My God is Bigger Than Your God
Psalm 33:4-9
January 11, 2008
Grandma was rushing her two grandkids ages five and three out to the car from shopping when five year old Jason spoke up.
“Grams, Susie put something in her pocket in the store.”
After a quick investigation, Grams discovered that Susie had picked up some pretty red barrettes and liking them put them into her pocket. Grams explained that how that was stealing and took them back inside so Susie could put them back.
“I sorry gwams. I didn’t mean to steal.”
“That’s okay. Now you do. We’ll put them back. Besides I forgot to get something so now I can get that too and we’ll be done.”
At the register, the young girl asked the kids, “Have you been good so Santa will come?”
“I’ve been really good,” said Jason, “But my sister just robbed the store.”
This week I want to share with you a conception of God. We are going to talk this week and then in a different fashion in two weeks about the greatness of God. It is about how big and awesome our God is. My hope is that you will enlarge your concept of God and perhaps be inspired to move deeper into your relationship and maybe inspire you to greater depths of worship. I hope to inspire a sense of trust in this God we serve and hope in whatever situations and trials that you might be facing either now or in the future.
The title is, “My God is bigger than your God.” This is the idea of two kids that are debating whose Dad is bigger and better. “My dad is better than your dad.” “Well, my dad can beat up your dad.” “Cannot.” “Can too.”
I think that sometimes religious people might argue about their concepts of God in this fashion. Sometimes between different religions and sometimes between Christians. My god is better because he loves everyone. My god is better because he is perfect. My god is bigger than the world. My god is bigger than the solar system. My god is bigger than the universe. Well, my god can beat your god up and one day he will soon.
So as I share today, I share not because I have it all figured out but because I haven’t. I am going to share some information so that we might grow a little bit in just how magnificent and big and awesome and great our God is.
We heard from Psalm 33 earlier. Verse 6 something very interesting. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. Not by hands or tools but by a word. It then says that God breathed out the stars. Did you know that we have a fire-breathing God? Isn’t that what a star is? Our sun is a star that is basically a ball of fire. It is awesome. Here is a picture.
Now our earth is pretty huge right? From orbit with the naked eye, you can’t see buildings or cars let alone people. You can’t even see people from an airplane with any significant height let alone from space.
I have something here. Do you know what this is? A golf ball not a walnut, right Duane? If I were to hit this and hit it well, you probably would never see it again. Not because I’m so good because it would end up in the woods or a lake or something.
Let’s pretend that this is the earth. The sun is a million times bigger than the earth. If we compare our golf ball earth to the sun, 960,000 golf balls would fill up that sun. That is enough to fill up a school bus.
Anyone know how far the earth is from the sun? Mike knew this answer. 96 million miles. How long does it take the light from the sun to reach your skin? How long does it take light to travel 93 million miles? Only eight minutes.
How fast does light travel? 187,000 miles per second. That’s fast. Remember that!
Now remember, God breathed out our sun. His word put the earth in its orbit around the sun. But this is really nothing. Our sun is one of between 200 and 400 billion other suns in our galaxy. What is our galaxy called? Milky way.
Now I want to show you a picture. This is a picture of a galaxy. Not our galaxy… Think about it. How would we ever get a picture of our galaxy like this. This the whirlpool galaxy, which known as the darling of astronomy. There are about 300 billion stars here. It is not the hot tub galaxy. So in our galaxy and the whirlpool galaxy (far, far away), there are (not Star Wars) but as many as 700 billion stars. Yet our galaxy is one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies. A pretty big universe, right?
Do you know how far away this whirlpool galaxy is? 31 million light years. If you travel at the speed of light (which is how fast? 187K per second) for 31 million years, you’ll finally get there. That’s a lot of generations asking, “Are we there yet?”
God breathed all these stars too. This is cool. At the center of this whirlpool galaxy is a black hole and do you know what astronomers have seen there? Take a look…
That is cool, isn’t it? It is awesome. 31 million light years away and we see this. Reminder? Coincidence? You can draw your own conclusions.
Is your God big enough yet? This star-breathing God.
Remember how big our sun is as we compared it to earth? Enormous. But out sun is really rather small. It is more of God’s belch than a breath. Here is a picture of a star that is called Betelguese also known as beetlejuice. This is a red giant star. It is only 427 light years away. It might be reachable by your grandchildren’s great-great-great grandchildren if they could even get up to that speed. This star is twice the size of… care to guess? Not our sun but twice the size of the earth’s orbit around the sun. It is bigger than Jupiter’s orbit.
Let’s take our earth (golf ball) then 262 trillion earths would fit into it. In proportion to this golf ball, this star that God breathed would be the size of 6 Empire State buildings. But this isn’t the biggest star that we have seen that God has breathed.
Here is one for our Brown’s fans. The biggest star that we have seen—Canis Major or The Big Dog. If you take our golf ball earth, then this star would be in comparison the size of Mt. Everest. 7 quadrillion earths would fit into it. That is enough golf balls to cover Texas 22’’ deep in golf balls. And God breathed this one too.
Now you want to know what really blows my mind? Between scripture and Christian tradition, we say that God created this humongous universe out of nothing. It is called creation ex nihilo in Latin, I believe. Creation out of nothing. Either God created the universe out of nothing or there was something else there with God at the beginning of creation. All before the account of Genesis. When I first read this idea from a German theologian named Jürgen Moltmann, I freaked. God had to first make a space of nothingness in order to put this universe. Before creation, it was just God. God had to make a space of without anything out which God created the universe. It is one of these things that if you think about too much you feel like you might lose your mind.
This is our star-breathing God. This is how big God is. This is how mighty God is. This is how great our God is. A God of wonders. A God that Psalm 147:4 says has named all of these billions and billions and billions of stars. He knows them all by name. For His words formed them. He breathed them into existence.
Then I am reminded that God knows our names as well. He knows all about us. God knows us better than we know ourselves.
When I think about how grand God is, I can’t help but gain a different perspective on my life. My struggles don’t seem so big. I don’t want to discount your pain and anguish. But I also know that sometimes I worry more about things that I shouldn’t than I trust in the One who is so much bigger than those issues.
I have very little control over so much in my life. But if anyone has some measure of control, if anyone can truly help me and guide me, if anyone can see me through my deepest struggles and hurts and disappointments, then it is this star-breathing God who has created this universe. This God is bigger than my problems. God is bigger than this world. God is bigger than any way and any economic downtown. If anyone is able to bail me out, then it is this star-breathing, creator God that is revealed in the Bible.
It is this same God that took human flesh. It is this same God that has my name written on the palm of His hand. It is this same God that died so that I might overcome and victory of the brokenness of this world and this life.
If this doesn’t inspire you worship God with every millimeter of your being, if thinking about this ginormous God does not compel you to shout for joy and sing His praises with all of your being, then I don’t know what will. Probably nothing.
Chris Tomlin wrote these words in the song that we sang earlier:
How great is our God
Sing with me, how great is our God
And all will see how great, how great is our God.
We live in such a vast and huge universe. A universe that God breathed out of His mouth. What an awesome God He is! Sing those words with me!
