GOD'S NOT DEAD: DESIGNER MADE
A. In every RED CARPET interview of all the AWARDS shows on televisions, the interviewer will
invariably ask every FEMALE celebrity this important question: “What are you wearing?”
COMMENT:
I am hoping one day that someone will simply answer, “Clothes.” But, no, they want the name of the DESIGNER.
As far as I know I have never worn any DESIGNER clothing . . . unless FADED GLORY from Wal-Mart counts, but I know that is important to some people. So from the RED CARPET interviews you hear names like: Armani, Klein, Versace, Ralph Lauren, and so on. I am sure that those are important names in the FASHION INDUSTRY.
B. Of course, the greatest of all DESIGNERS is God Himself- Genesis 2:7 (READ & COMMENT)
1. Now before ADAM was CREATED, there was a DIVINE CONFERENCE that took place.
a. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, came together and said, “Let US make MAN in OUR image” – Genesis 1:26.
b. There is no RECORD of this DIVINE MEETING taking place before anything else that was CREATED—including all the ANIMALS. The CREATION of MAN was going to be UNIQUE.
2. Please understand that God DESIGNED each one of us just exactly as He pleases for His own perfect
purposes...the purposes He has planned for our lives.
a. Now, that bothers some people. Maybe it bothers you.
COMMENT:
Some people rebel against the God who MADE them. They prefer to BELIEVE that we come from APES instead of a LOVING God who FASHIONED us with his HANDS and CREATED us in
His IMAGE and placed within us an ETERNAL SOUL.
b. Yet, David tells us that “God created man a little lower than the angels”- Psalm 8:5.
COMMENT:
A preacher put it this way, “Evolution sees man as one step above apes. Scripture sees him as one step beneath angels.” Which would you prefer?
2. Others may believe that God CREATED them, but they don’t like the way they were MADE.
COMMENT:
Some want to CHANGE their SEX. Some want to CHANGE their LOOKS. Some wish they were never BORN. I whole-heartedly believe that God has a PLAN for every single one of us. We just don’t always like His PLAN and go our own way.
3. Then there are those of us who are in AWE of God’s GREATEST CREATION—MANKIND.
C. David fits in that category. That’s why David’s Psalm 139 is a good place to go to learn more about God as our DESIGNER.
1. In the first six verses (vv. 1-6), we learn that God KNOWS us. He is OMNISCIENT—All-Knowing. He knows absolutely everything about us down to the very tiniest details of our lives. Nothing is HIDDEN from Him.
2. In the next six verses (vv. 7-12), we learn that God is always with us. He is OMNIPRESENT— EVERYWHERE all at the SAME TIME. Wherever we GO, He’s always THERE.
COMMENT:
Some might be thinking, “Well, this is all fine and good. These are nice thoughts. But how do we know they are true?” David answers, “We know they are true because God made us. Only a
God who made us can know us so completely and thoroughly and want to be with us all the time.”
3. These truths lead us to the next aspect of the great DESIGNER, His OMNIPOTENCE. He is ALL-POWERFUL. And we see that POWER through God’s CREATION, and especially His magnificent DESIGN of you and me.
MESSAGE:
I. THE SOURCE OF OUR DESIGN- Psalm 139:13 (READ)
A. The source of our being: we were CREATED and DESIGNED by God.
1. According to EVOLUTION, human beings are the end product of a chance collision of molecules.
a. Mankind came into EXISTENCE purely because of a mindless and unplanned ACCIDENT of nature.
b. Someone has referred to this kind of thinking as being “From Goo To You by Way of the Zoo”
COMMENT:
According to this kind of thinking you and I are not that much different from the BIRDS in the sky or FISH in the sea, or the SLUG in the mud, or an AMOEBA in the waters. We’re all pretty much the result of the same PURPOSELESS interaction of ATOMS. Thus, we really have no INTRINSIC value. No VALUE to really speak of that sets us APART from the rest of the world.
In fact, if it’s between an UNBORN CHILD and an EAGLE’S EGG for instance, the HATCHING of that EAGLE is more important to our government than the BIRTH of that BABY.
But what do we EXPECT if we were a MINDLESS ACCIDENT just like any other LIVING CREATURE and not CREATED and DESIGNED in the IMAGE of an INFINITE LOVING God for His PURPOSE?
2. David said that “God CREATED us, He FORMED us, He DESIGNED us.”
a. “…inmost being…” is actually the Hebrew word for “KIDNEYS.” The Hebrews considered the kidneys to be the seat of the EMOTIONS and the WILL.
b. He said God also “knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
COMMENT:
“Knit” can also mean “to cover, or to weave together.” David is saying that God actually WOVE us together inside our mother’s womb. Our lives are like a TAPESTRY, with every MUSCLE, TENDON, NERVE, ARTERY, VEIN, CAPILLARY, and EVERYTHING else all
INTERWOVEN together.
And God was the artist that DESIGNED the TAPESTRY. While we were but EMBRYOS in our mother’s womb, God was CREATING us, WEAVING us together to create a masterpiece—a BOY or GIRL made in His IMAGE.
B. We are NOT biological accidents!
1. We are not PRODUCTS of some IMPERSONAL FORCE. We are not CREATURES of mere CHANCE. We are not CREATURES that have somehow EVOLVED from some SLIME somewhere. We are not POND SCUM.
