wife and I like to look at the
stars. We try to count satellites. We see the satellites
as they slowly go across the sky and we count shooting stars.
There are a lot of them. It is just the most beautiful thing
in the world.
One
of the most beautiful things that we see in the galaxy today
is being seen by the Hubble telescope. They are the nebula.
The closest nebula to us has a nick name. It is called the
"Eye of God." A nebula is that in-between stage
at which a star is dying. It has ejected masses of dust
and gas and now for a few hundred thousand years, it is
in this temporary state before it becomes what is known
as a white dwarf. This "Eye of God" nebula is
only six hundred and fifty million light years away!
The universe in which we live is the most awesome creation;
and, what do we know? We know that God created it.
He created all of it.
To
whom will you compare me, says God? Or who is my equal,
says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.
Who created all of these? He who brings out the starry hosts
one by one and calls them each by name, because of his great
and power and might strength, not one is missing.(Isaiah
40: 25-26)
How
big is your God? Are you starting to get the picture that
He might be a little bigger than you thought? How big is
the God who created the Heavens and the earth? Put God the
creator of the heavens on one side of the scale. Then
to balance it out, what is your biggest worry? Put your
biggest worry on the other side of the scale. Do you
think it is possible that God could handle your biggest
worry? You know how big it is. You know how tremendously
challenging it is. You know how it has weighed you down
and held you back and you know how heavy it is to carry
that burden. When we look inside, it just gets bigger and
bigger and bigger. It is time to hand it over to God, to
allow God to do what God does. He is the maker, the creator,
and the sustainer of all things.
Jesus
says in the Gospel of Matthew 6:25-27, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about
your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body,
what you will wear. Is not life more important than food
and the body more important than clothes? 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? Who of you, by worrying, can add
a single hour to his life?"
How
big is your God? There was a young boy who was asked
by his Sunday School teacher to memorize the twenty-third
Psalm. I don't think there is a more famous passage of scripture
than the twenty-third Psalm. So the boy went home that week
and he did everything he could to memorize this wonderful
passage of scripture. He became frustrated and he just could
not memorize it. He came back to Sunday School and the Sunday
School teacher invited him to recite the twenty-third Psalm.
He stood up and all of a sudden confidently he said, "the
Lord is my Shepherd. And that is all I need to know."
And then he sat down.
We
look at the starry hosts. We see the number. We see the
size of the universe. We see the beauty and in it all we
realize it is a message from God. The message is, "I
am big enough to handle all your needs. I am your shepherd
and that's all you need."
Dear
Heavenly Father we thank you that you are the creator of
the heavens and the earth, that you created the stars and
the universe and all its beauty to let us know that there
is nothing too big for you. And so, oh God, we cast our
cares upon you and we know that you are in process right
now, of taking all of the things that worry and hold us
back and you are shaping and molding and creating something
beautiful. So give us the faith to trust you, today, tomorrow,
and always. We love you Lord. Amen.
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