The Only One to Create a Universe | Max Lucado | The Only One | Oak Hills Church

57:53 well thanks to the James Webb telescope astronomers can see what our ancestors could only imagine it reaches deeper into the universe than any preceding camera opening a new era in cosmology its instruments are so precise that it can spot a single penny from 24 miles and a football from 34. It will, supposedly, hopefully, help us spot the first light from the first stars that ever existed. Its images reveal hundreds of not stars, but galaxies. each with billions of stars and planets. And in between the stars and planets, vast swaths of nothing in which a person could travel for a billion years at the fastest speed and never run into anything.

59:02 the nearest galaxy to us is the Andromeda galaxy, two and a half million light years away. And our Milky Way galaxy contains somewhere between 200 and 400 billion suns. And it's about 100,000 light years across. a million earths can fit inside our sun the sun is so large it would take a passenger aircraft a year to fly around it one blogger saw these images and entered into a self-confessed existential crisis he wrote these words in the face of the unimaginable vastness of the universe there's nothing you, I, or anyone could do that would make any difference we have no idea why we are here and only the vaguest theories about how we are here, so we just revolve around the sun and watch true crime documentaries on Netflix until some catastrophe that we probably created ourselves kills us all.

1:00:29 Well, that's one way to look at it. that we're meaningless, less than fleas, insignificant creatures who have no purpose in this immeasurable universe. A person might draw that conclusion. Then again, just the opposite assumption is ours to choose something like this assessment from astrophysicist Deborah Horsman, who upon seeing the same images wrote, look at the thousands of galaxies strewn about. This picture reminds us of one of the ways God sees the universe. All of the galaxies dancing and spinning through space, governed by him and following his grand design.

1:01:29 Quite a contrast. The first view is bleak. The second one's beautiful. One sees the universe as senseless. The other sees it as highly significant. One sees the universe as hollow. The other, holy. One looks into the skies and sees nothing. the other looks into the skies and sees the very nature of God.

1:01:54 Scripture would side with the astrophysicist. The scripture says, and when the words are bold, could you say them out loud with me? The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the works of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge. Thank you. There it is. They have no speech. They use no words. No sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth. Their words to the ends of the world. Nature, in other words, is the earliest gospel. The universe is the first missionary. The planets are apologists. The mountains are evangelists.

1:02:46 the forests or poets. Creation reveals the work of God. More specifically, creation reveals the work of Christ. We are three weeks into a 12-week series entitled The Only One in which we're looking at things that can be said, attributes that can be given to Christ, that can be given to no other person who has left a footprint on our planet. We've already pointed out that the whole Bible is his story, and in his story we find our story. Last week we pondered the significance of the timelessness of Christ. We live within time, but time lives within Christ. And today I'm so excited to share this one with you and that is Jesus is the only one to create a universe. Thank you, author of Hebrews, for giving us this scripture.

1:03:41 Jesus is the one through whom God created the universe, the one whom God has chosen to possess all things at the end. That's chapter 1 and verse 2. Long before Jesus was crafting furniture with his father in Nazareth, He was casting galaxies in the eyes of his heavenly father into the skies. If he had a business card, it might read, Jesus Christ, architect of the cosmos. Any question about his ability to handle your problems and mine is answered by examining the work of his hands. I only have two points today that won't take long. Here they are.

1:04:35 First, creation reveals the power of Jesus. Creation reveals the power of Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote these words in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 16. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. Well, that's a powerful paragraph, isn't it? Deserves to be underlined in every Bible. Let's take it phrase by phrase and unpack it. Paul says, by him, not by them, not by angelic committee, not by accident, but by him, him all things were created. All things. Dinosaurs, tumbleweeds, oil, clouds. He is the genius behind every detail of our existence. Lightning bolts, galaxies, everything is his idea and made by his hand. This includes things that are visible and includes things that are invisible. Visible like minnows, invisible, like angels, the visible town of Paradise, Texas, population 420, the invisible realm of paradise in heaven.

1:06:08 Everything physical and spiritual deserves to be stamped with the phrase, made by Jesus Christ. And this includes thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities. All people who have either by choice or by election have been placed over someone else. All authorities from spiritual hierarchies in the unseen world to the recognizable rulers and countries and counties. It's all Jesus. And it all exists through him and for him. Through him and for him. It all exists to reflect him. The intended purpose of the universe is to cause us to think about God. The intended purpose of nature is to help us see Christ. Everything we can see tells us something about him whom we have yet to see.

1:07:09 Creation reveals the power of Jesus. And then secondly, just this, creation reveals the person of Jesus. I know typically if we want to ponder the person of Jesus, we go to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We look at the Gospels. And if we want to ponder the creation, we open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3, the creation story. And well, we should. And yet I would suggest to you that since the whole Bible, is the story of Jesus. The Bible is his story from start to finish. That the creation story reveals the Christ. The creation story reveals Christ. Did you know Jesus said this? He told his critics, if you really believed Moses, you would believe me.

