From his How Great is Our God Tour, March 18, 2011
We worship a God that is far beyond anything we could ever dream of or imagine. We worship a huge massive God of grace and glory. The following information will change your view of God so much you will be completely blown up all over again and the view that you have of God will be expanded, and it will leave you with the confidence that he is able to hold on to us and hold us together no matter what circumstances come our way in our lifetime.
When we look at the bigness of God and the greatness of the universe it is so incredible. The Bible says that the heavens are telling the glory of God and their expanse declares the handy work of his hands. All you have to do is look up and you see the size of the God we worship.
If you look at the Whirlpool Galaxy, which was created by the God we worship. This galaxy is called the darling of astronomy. The reason why is it's sitting completely perpendicular to us on earth, and when we look up at it we get this beautiful view. The Whirlpool Galaxy is 31 million light years away from us right now.
The story of this galaxy starts like this: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and he said, 'Let there be light and there was light,' and there was light."
It was a phenomenal moment when that happened because light came out of the mouth of God traveling 186,000 miles a second - that's how fast light is traveling through the universe. So a light year therefore, is how far light travels in one year. If you do the math its 5.88 trillion miles in a year. When you start to get around in your neighborhood of God, the mile is not going to help you. The yard stick, the ruler, the tape measure, these things are of no value in the universe that God has made. We're using a ruler call the light year that's 5.88 trillion miles long. If you like go to the Whirlpool Galaxy be my guest. All you have to do is multiply 31 million (that's how many light years it is away) by 5.88 trillion miles, and that's the distance that you've got to cover.
Is anyone catching this? Is anyone up with where we are so far in this little scientific content. If you do the math or you can look at it a different way, you just have to travel 186,000 miles a second for 31 million years and you'll arrive at the Whirlpool Galaxy.
The next thing that is pretty stunning about what our God made is that it contains three 100 billion stars in that one galaxy. It is only one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies in the known universe that God has made and it reminds us all over again that the God we worship is enormous. He's bigger than anything we've ever dreamed in our wildest imagination of him.
Looking inside the Whirlpool Galaxy that was seen by the Hummel Space Telescope while circling the earth at 360 miles above the earth. It reveals amazing images of the universe and the cosmos. One is the in the white coral glow of the Whirlpool Galaxy the Hummel telescope captured a black hole in that had never been seen before. Until this amazing telescope was invented it was never seen before. What NASA recovered from the Hummel telescope, 31 million miles away is in the middle of a black hole, an image glowing white with a shadow image of a cross. In the glory of God and the grandeur of God, it's the grace of God and the mercy of God everywhere we look. It's the imprint of God in all of creation, everywhere we turn.
The Bigness of God
When we look at the bigness of God and his grandeur in the universe we see four stars that shows us some of how big he is.
The Sun
This is they only star in our universe. It is more fierce than we often think. It's 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit on the surface but let's get an idea of how big it is.
The Sun is 93 million miles away, so when you're looking up in the sky, it's a pretty good pace out there. By the way, light traveling 186 thousand miles a second, it only takes eight minutes to cover that 93 million miles journey to touch your skin.
The Sun is like a million times the size of the earth and that matters when you hear what the Psalmist said in Psalm 33, "by the word of the Lord the heavens were made." God did not lift a finger when he made the universe. He goes on to say, "their starry host by the breath of his mouth." So we're looking at something so intense that we don't want to get any closer than 93 million miles away. We read that God just breaths out stars. It's crazy to think about the sun being a million times the size of the earth.
Here's a little perspective that will change your life. If the earth were the size of a golf ball, the sun would be fifteen feet in diameter. Take a golf ball in your hand and find yourself on that ball. Stretch out a round image fifteen feet in diameter and place it next to that image. This would be the earth next to the sun. The sun is so big you can put 960 thousand earths inside the sun. That number may be hard to grasps, so to put it in perspective, that would be a school bus full of golf balls. This is a massive star and it is only one of hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, our called-a-sack in the neighborhood called the cosmos, that God has made. It's huge and we worshiping a star breathing God.
Beetlejuice
Some call it Betelgeuse but most call it Beetlejuice.
This star does not look incredibly ferocious in the evening sky but it's 427 light years away. That's 427 times 5.88 trillion miles away from us right now. If you draw it in a little closer with the Hummel space telescope and you can start to get a little bit of the feeling of its intensity. The crazy thing about Beetlejuice is it is twice the size…not the sun…but twice the size of the earth's orbit around the Sun.
