Title: A New Age for Discovery
Text: Psalm 111:2-6
Thesis: This is a good “time” to live into a New Age of Discovery.
Introduction
Last Sunday I mentioned that, from an old Earth perspective, we are living in the geological period that began 542 million years ago:
• 542 million years ago: The Palezoic Era began. It is what they call ancient life.
• 252 million years ago: The Mesozoic Era began (Age of Reptiles). It is termed middle life.
• 66 million years ago: The Cenozoic Era began (Age of Mammals). It is called the era of new life…. We are living in the era of new life.
The current era has been happening for 66 million years but it is still referred to as the era of new life.
Though I have some curiosity about the history of Earth… it is the geologists, archeologists, anthropologists and sociologists who are interested in poking around in back then. Most of us think of anything thought to be 66 million years old as anything but new. Our interests lie in the latest… the newest. I am currently irked that soon after I got a Galaxy Note 3… they came out with a Galaxy Note 4. I don’t want a dinosaur Note 3… I want the latest Note… the Note 4.
In that God created mankind in his image, i.e., to be intelligent and creative, we have been veritable whirling dervishes. Along the way we’ve come up with new stuff like the zipper, can opener, disposable diapers, behind the ear hearing aids, stereos, internet, multi-socket power plug, PCs, Play Stations 1 – 4, the flash drive… I just bought a 128 Gig, Turbo 3.0 which works three times faster than the 2.0, smart phones, Twitter, 3-D copiers, Kindle and Nook, Hybrid cars… did I mention Tupperware? (Nothing I have just mentioned is thought of in terms of being new!) But true to form… once we’ve experienced the latest we are looking for the next new thing.
It hasn’t all been good. Meanwhile in recent years we have even managed to create an entirely new rock called plastiglomerate which will likely become part of Earth’s geological record and might well survive as future fossil fuels. Plastiglomerates are being found along sea shores and consist of sand, shells, pebbles, basalt, coral, wood and plastic all melted together forming a rock-plastic hybrid. I don’t know if you are aware that in the Pacific Ocean there are two massive garbage patches of debris… mostly plastics that are not breaking down but are breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic.
Futurists say we will live in a cashless culture. Everything will be wireless and everything will be stored in the Cloud. There will be no more TV schedules… only primary demand services. Lap tops will take the form of e-paper. We will all be given phone numbers at birth and that will be our identity and contact number for life. Physicals will be DNA scans and there will be increasing robotic procedures. Artificial Intelligent robots will be tutoring children. Things like watches and handwritten letters and paper maps and remote controls will all go by the wayside. A new age of discovery lies before us.
Because we are so intelligent and creative and are constantly amazing ourselves with the latest discovery or technological advancement or pharmaceutical drug or scientific breakthrough… we have become pretty much anthropocentric in our outlook on life. We are so enamored with ourselves and what we can do that we no longer notice what God has done, is doing and going to do. We no longer need God. In fact, if we can envision it, we can likely do it.
Psalm 111 is something of a call to remind ourselves that we are God-people despite whatever our culture may indicate.
While we are living in an age of creativity and discovery technologically, Psalm 111 calls us to shift our attention from ourselves to God and the activity of God.
II. A New Age of Discovery, Psalm 111:2-6
“How amazing are the deeds of the Lord!” 111:2a
To discover something is the act of finding or learning something for the first time… something not previously known or realized. To rediscover something is to go back to see again or anew.
Some of us may never have given much thought to what God has done and is doing. Some of us haven’t given God’s activity much thought for some time. So this may be thought of as an exercise in discovery and/or rediscovery.
One of the ways we can sink our teeth into the activity of God is to ponder what God has done.
A. Ponder God’s Deeds, 111:2-3
“All who delight in him should ponder them. Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails.” 111:2-3
Ponder is a cool word. It has the feel of an old expression. I recently went through the drive-thru at Dickie’s and after I had ordered the woman who took my order said, “Mosey on up to the window…” Who says, “mosey” anymore? Who says, “ponder?”
When we ponder something we think about or carefully consider something. To ponder something is to weigh it in your mind… usually quietly and soberly. When we ponder something we chew on it or ruminate, as a cow chews the cud.
Cattle are ruminants, as are sheep, goats, giraffes and deer, which means they have to chew their food twice in order to digest it properly. Cows have 4 stomach compartments. The first is called the Rumen.
When a cow first takes a bite the cow chews the food to moisten it. It is then swallowed and goes into the Rumen where it mixes with digestive stuff and gets all softened up and takes the form of a cud. Then the Rumen muscles send the cud back up into the cow’s mouth where it is re-chewed and swallowed again. The cud then goes into the Reticulum, then the Omasum and finally Abomasum… the small and large intestine all the while creating 30 – 50 gallons of methane gas per cow (95% through burping and 5% through flatulence). I bet you did not know that. In that there are 1.5 billion cows on the planet there is a lot of methane gas being released into the atmosphere?