1:08:03 Why? Because Moses wrote about me. What? Moses wrote about Jesus? When? Where? Moses is considered to be the author of the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis contains the creation story. So did Moses write about Christ in the creation story? Is there a picture of Christ in the story of creation? I'm so glad you asked. because just beneath the surface of the seven days of creation, we find the face of Christ. And it tells us about Jesus and reflects the recreation that Jesus accomplishes in the souls of people.

1:08:59 Let me show you what I mean. I urge you to buckle up, because we're going to move quickly through the seven days of creation. The earliest mention of our planet was a sad one. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. Chaos, pandemonium. it enveloped the world. But then Jesus, who is the light of the world, released light upon the world. What did he say? Let there be light. Again, Jesus, the creator of the universe, is speaking. He said, let there be light. Christ from the get-go has been against darkness.

1:09:43 His initial act was to open the curtains of heaven and let light spill forth. did you note that the initial light was his light we're not going to see the creation of the planets the sun until day anyone want to guess day four this is day one and yet there is light upon the earth we might say that the sunlight, S-O-N light, preceded the sunlight, S-U-N light. That before there were planets, there was already light. There was light on the earth, and it came from Jesus. When Jesus said, let there be light, he could have essentially said, let there be Jesus.

1:10:35 because Jesus chased the darkness off the planet. He did this in the beginning. By the way, he will do this in the end. When we are in the eternal state, dwelling in the new Jerusalem, the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light. And look at this. The lamb is its lamp. The day is coming in which there will be no need for the sun or the stars because Jesus himself will issue unabated light from his presence as it was in the beginning, so it'll be in the end.

1:11:15 So day one foreshadows the end of shadows. Day two, Jesus said, let there be a space between the waters to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth. Jesus decrees a separation. The water above was separated from the water below. The rain of the skies, which is pure and clean, was distanced, separated from the water below on the earth, which can be muddy and briny. This is a metaphor, a picture of our condition. The message of Jesus to the followers was, you are from beneath, I am from above. so the one above entered to help those of us below our nature is beneath muddy and briny and salty Jesus is from above pristine and fresh how gracious of him the above one to enter our world the ones below and lift us out I wonder if the psalmist had this in mind when he wrote he lifted me out of the slimy pit out of the mud and mire and he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

1:12:30 Psalm 40 and verse 2. By his power, we have been lifted up, raised with Christ. Day 2 reveals this work of great grace. Day 3 does the same. Stay with me. Day 3, let the land sprout with vegetation. Behold the first appearance of life on earth with just a command, grass and herbs and fruit. appear not up in the heavens but down below yes even down below in what was considered impure there is life jesus does this it's as if the word of life is whispering a word about life that one command and flowers can grow and plants can pop one command and sinners are saved and the sick healed. Paul said if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. Christ is still in the business of creating and creation. By the way, still no sun.

1:13:36 The plants grew. The plants appeared and began to grow with still nothing but the light of Jesus. Planetary light doesn't begin until day four, and that's where we are now, where Jesus said, let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night let them be signs to mark the seasons and the days and the years the camera lens moves upward to see the lights in the sky and we see planets and we see stars, the sun and the moon the earth is beautiful but it generates no light light has to come from somewhere else, again is this not a glimpse of the story of Jesus Is he not the source of light? You cannot generate light. I cannot generate light. But if there's light in our heart, it's because he illuminated it.

1:14:32 This day, day four, causes us to shift our glance from down here to up there to the source of light. Everything about the story of Jesus calls us to do the same. Again, the apostle Paul says, if you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is. seated at the right hand of God. The message of day four is look up. The message of day five is invite Christ to go deep.

1:15:01 I command the ocean to be full of living creatures. He speaks to the ocean depths. To humans, the ocean depths can be a dangerous place, a cold place, a dark place, even a deadly place, but not to Jesus. That Jesus could speak life into the darkest parts of the planet. He can speak life into the darkest parts of our hearts. We've got a lot of Jonah stories right here in this church. just like Jonah we were thrown overboard like Jonah we were rescued the ocean bottom is no place for a person but it's no problem for Christ just as the recovering alcoholic or the prisoner who finds Christ behind bars or the divorcee who discovers that loneliness can soften the heart enough to see hope Christ brings darkness brings light out of the darkness but that's not all he also said in that same day let the birds fly i just love that let them fly don't put fences around birds they're made to soar they're made to stretch their wings did you know god wants you to do the same he has made us to soar on wings like eagles isaiah 40 in verse 31 this is the plan of god for you and speaking of you finally we reach on day six. Look at this. God created human beings in his image. No humans on day one, two, three, four, or five.