This is crazy!! If the earth were a golf ball, Beetlejuice would be the height of 6 Empire State buildings on top of each other. Have you seen the Empire State building? Gather the family; get a golf ball; get some plane tickets and fly to New York. You're going to go into Midtown; you're going to take your golf ball and put it on the sidewalk outside of the Empire State building; you're going go across the street and looking up at the Empire State building, imagine five more Empire State buildings on top of the one you're looking at; and that's Beetlejuice and the golf ball you're on it.
You can fit 262 trillion earths inside Beetlejuice. That would be enough golf balls to fill up the Super Dome with golf balls, three thousand times. This should stump you so much it changes your praying. Most people pray advising God, correcting God, suggesting things to God, drawing diagrams for God, reviewing things with God, counseling God. But the mere massiveness of a God who can create a star such as Beetlejuice, does not need our help, he deserves our worship!
Mu Cephei (mooC-phee)
This star is 3000 light years away. When you see it in the span of all the glitter stars around it, you know at times when you look up in the night sky, it is not just twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. What you are Mu Cephei, is intense and huge and massive and ferocious.
This star use to be called Herschel's Garnett star. If the earth were a golf ball, Mu Cephei would be the width of two Golden Gate bridges, end-to-end. To get a perspective of this you would need to go from New York to the east coast with your family and your golf ball; go to San Francisco; place your golf ball at the beginning of the Golden Gate Bridge; go across the bay into Oakland, to a high place where you can see the entire Golden Gate Bridge; and imagine another second Golden Gate Bridge connected to the first one; then spanning all the way back the two Golden Gate Bridges to the very beginning, and find your golf ball and that's the earth, and somewhere your on it.
This one stars in the Milky Way galaxy is so big you could fit 2.7 quadrillion earths inside it. We need to understand a quadrillion because this star is crazy big.
We are able to get our head around a million today. So understanding a million, a billion is a thousand millions; a trillion is a thousand billions; a quadrillion is a thousand trillions.
Here's a perspective you can understand:
As of March 18, 2011 the date of this recording
A million seconds ago: 12 days ago.
A billion seconds ago: May 1975
A trillion seconds ago: 29,730 BC
A quadrillion seconds ago: 30 million 800 thousand years ago
This is a really large number and Mu Cephei is so big you can put 2.7 quadrillion earths in side this one star. Yet it is not the biggest star that has been found.
Canis Majoris (14:08 on Video)
This is a great name for the biggest star that has ever been found. Canis Majoris probably means the Big Dog Star, because that is exactly what it is. If the earth were a golf ball, this star would be the height of Mount Everest, the highest point on the earth, which is almost six miles above sea level. So go to Katmandu, Nepal, unzip your parka, pull out your golf ball, lay it at the bottom of Mount Everest, and find yourself on that golf ball.
You can put 7 quadrillion earths inside Canis Majoris. If the earth was a golf ball, that's enough earths to cover the entire state of Texas in golf balls, 22 inches deep. Do you see the golf ball you're on in that mass of golf balls?
Maybe this will help you understand the enormity of this by watching this video showing the sizes of each planet as it looks next to these stars.
Watch the video at this link: https://youtu.be/tsmo-Hhipno
As we take a journey through our planets you see we're not even the biggest deal in our own solar system. As earth comes by you we are living on a privileged planet. Anyone would tell you we are living at one of the most special places, if not the most special place, in all of creation. As Neptune comes by, Saturn and then Jupiter, and you see we're not all that big in our own little cold-a-sack. As the Sun comes into view, you notice the blue dots fading away, it's not the earth, that's Neptune because the earth has gotten too small to see. As Sirius comes by it is not the biggest star but it is the brightest star that we have found so far. Then there is Pollux, Arcturus, Rigel, Betelgeuse (Beetlejuice), Antares, Mu Cephei and its cousin W Cephei, and finally Canis Majoris.
With the image of Canis Majoris you could not use a Sharpie to make a mark on that image that would approximate the sizes of our Sun because it is too small in their relative size.
When you see this what happens to you a shrinking feeling comes over you which is a good shrinking feeling because sin has a way of shrinking God down in our minds and puffing us up in our own estimation. But just a glance into the universe that God has made re-sizes everything. This helps us to realize we are worshiping an unrivaled, uncontested God of all kind of might and power and glory in all, and there's none like him in anywhere of all of creation. We are not here worshiping some little teeny tiny God. We are the teeny tiny ones, you and me. We are small and weak and fragile and frail. Each one of us are one of six and a half billion people on this little golf ball-sized planet, in the massive universe that God has made.
