September 18, 2022 / Origins / Day Four

Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast.

Today John Metter, lead pastor of Cross City Church, brings a message in the Origins series

that helps answer the five most important questions in life.

How you live today depends on how you answer these questions.

Here's John Metter with the teaching on the five questions.

I can tell you I've really loved our Origins series and if you have your Bibles this morning,

let's go to Genesis chapter 1 today as we go back into our series.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Day 4 is the title of the message today.

Day 4, Genesis chapter 1, beginning in verse 14.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

I want to ask you some questions today before we begin.

First let me take a poll.

How many of you would say that in the last 10 years or so, you've noticed dramatic changes

in culture and the way people think and the way people behave and live?

Would you raise your hand if you've noticed that?

Just the last 10 years.

I've certainly noticed that.

Certainly over the last few decades, but the last 10 years has been probably the most cataclysmic

kinds of changes, kind of changes in the way people think and the way they live and lifestyle

choices they make and the kind of things they say.

It's really been amazing to me.

It's almost like, in fact it is like, people have completely forgotten foundations for

what truth is, completely forgotten where to find the truth and who defines truth and

made truth their own subjective perspective.

You know, over the last few months we've been talking about the most important questions

in life and I'm convinced that we've gotten close to naming the most important questions

of life.

And I also believe that the book of Genesis answers all these questions as we walk through

it week by week by week.

Here are the five questions that we put before you every week.

First of all, who is God and what is truth?

If you can define the answer to that question, it's an amazing guide for you in life.

Question number two, who was I created to be?

Question number three, who are my people?

Who can I trust?

Who are around me?

The next question, do I pursue healthy relationships?

Do I know what they are?

Do I know how to pursue them?

And then the fifth question is, what is my purpose in life?

Why am I here?

Why am I breathing air and taking up space?

All those important questions have answers.

And it's my personal conviction that departing from the answers God gives us to these questions

leaves us in a culture that is confused, unsure about how to live, who they are, where to

find truth.

But when you go back to the book of Genesis, you get reconnected with all that God said

from the beginning to lay down the foundations for truth.

So Genesis chapter one, beginning in verse 14, day four will share so much with us about

the answer to these questions.

Please stand with me as we read God's word together today.

Genesis chapter one, beginning in verse 14.

Then God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day

from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let

them be for lights.

Now I'm going to go back and repeat that sequence of four phrases and words that are very, very

important to this text.

Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights

and the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.

And it was so God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the

lesser light to govern the night.

He made the stars also.

God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth and to govern the

day and the night and to separate the light from the darkness.

And God said that it was good.

It was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

Father, in Jesus' name, I pray for your Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and insight.

I pray that our eyes would be opened to light that you give us for how to live life.

Father, thank you for your word.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

All God's people, son.

Amen.

You may be seated if you would.

I don't think there's any question we live in a searching, documenting, recording age,

don't we?

I mean, you can find everything about every event, present or past in many ways.

And science has come up with some great tools to help us discover and see more sharply the

things that are around us in the heavens, models by which we can view the universe and

how it all works.

But when you dive in this text, you begin to see some words that really bring great

illustrations with them at the same time.

For example, verse 16, God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day

and the lesser light to govern the night.

I have a picture for you today that's a model that's put together of what that actually

looks like from space perspective.

From behind the earth, being able to see the moon and then being able to see the sun on

the other side of that.

This is a regular occurrence that you and I actually look at with what we can see with

our eyes every single day of life.

In other words, God speaks from creation in the path and continues to speak to us in a

powerful way today with what we see and what we know is happening.

And really when you see the beauty of the sun, the moon and the earth and how it all

works together, you should be mesmerized.

But there's still more that God has created.

For example, in verse 16, at the end of the sentence, he actually says it as an afterthought.

He made the stars also.

If you just take that at its literal word, you're thinking, okay, he threw a few stars

up there, but you and I both know that the vastness of the universe is amazing.

In fact, later pictures of the Hubble telescope and the images that are being back from that

camera allow us to see the universe as it is today.

I put two or three pictures up in front of you and it helps you to be able to see just

what it looks like from perspective out of that Hubble telescope.

Without going into the details of what each one of these pictures represent, they are

the stars that God spoke into existence from eternity past.

That's what we're viewing when we look at these kinds of images.

As a matter of fact, the latest images from the most advanced telescopes convince even

scientists that the Big Bang theories and all the theories that have been articulated

about how the existence of space came into being, that's been disproven by how big space

actually is.

The better the cameras, the further we can see, the larger our universe is.

And there is no scientific explanation that can actually tell us how all this came into

being.

And I really believe that God put these stars in space and all the social systems and the

galaxies and everything else that we'll talk about today.

