Introduction:

In the past weeks we have looked at several of God's characteristics: person, 3-in-1, holy/righteous, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

Want to take a look at one more characteristic this morning-taken from teh very beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1:1

God is the creator of the world. This world...the entire universe...is His. It is His idea, and it is His possession.

Conflict

The concept of God being the Creator of the world has become the source of a lot of debate in our culture. People trying to prove or disprove God's existence or His involvement in creation

• focus on things we can't know scientifically
• theories based on what we already believe about God
• want to look at things we do know about this world we live in and see who those things can affect/change what we believe.

Being trained as a scientist, I have had the opportunity to look closely are our world in a number of ways, and many of those things have affected my understanding of God

• At times when I had doubts...being involved in church but wondering whether God was really there...looking at our world has caused me to move from "I'm not sure" to "Yeah, i really believe He is, and it seems to make more sense than believing He's not" So perhaps learning more about our world can do the same for some of you....or for a friend of yours who wonders if people are right when they say God doesn't exist.
• Then when I did become confident that God is real...and is the Creator...looking into our world more has changed -and still changes-my understanding of Him..it causes me to change in the way I relate to Him.

So I would like to take a closer look at our world today at just a few of the things we do know I the hope that it will do the same for you or someone close to you that you share these things with.

How Big!

Have you ever considered the size of our world? How big is it? In our lives today when you can have instant communication with people on the other side of the globe and even travel there in a day or two we can lose sight of how big it is. Let's not just look at the earth, but the rest of the known universe, too.

I have a video clip that gives a really good idea how big the world is. Let take a look:

Video Clip

How big is the world..the universe we live in? Astonishing. Consider this-no matter what you believe about how all this happened...how it all came into existence...you have to ask yourself where it all came from in the first place. All these stars and planets and everything else in existence had to come from something or someone; some uncreated entity. And, that Creator has to be more massive and more powerful than the things He created.

What we just saw only included things we are aware of. Just based on that...how big and mighty must that Creator be? Pretty humbling isn't it?

How complex

Now let's take a look at the opposite extreme. Let's go into my favortie realm-the microscopic level.

• Body->tissue->cells. Have you ever looked inside a cell before? Lot going on there.
• Ever looked really closely at a cell?
• Look inside nucleus-DNA-blueprint for body. About 3 billion base pairs. replication/repair mechanisms.

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• This is just inside the nucleus of the cell. Amplify by a whole cell-carrying out it's function keeping you alive
• Trillions of cells in body-each knows what kind of cell it is-which genes to use.

The complexity is overwhelming. Could something as complex and controlled as this have simply happened by chance? DNA requires a number of other mechanisms to make it workd properly-all had to be in place at the same time. Seems to be highly designed.

• Not only that-we are more than just bags of tissue with all kinds of chemical/mechanical reactions going on. We talk, we think, we create. The very fact that we are able to debate the existence of God displays that we have life & intelligence beyond the natural basic functions of our bodies.

Jesus holds it all together

Colossians 1:16-17: For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

God did not just set the world in motion and leave it. God's creative power in necessary for our sustained existence.

• First think about the immensity of this: Juggling
• Atomic Strong Force - how much stronger a force holds everything together?
• Laminin- not proof, but isn't it interesting that a molecule found all throughout our bodies...something without which our bodies couldn't take on shape and hold together...is a reminder of the cross of Christ?

These examples from nature are also an eye-opening reminder that life as we know it is not nearly as solid and stable as we might think it is.

Our bodies can take quite a beating...we may bruise and bleed, but we don't just fall apart because we have powerful proteins like laminin holding everything together.

In fact everything around us..everything we can touch and feel stays together only because of forces more powerful that anything else we know of holding the central part of every atom together.

What does this do to you?

Doesn't that make you give thanks for you existence...for the fact that those powerful forces are in

place?

Doesn't it give you confidence that there really is a Creator who put these forces in place and who continues to hold all things...people, places, events..throughout history together for His purposes and His good?

Doesn't it make you want to seek out...to know...to understand...to follow ...and obey the One who designed this world and keeps it all together?

What does knowing these things about creation do to you?

I have to tell you what it has done to me:

It has caused me to live with confidence that no matter how incapable...unworthy...unlovely...how young or old...or how much of a screw-up and I've been...I have an amazingly powerful and immense Creator who has put me on this earth for a reason...and my highest priority ought to be seeking to live out that purpose.

Knowing things like I've shared today caused me to look at me life several years ago: piles of evidence...been in the church...but still not living like I really believe it. Like I knew that God was real...that God who said, "I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you , plans to give you a hope and a future...a God whose mercies are new every morning and who makes all things new... A God who gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

It was on that day that I began to know what it meant to truly live by faith...that my life ought to be marked by moments when I stepped out to do great things for God knowing that I don't have what it takes to do it on my own, but that God does.

What does knowing more about your God...your all-good, all-powerful, ever-present., MASSIVE Creator do to your life?