1:16:40 Finally on day six. People. It is as if God wanted us to dismiss any thought that we had anything to do with this. by the time our first father and mother walked on earth, the earth was already teeming with life and beaming with light. Humans arrived, not through their work, but through the work of Jesus. Sound familiar? It's a picture of grace.

1:17:16 And the earth we received is like the salvation we receive. It's a gift. pure grace on day 7 God rested he rested that's God's goal for you and me to enter into his rest it is not his will that you lead a life that is exhausting and depleting and defeating it is his will that you find rest that you rest that you breathe it deeply that you sleep well. This is his desire for you. That's why when he was on the cross, he said, it is finished. Not it is started, it is finished. And the great work of salvation is a work that says it's already done, not get out there and do.

1:18:09 You can rest. Do you see how Jesus has embedded his story in the creation story? the great themes of salvation lie just below the surface of every scripture Jesus the light giver Jesus the life giver Jesus the one who descends from above and brings hope to those below and the darkness of day one culminates in the rest of day seven this is the story of Christ Creation reveals the story of Christ.

1:18:51 Now, why does this matter? What's the big deal, Locato? How does this make a difference for my cranky boss, or my aching back, or my to-do list that I can't get done? What difference does this make? well I suppose if you don't have any problems it doesn't make any difference at all it really does I mean if your life is a downhill springtime bike ride with the wind in the back and the sun in your face and stars every I'm sorry flowers everywhere hopefully you're not riding at night flowers everywhere if your life is just so perfect then what I've said today is irrelevant. I have a hunch, however, it's not.

1:19:47 I have a hunch that you have a few challenges. And if your life is a bike ride, the hill is steep and the wind is stiff, and your legs are tired, and you need some strength. And dear friend, you need to know that the one who made all this is your friend. Is your friend. And that you are the apple of his eye. Oh, I needed that reminder earlier. Well, last week, I guess, just a few days ago. One morning I was reviewing these very notes about Christ in creation. And I was just relishing in this whole idea of the person of Christ. And the power and the preeminence of Christ.

1:20:43 That he's over everything, controlling everything. He made everything, and he's going to culminate everything. It just lifted my heart. And right in the middle of my study, I got a text message, which is fine. And I read the text, which put the phone in my hand, which caused me to think, I wonder what's going on in the world of social media. Boy, that was a mistake.

1:21:09 And I began reading. messages, posts. anger, anxiety everywhere. Understandably so. We've had a brutal few weeks. School shootings on every level, elementary school, high school, university. An assassination of Charles Kirk. and I found myself reading the vitriol or the bitterness or the anger people just taking sides one against each other shaking fists calling names and I found myself then starting to sink in that quicksand of anxiety and anger and it was as if God spoke to me Max weren't you just reading about how I'm in charge.

1:22:15 Have you so quickly forgotten what I was just telling you that I am preeminent over all things? I began all things. I will conclude all things. I'm aware of all things. I'm in charge of all things. What else do you need, Locato? Snap out of it. Well, I don't think he said snap out of it. But he could have. And he could have told me, just turn off your phone and return to the Bible. I needed that reminder. Maybe you do as well. The final point is simply this. If he made all that we can see, can he not make sense out of what we're facing? if he created the galaxies can he not create possibilities and opportunities that today you cannot see but are just waiting on you and if he invited us into the rest in the creation won't he give us rest today you think about that the next time you look into the sky okay thank you father for this reminder desperately needed for the healing that you brought into the house today we thank you through christ we pray amen I pray that you find yourself in a relationship with Jesus Christ and if you're not sure that you are in a relationship with him you can ask him he's never turned away a sincere seeker never that's why at the end of each message we offer a prayer a prayer in which you can invite Jesus to come into your life and you can leave here today as good friends with him.

1:24:14 It is as simple as a prayer. And I'm going to direct us in this prayer. And so if you're coming to Christ for the first time or coming back after a long time, at the end of the prayer, I'll ask you to stand up so we can applaud your decision and celebrate this first day of faith. Please follow me as I lead us in this prayer. Jesus, I'm not perfect. for I have sinned, but I believe in you. Save me, change me, forgive me. I give you my life in Jesus' name. Amen. Grant courage to anyone contemplating this decision. As we raise the lights, I'd like to see if anybody would like to stand up and say, hey, count me in. I want to be a participant in the great work of Jesus Christ. Is there anybody, anyone, would you stand up, please, so we can celebrate your decision to follow Christ?

1:25:19 Anyone? Right here. Thank you, sir. God bless you. God bless you. Amen. Amen. Someone else. I'm sure there's someone else thinking about it, considering it. See someone over here? Anyone else? We don't want to miss you if you're standing. We could hold off leaving for just a second until we make sure that everybody who has had an opportunity will may the Lord be praised for saving the souls today. Michelle, could you come now, please, and give us a hand.