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.