He put them up there not for us to try to explain them, even though we do it best we

can, but He put them up there to cause our attention to be focused on the one who put

them there instead of the stars themselves.

Instead of looking at the sun and being amazed at how it warms us and gives light to us,

we ought to see the unseen hand that put it up there, God Himself.

Instead of looking at the moon and being amazed at how it affects everything on the planet,

we ought to be looking to God Himself.

In fact, on day four, God places unexplainable and undeniable signs in the heavens pointing

to His presence and to His power.

That's what He wants us to see when we read the creation story.

A few moments ago I walked through that text and caused your attention to four words and

four phrases that matter when it comes to what God created and why He put those in space

the way He did.

If you remember those four words and phrases, we're going to come back and look at those

one at a time.

First of all, they're there for signs.

There for signs.

The creation account literally says that God put the lights in the sky for signs.

I want us to look at those signs for just a few moments.

Signs are important, aren't they?

I mean, some of the greatest times in my life take place because I read the signs accurately

and some of the worst things that happen in my life happen because I ignore the signs.

How many of you have ignored signs before and catastrophe takes place?

I told you not too long ago about ignoring the sign of a red flag waving on a beach

in Acapulco Bay and my honeymoon, ignoring that red flag that said, strong under toe,

no swimmers allowed.

I dove in and almost lost my life.

I ignored the signs.

Almost had a horrific car accident because two of us ignored signs.

The car coming and the car I was in.

Just almost lost my life.

It's amazing how ignoring signs can bring catastrophic consequences to our lives, but

if God put the sun, the moon, the stars in the skies for signs, we should know what those

signs are all about.

Let's take a look at those signs that God placed in the universe for us, first of all.

There's signs of God, signs of God.

Quite simply, there are signs that there is a God, that he's powerful, that he's a creator,

that he's authoritative, that what he says goes.

What he says happens.

Every time he says, let there be, the ending part of that statement is, and it was so.

Let's let this sign be a sign of God.

We live in a culture that is a culture of doubt.

I think there's no question that we realize that culture of doubt is more than ever before,

and maybe we doubt as a culture more than ever before because we're always looking at

something that man has made and we're being mesmerized by the trinkets of man-made things.

I read a book a couple of weeks ago that was called History of God by Karen Armstrong.

It's a semi-secular book, I would say.

Out in this book, she makes a statement.

She said, our scientific culture educates us to focus our attention on the physical

and material world around us instead of at the unseen hand that may have put it all there.

I think she's got a point because what we're here today is, put your head in this book,

flex your eyes on this screen, focus on this image.

In essence, it's saying, get your eyes off the unseen hand, the unseen God behind it all.

And really, in spite of the fact that we have these amazing tools to study the universe,

we really have few scientific answers as to how it could come into being apart from God.

I've done a lot of reading of research journals and scientific magazines and articles and

books as preparation for this message series.

And I'm really concluding that an honest reading of all these scientific journals on creation,

on cosmology, and astronomy will leave you with so many theories and presuppositions,

all of them involving some sort of random explosion, some sort of big bang,

some sort of cosmic clouds that dance around the sun and spin off new planets.

And the language is full of phrases like, some say it is believed and theories

suggest.

You read so much of that, at some point you simply say, you just really don't know,

do you?

You really do not know how the earth came into existence.

And I've always kind of lived by the theory, if you cannot find a provable theory for anything

in life, look for something more reliable.

And that's what I do when I read the Word of God.

I look for something, someone more reliable.

And in the beginning, God did create the heavens and the earth.

And that's not dismissing science, it's not ignoring science, it's simply admitting that

science doesn't have the answers for the immensity and the power and the order and the freedom

from chaos and durability of space and galaxies and solar systems in our universe.

It's not a sign of random explosion, it's a sign of God.

It's a sign that God exists, that God speaks and things come into being.

And Genesis gets very, very specific with this.

In fact, in the text we read today, you find these phrases, God said, God made, God placed,

God saw that it was good.

You want to learn something about God, read Genesis chapter one.

And these are some of the things that we learn about God.

God said, and it came into being, God made and it was good.

God placed it in the universe where he placed all these luminaries, all these lights, all

these stars, the sun, the moon, the earth.

And God saw that it was good.

And when God says something is good, then it's truly good if God sees it and says that

it is good.

Nothing is left to chance.

The authority of a spoken word, the creative power that he has, and the placement with

which he's placed everything is obvious.

And why did God do all this?

I believe God did all this, especially in light of the fact that we know no other signs

of sources of hope or life anywhere else on any other planet.

We still haven't yet defined any hint of life anywhere else.