The miracle in all of this is, which is crazier than any star is that though we are but a vapor, and tiny and frail, we are marked by majesty. We have been created in the very image of the God who breaths out the stars and put the universe into place. We are fashioned and formed and are ordained by the God of all creation. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are a miracle, each one of us. If I could just remind you just for a moment you are somebody incredibly special.
In the very beginning this is how you happened. One cell from your mom found one cell from your dad. There's more involved than that but that's enough for us right now. By the way, we should applaud the one cell from your dad because that one cell a pretty heroic thing to be the one cell in this story. One cell from your mom met up with one cell from your dad; each one caring 23 chromosomes. The one from you mom was carrying half of her DNA and the one from your dad was carrying half of his DNA and those two cells met and merged into one single cell. When they merged those chromosomes matched and they began to form a brand new DNA code, using four characters called nucleotides that began to write out what has been discovered as the three billion character description of who you are, written in the language of God. Those chromosomes wrote out your DNA, your human genome of three billion characters, made up of those four simple nucleotides, which describe who God had ordained you to be.
Scientist say that if you were to stretch out that one little cell of where you started, that one little cell would be six feet long, three billion characters, stretched out six feet long. It is so amazing that if person were to read your DNA, reading one character per second, night and day, it would take them 96 years just to read the description of you.
When these cells formed together the wrote out and painted a picture which had never been written before in the history of humankind. And then that cell did the unthinkable. It set out to build that model from one cell. This is why you are a miracle and you have come a long, long way.
This may not be in the family photo album,
but here you are at three days old.
This picture is a 16 cell human embryo on the tip of a safety pin, at incredible magnification. So by now that one cells has made itself into 16 cells, on its way to making the 75 trillion cells that make up your body. Every one of those 75 trillion cells are contained in that six feet of the 3 billion DNA code that is you. There is so much DNA in your body that if you stretched it out end to end, there would be enough DNA to go to the moon and back, 178 thousand times. That's how amazing God has made you to be.
75 trillion cells in your body, when you read that, fifty thousand of those cells died and were replaced by brand new cells. And just now fifty thousand more cells died were replaced. Every three seconds, day and night of your existence, and you wonder why you are so tired all the time, it's because you are doing some amazing stuff, night and day. We are miracle, each one of us.
Augustine said it best when he said, "Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the course of rivers, the fast compass of the ocean, the circular motion of the stars; but they pass themselves and they don't even notice."
In the womb miracles happen every moment.
Here you are at five months, in the womb.
You remember those days, those were the good old days, and miracles happening every second.
One of these miracles starts will a million optic nerve endings leave the optic nerve center of your brain headed for a million optic nerves that had left your eye. They had to meet and match their exact partner. One million looking for one million. When they found their exact partner out of a million and matched up together, in that instant you had sight. The most technologically advanced thing on the planet Earth is your eye and when that moment of sight happened it didn't do you any good because in that moment, you had one piece of skin that completely covered your eyeball. Miraculously and mysteriously at about the sixth month in the womb, a little cutting device appears and it cuts perfectly that piece of skin, and you have eyelids for the very first time. You are fearfully and wonderfully made and the God of the heavens is the one who fashioned you together. And he knows your name and he knows every single things there is to know about you. He has made you a promise that for those who trust in Him, he will literally hold them in his hand, and carry them all the days of their life.
In Psalm 33:9 it says, "He spoke and it came to be; he commanded and it stood fast." That's power in awe. Then it gets very personal in verse 13: "From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth; he who forms the hearts of them all, and is intimately acquainted with everything they do."
And then he goes further saying, "the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him; on those who hope in his unfailing love to deliver them from death and to keep them alive in famine." That is God's promise because the world is filled with people who have lives spinning out of control; with pain we didn't ask for or could never imagine. God is making a promise as he is saying, "I am a universe maker and I am a heart former; but I'm also big enough to be intimately acquainted with all the circumstances of everyone's lives. I promise no matter what comes in your lifetime; no matter how difficult the road or how dark the nigh; I will hold on to you and I will literally hold you together and carry you through, any and every circumstance that ever comes your way, any moment on this planet." That is God's promise to you.