2. We are here because GOD MADE US!
COMMENT:
God made us PERSONALLY and INDIVIDUALLY! While we were yet UNBORN thriving in our mother’s womb, God was DESIGNING us to be the PERSONS we are. And as the old saying goes, “God doesn’t make JUNK!”
II. THE WONDER OF OUR DESIGN- Psalm 139:14-16a (READ)
A. David is so overwhelmed by the thought that He was created by God that He can’t continue without first PRAISING the Lord.
1. I’m not sure what PROMPTED David’s WORDS.
a. He may have been tending the SHEEP when he happened to glance down at his HANDS and FEET and noticed how intriguing they were. He feels his HEART BEAT and watches in wonder as his CHEST rises and falls with each BREATH.
b. I not sure what, but there was something about his body that caused him to remark and pen the words, “I praise You [God] because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”
COMMENT:
David realized the marvel of the human body even though he hadn’t taken Biology 101. He never attended an Anatomy and Physiology class. Yet, he knew just by observation that the human body was an AMAZING ORGANISM. In fact, it is MIRACULOUS!
2. Even today, with all of our SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY we can’t even begin to understand all the intricacies of the HUMAN BODY.
ILLUSTRATION:
Bob Hope was one of the great comedians of the last century. On his 100th birthday, he said, “I am so old they cancelled my blood type.” He died three months later. As he was getting along in years, he once commented that he’d been reading and was astonished to discover these facts about the human body:
“Today my heart beat over 103,000 times, my blood traveled 168 million miles, I breathed 23,400 times, I inhaled 438 cubic feet of air, ate 3 pounds of food, and drank 2.9 pounds of liquid, I perspired 1.43 pints…gave off 85.3 degrees of heat… generated 450 tons of energy, I spoke 4,800 words, I moved 750 major muscles, and I exercised 7 million brain cells.” Then he paused, took a deep breath and said, “It’s no wonder I’m tired all the time.”
B. The truth is the HUMAN BODY is an amazing instrument.
1. Think about the complexities of one little square inch of SKIN.
ILLUSTRATION:
According to the Oxford School of Medicine:
In a square inch of skin, you would find:
20 blood vessels;
65 muscles;
78 nerves;
78 sensors for heat, 13 for cold, 160 for pressure;
650 sweat glands;
1300 nerve endings; and
19,500,000 cells.
The skin serves several purposes including providing a protective shield against bacteria and viruses and the absorbing of bumps and bruising that might otherwise damage your bones and internal organs.… and in that inch of skin, your sweat glands in your body do double duty, helping to eliminate wastes and cool your body.
(That’s just in one square inch of skin; think about the complexities of the brain and the nervous system and the heart and cardiovascular system.)
2. No wonder David said to God, “…your WORKS are wonderful, I know that full well.”
a. The WONDER of the HUMAN BODY.
b. And to think it all works without a thought.
ILLUSTRATION:
Your HEART is PUMPING right now. You don’t have to tell it to PUMP. It’s pumping life-giving OXYGEN into every cell of your body and keeping you alive right now. Imagine if we had to consciously tell our hearts to PUMP! That’s all we would do!
How about your BREATHING? We breathe in, breathe out. You didn’t think about that a minute ago, did you? You just did it. It’s AUTOMATIC. What if you had to CONTROL that action every moment of your life? How long do you think you could live? Not long, obviously. And yet God has designed our LUNGS to automatically do that action over and over again.
C. There’s NO WAY that the HUMAN BODY came forth from an AMOEBA in a SLIMY POND somewhere. WE ARE CREATED BY GOD!!!!
1. Of all of God’s CREATION, we HUMANS are of a special DESIGN- Gen. 1:26a, 27 (READ and COMMENT)
a. It is a BIG THING to be MADE in the IMAGE of God.
COMMENT:
Among every LIVING CREATURE that God has CREATED, you and I and all of man-kind are the ONLY ones CREATED in the IMAGE of God—in His LIKENESS. We are SPIRITUAL BEINGS as well as PHYSICAL BEINGS. We alone are given the privilege of making MORAL CHOICES.
If we were not CREATED in the IMAGE of God, we would be no different from the SMALLEST of INSECTS or the most disgusting RAT in the SEWER.
b. But instead, when God sees us, He sees His IMAGE.
2. We, human beings, are the LAST and the BEST of God’s CREATION; nothing CREATED before us can COMPARE.
COMMENT:
We are truly “FEARFULLY and WONDERFULLY made.”
CONCLUSION:
A. I want to close with short video clip of an interview that Ben Stein did with Richard Dawkins in the documentary, “EXPELLED”, about college PROFESSORS being SILENCED or LOSING their JOBS for their belief in the CREATOR God.
ILLUSTRATION:
Dawkins is a renowned ATHEIST and EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST from Oxford University in Great Britain. As you may recall in the movie God’s Not Dead, Dawkins was often quoted to support the non-existence of God.
Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, points out that Christians are delusional for believing in a Creator God. He also wrote, “…if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane…”
In this clip we are about to see Ben Stein asks Dawkins if there can be an intelligent design behind creation. Listen for his answer.
SHOW VIDEO CLIP
