* Please watch this space. I was so impacted by the message of ASTRONOMICAL GRACE this morning at first service, I am still seeing stars and planets. 🙂
The sermon was full of visual (photos and videos) plus audio depiction. Please give me time to put photos I will find online (as we aren’t allowed to use those snapped in the service itself) for my sermon notes. 🙂
Be greatly blessed!
* UPDATE #2 – Sermon Notes (completely raw), multimedia links and visual elements to be added in soon. 🙂 Still collecting them. Thought I should just upload this first. 😉
—– The sermon notes start here:
If God can build this imagine what He can build in you.
Atlanta – left 2 weeks ago >> Abu Dabhi (did worship there) >> Hyderabad and 14000 people came out to worship>> Delhi >> Manila>> SG!!
If we can truly get our hearts and loves around what The Lord has for u today our lives will change. And if we ustd His purpose for us- we will lead a new life.
Greatness and glory of God
The LORD we worship today is a great and awesome God. Created the universe to help us understand how great He is.
The Universe is God’s billboard about His glory. The Heavens declare the expanse of the work of His hands.
All u have to do is to go out and look up at the sky and the Heavens are declaring how great His glory is. The Heavens are saying u have no idea how big we are and how big the God is Who spoke us into creation.
Milky way- galaxy photo. Hundreds and billions of stars. One of hundreds and billions of galaxies in the universe.
From the first lines we know our God is bigger than our wildest imagination, any prayer we can pray and any trial we can face
Every few mths there is a new headline because we are in the process of ustdg how huge our universe is. With one word he created everything that exists. No exertion. Just spoke.
It was a Big Bang when God spoke the Universe into existent. He just said UNIVERSE and boom it appeared.
Scientists say if we count one star per second, it will take 2500 years to just count the stars in the Milky Way.
To whom will u compare Me. Or whom is my equal, said the Holy One.
No rival or competition.
There is no second, third or fifth place. No competition. Just God. He is central in the universe and deserves every bit of praise that we give Him today.
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all of this?
God asked and answered it.
He who brings the starry host one by one and calls them each by name.
God today I sustaining every star and holding the universe into being. Created it for himself and for His glory.
Ps 19:1
God is the greatest scientist there ever will be.
Scientists are wrong in that they see the universe has an oversized habitation for us to live in. If the universe is created just for us to dwell, it is too huge for us. What if it’s primary purpose is to display the awesomeness and majesty of our God? Then the universe is just the right size.
That is the Milky Way- 100000 light years across it. A ruler that is 5.88 trillion miles long.
Our solar system located in the Milky Way.
Our solar system compared to the milky way— is like putting a small coin somewhere in Singapore and flying overhead and trying to find the small coin.
We are an advanced gen. But there are those of us older gen who remember the time we first got off the planet and were spellbound by what we saw- the beauty of this fragile planet we live on.
U don’t see any city, any people. Realise we aren’t as big as we think we are. When I consider the heavens, the moons and stars… What is man that You are mindful of him?
Voyager- launched on a one way mission to photograph neighbour planets. Voyager was at the edge of our solar system and were leaving out. Scientists commanded Voyager to snap a panoramic view of the solar system. Mindblowing because there are places in SG that can’t receive mobile signals.
Every pixel takes 5.5h to make it back to earth. Dload nightmare. Lol.
And each pixel and photo –>
The coloured bands are sunlight reflecting on the space craft and it just so happens in one of these bands of sunlight was a little pale blue dot is a photograph of earth from 3.2b miles away. The furthest photo ever taken of Earth. Happenstance.
It is like a dot of dust suspended in the sunbeam.
LG when he first saw the pic felt so teeny tiny in this vast planet and vast universe God made.
Help us to see we are small- we are like vapour here today and gone tomorrow. Breath on a cold morning. Little people on a little planet. BUT as small as we are, each one of us are prized by Majesty.
Not just amazing that He knows the stars by name, what’s more amazing is God could walk into this building today and name every one by their name. We are loved by a Great Universe Creating GOD
We need to upsize our faith and supersize our prayers because we have a great God.
Thank God we are 83m miles from the Sun. Nuclear bombs exploding on the surface all the time.
He creates the starry hosts by the word of His mouth
He is not a little upsized God and doesn’t to think like we think. He opens in His mouth and can speak the Sun into existence
Pleiades – Job can u hold the Pleiades in your hand? No. But God can.
Pic of a star that spins 11x a second on its axis. We can’t see it but it is doing what it is supposed to do- giving glory to the LORD. And as it spins, it makes a noise. Joining in the symphony of praise for the God of the universe.
Pic of Hourglass nebula- God has a sense of humour.
Sombrero galaxy (pic from Hubble telescope)- 50000 light years from one end to another. Looks like a frisbee flying towards u. Most of us have never seen it before. It is hanging out in this vast cosmos giving praise to God. It isn’t confused today, it knows that the God that made me is amazing and I will give it praise.
Whirlpool galaxy- 31m light years away from us. Made up of 305b stars. And there are star incubators where stars are born.
Every sec a star bigger than our universe is being born.
Going to take us further out than 31m light years out
And LG shows us a pic of Jesus on the across- He made everything that we see so far.
All things have been created by and for Jesus. Through Jesus, God made the universe. Miraculously the one who spoke the galaxies into being ended up on our planet Earth.
The one with the power and authority to speak the galaxies into existence came to Earth, humbling himself, laying down all the glory he deserved. History that Jesus came. History that He cMe and died. And we know why Jesus died. Not just a bible story. History.
Ps 103- the LORD is compassionate and gracious… Doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve. He doesn’t give us what we deserve- why we celebrate Him today.
As far as the E is from the W is how far He has removed our transgressions from us- use your trillion light years ruler to measure that.
He didn’t want us to be distant from Him so came what only He could do. Taking all our wrongs and guilt on the cross to give us astronomical grace.
The star breather became the sin bearer. The universe maker became mankind’s saviour and that story of grace is everywhere.
At the core of the black hole core – is a cross. One of those be autogiro reminders that His grace is everywhere u look in all creation. Great and gracious God.
1 Peter 2- that u may declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness…..
Grace brings us to life with a song. He puts a new song into our mouths. Grace always bursts in worship.
Ps 148- praise the LORD from the heavens, praise Him from the heights above… His splendour is above the heavens and earth.
The stars are not just shining, singing. Psalmists said praise u Sun and Moon and all u shining stars. (Plays the sounds of stars singing in the heavens)
Remember whales singing their songs- the sea creatures are the first to be told to praise the LORD. (Video of whales and whale song.)
** Mash up of the various sounds of the stars and pulse stars and the whales 🙂
God is so great but not so great that He doesn’t know who we are
He has a plan for each and one for us.
Altar call
Don’t need perfect words. Faith is what brings us to life!