You may say that sounds good, but how do I know that's true in my life? That's really what everyone wants to know! How you can know this is true, that God will always hold you together, no matter what, is by looking little deeper into the human body at a little protein molecule called laminin. This is a cell adhesion molecule. Cells organize into certain molecular structures and that determines what proteins there are. There exists between ten and sixty thousand proteins in the human body. It's not even known how many kinds of proteins are in the human body. What is known is one kind, laminin, is a cell adhesion molecule that organizes into this certain structure that tells a cell what its job is in the body. This is like the rebar of the human body. The steel they put in concrete when they lay a foundation; it stops the foundation from cracking. Laminin is this rebar that holds your membranes together, it’s the glue of the human body.
The most remarkable thing about laminin is that you have to see it. If you Google laminin you will get these little thumb nail images that come up which will amaze you.
Here is what laminin looks like:
This is a scientific diagram of the cell adhesion molecule that holds your body together.
To the left is an electron microscopic image of an actual laminin molecule.
How crazy is it that the stuff that holds our bodies together, that is holding the lining of your organs together; holding your skin on; is in the perfect shape of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The words of Paul in Colossians 1:16-17 "for by him (Jesus Christ) all things have been created; things in heaven and things on the earth; all things were created by Jesus and for Jesus. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together." Everything holds together in Jesus Christ.
Then Paul goes on to tell the story of grace. He said for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ. And through Christ to reconcile to himself all things by making peace through his blood, shed on a cross.
So you're at the toughest place in your life. How can you know that God is going to hold you together and bring you through? You know because there is a cross standing over history and it is looming over you. It is the place where the star breather became the sin bearer; where the universe maker became mankind's savior. It is prove that God doesn't always change the circumstances. He did not change them for Jesus on that hillside, outside Jerusalem. The cross is also prove that God always has a purpose in the circumstances and that his purpose and his plan will prevail, and will triumph through any circumstances in this world.
In Isaiah 40 the writer talks about the expanse of God; how he stretches out the heavens like a curtain; like a tent to dwell in. He leads forth the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. But then it takes a turn and the writer says, "So why do you say Oh Jacob, and why do you complain Oh Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord or say my cares are disregarded by my God." In other words, there was a moment in the history of Israel when they felt like had completely lost sight of them. That yes, I believe that God is big enough to make the world and I even believe that God ordained and made me, and now coming into the present tense, I will accept the fact that God gave his son of a cross, but what I really need to know right now, what really matters most to me right now is does God see what I'm going through. Does he see what I'm carrying? Does he know that I can't take one more step or one more day? Does he care and can he do something? That's what I need to know!
In Isaiah 40:28-31 the writer answers this question with another question:
"Do you not know, have you not heard, the Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom."
He's huge, He is a star breather, He's BIG! But, listen what he loves to do: He gives strength to the weary and he increases the power of the weak, for even the Jews will grow tired and weary and young men will stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord (wait upon the Lord). The Hebrew word mean those who are standing right in the midst of the craziness, the pain, the chaos, or in the valley of the shadow of death, and the say, "I don't see what God's doing; I don't understand what the plan is; but I am not going to give up on God. I am going to stand right here, in the middle of this moment and trust that God is sitting on and throne; that he has a purpose and plan for my life. I believe that I am going to see the goodness of God in the land of the living and I am not going to stop believing that no matter what." That's what the word means to wait and to hope upon the Lord.
And here is the Promise: You are going to wake up to rosy circumstances? No. He can do that and he does do that, but the promise is greater than that.
"Those who wait upon the Lord I will renew your strength!"
When you think you cannot take one more breathe, I'll give you enough to keep going on, and enough to keep going on, and enough to keep going on, and enough to keep going on, and to keep going, and going, and going. You keep hoping and I'll keep causing strength to rise up in you."
You will then feel like you have been swept up on the wings of eagles!
You will run and you will not get weary! You will walk through it all and not faint. His promise is "I will hold you. Even when you let go of me, I am not going to let go of you."
There are millions and millions and millions of microscopic crosses holding you together from the smallest laminin molecule to the massive black hole in the Whirlpool Galaxy.
There is one giant, glorious, Cross of Jesus Christ, that's holding every one of us who trust in Him, on to the Heavenly Father, and holding the Heavenly Father on to us, and it's going to keep holding us onto Him that is on that Cross, forever and ever and ever and ever!
We will never not be carried by the strong hand of the universe making God that breathes out the stars. He will bring us through which is the promise of the Everlasting God! Amen and Amen!