But to the point… one of the ways we may discover and/or rediscover God’s activity, in that everything God does reveals his glory and majesty, is to ponder. Ruminate. Chew the cud.
One of the primary reasons people will not enjoy the bliss of eternal life is because they have not noticed the obvious activity of God. They do not see the glory and majesty of God’s creative and sustaining activity in the world.
“God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made they can see clearly his invisible qualities… his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” Romans 1:18-20
“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise they instead became utter fools. Instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols…” Romans 1:21-23
We dare not find ourselves turning away from God by failing to see and acknowledge God’s activity in the world around us. Creation is one of the primary ways God reveals or makes himself known to us. God draws us to himself through his creative deeds.
I may have mentioned last week that I am reading a new book by secularist Phil Zuckerman, Living the Secular Life.
Hear this from the Introduction: “For most nonreligious men and woman, to be secular ultimately means living in the here and now with exuberance, relish, passion and tenacity – because this is the only existence we’ll ever have.”
He goes on to say, “Being secular is about finding joy, splendor and fulfillment in newborn babies and thunderstorms, peaches and tears, harmony and algebra and forgiveness, squid and irony without attaching any supernatural or divine masking tape to such inexplicable wonders of life.” (Phil Zuckerman, Living the Secular Life, Penguin Press, 2014, P. 7)
Speaking of the wonders of life, who other than God could envision a:
• Kingdom: Animalia (Animals as opposed to Minerals or Plants)
• Phylum: Chordata (Large group of related animals)
• Class: Mammalia (Warm-blooded, vertebrates characterized by mammary glands in females)
• Order: Artiodactyla / ar. tio. dac. tyla (two-Toed)
• Sub-order: Ruminantia / ru.min. an. tia (Cud chewers)
• Family: Bovidae / bo. vi. dae (Hollow horned – cattle, goats, giraffes…)
And that is just the cow and its two-toed, hollow-horned, cud-chewing family.
When I was a boy I spent a lot of time catching tad poles and frogs. I caught pond water and stream water in Mason Jars and marveled at the creatures swimming about… now I know those jars were full of microscopic creatures I could not even see. I caught lightning bugs and butterflies and grasshoppers. Those were wonderful times of discovery for me.
“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see…” Colossians 1:15-20
Though hardly a naturalist I find there is always something new to discover and in so doing revel in the majesty of a creative God.
So… so much for secular living. The secularist is grateful for all the good and glorious things of life, but has no one to thank for it!
Ironically, the Christian who lives a God-centered life, experiences all the exuberance and passion and joy and splendor and fulfillment from all the humanly inexplicable things of life as well… but with the assurance that this is not the only existence we will ever have. There is more to come! However as we experience everything the secularist experiences we know the inexplicable wonders of life is the activity of God.
What to do? How do we chew the cud! First we ponder God’s Word.
• Live in Genesis 1 and 2… ponder the wonder of God’s creative activity.
• Live in Psalm 139… ponder the scope of God’s activity in your life.
• Live in Psalms 148-150… ponder the worthiness of God and the place of praise in your life.
• Live in Romans 8:35-39… ponder the faithfulness of God in your life.
• Live in Ephesian 1:3-8… ponder the origins and outcomes of God’s activity in your life.
• Live in Philippians 2:1-11… ponder the extent of the self-emptying of Jesus and what it means in your life.
Another way to chew the cud is revel in the glory of God’s creation… second we ponder God’s works.
• Get out there in the ditches and mountainsides and open spaces and wide-open prairies and along creeks and streams and parks…
• Take your binoculars and a really good magnifying glass and a camera.
• Begin a library of Audubon Society Field Guides for your region… there are guides for birds, insects, butterflies, wild flowers, trees, rocks and minerals, fish and reptiles, mammals, the night sky, weather, sea shores and shells and all kinds of regional guides.
• With heartfelt praise… look and listen and learn about the glory of God’s activity.
Conclusion:
Lake Tahoe is the eighth deepest lake in the world. On July 4, 1875, two men discovered the deepest point in the lake to be 1645 feet by lowering a weighted champagne bottle on fishing line from the side of their boat. Following the invention of sonar, soundings by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that depth. Lake Tahoe is so large that if the lake were tipped over, its contents would cover California in 14.5 inches of water. Tahoe could provide every person in the United States with 50 gallons of water per day for five years. The evaporation from Tahoe over the course of one year could supply a city the size of Los Angeles for five years. And Lake Tahoe is a small lake compared to Lake Superior (120 times as large) and the world's largest lake, the Caspian Sea (576 times as large). (David Finch, "A Picture of Praise," sermon on PreachingToday.com)
How can we help but marvel at the majesty of God’s deeds?
Come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
For the Lord is a great God.
He holds in his hands the depths of the earth
And the mightiest of mountains.
The sea belongs to him, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry lands too.
Come let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,
for he is our God. Psalm 95