God did all this and all these planets, all these solar systems so that people like you

and I can look at them and say, there is a God and I know that God has to be awesome

and I want to know him and worship the God who created the worlds around me.

That's what I believe God did.

He did it for that simple reason so that you would get up in the morning and watch the

sunrise and praise the name of God.

That you would watch the sun go down and worship the God that allowed it to go down, knowing

that in his faithfulness that sun would come up the next day and go down at the end of

the next day.

So that you would look in the sky at night and see the moon and the stars and realize

there is a God who knows the name of every one of these stars and he knows my name and

the number of hair on my head.

So that we would do that.

God put all that in the solar system around us.

It's really pretty powerful.

I came across a video of the solar system recently and I'm going to show it to you.

You really have to watch and focus on it because it is a four minute video cut down to about

two minutes and I'm going to describe it just a little bit to you as it starts.

But it is a camera moving outward, simulated of course at the speed of 186,000 miles a

second a light year.

It starts at the Great Lakes in the Northern Hemisphere moving outward at 186,000 miles

per second.

Now you watch for the moon and you'll see how fast this is moving.

When you see the moon, there it is.

It's moving quickly.

It moves there to the orbit of the sun and the moon around the stars, around the sun.

And then it goes to 10 hours out where you see the perspective.

10 hours out at 186,000 miles per second.

Then one day out, then one year out, then 10 years out, then 100,000 years out from

the earth.

It gets us even to the place where we can see and get past the Milky Way.

Keep watching this video and it takes you all the way out to a million light years away

from the earth past all known galaxies where you're seeing things that you never imagined

would be out there.

So far out that it's almost inconceivable.

Can you imagine 100 million light years or one million light years at 186,000 miles per

second past all known galaxies and you have a picture of what's simulated in front of

you there.

Listen, I look at the immensity of space and I watch videos like this pretty regularly.

In this series I have been mesmerized at every time at what you can see.

But when I see that, that I have only one real logical thought.

This is too big to happen accidentally.

It's too big to happen any other way.

Our logical mind tells us that this universe is bigger than any explanation that we can

come up with.

So big that at some point we should stop and realize that God is real, that he's placed

us on a unique planet and it shouts so loudly and so clearly of his presence that it's

undeniable.

And not only is it undeniable, it's undeniable every morning, every evening, every night,

every time you breathe the breath you are breathing the evidence of a living God who

created earth for you to be placed on it and for you to know him.

Isn't that an amazing thing that God is that big, that God is that huge.

Chuck Swindoll writing about an experience he had years ago said he was camping out in

the middle of nowhere, it was dark, and he went on to say he wanted to lay down and look

at the sky and he wanted to be mesmerized by what he saw.

Here's what he wrote, no words would actually frame the awesomeness of that moment.

I remember a statement that one of my mentors used to say, wonder is involuntary praise.

That night it happened to me.

What struck me deepest as I curled up in my sleeping bag was this, everything I have seen

belongs to this one galaxy and there are hundreds more beyond our own, maybe thousands, some

much larger than ours.

Astronomers are now convinced there are 20 galaxies within two and a half million light

years away and there may be a billion galaxies within the photographic range of a 200 inch

telescope on Mount Polomar.

Oh God, all by chance, whom are you kidding?

I honestly cannot think of a more erroneous illogical thought than that.

And then he says, the boggled mind leads to the bended knee.

I love that.

When something you see is too big for you to explain, bend your knee and say God thank

you that you're that big, that you're that amazing and that powerful to create something

that I can look at every single day.

You know I have a habit in my house when I get up early in the morning and I get up well

before the sun comes up, one of my favorite things to do is walk out into my driveway

and my driveway is behind a gated fence.

You really can't see if you're in the street that I'm standing in that driveway and I just

look up and I look at what stars I can see.

I look at the moon.

Later on I watch the sun come up and I just stand and marvel.

And when I am appropriately awed that I'm ready for my day.

I'm ready for my day because I have a different kind of perspective.

The day is not about me.

It's not about what I can do or think I can do, but the day is about serving that God

who is so big that he puts all that up there just so that I can have focus on him and attention

to him and so I can worship him.

That's what life really is supposed to be about.

That's why the foundational book of the Bible, the book of beginnings, the book of origins,

Genesis begins with this creation account so that we might come to know this God in

this way in a very, very first thought.

This is the God we serve.

Isn't he awesome?

Isn't it amazing?

So the universe was created for signs, signs of the God.

The second is signs of the extraordinary.

Think about this, the God who placed these stars in the sky and set them on their orbit

also controls these stars.

Now, it should stress your imagination a little bit that God can actually speak to a star

and it goes to where it needs to go.

But that's how he spoke it into existence.

So that's how you can speak it again to go where it needs to go.

You know, one of the most extraordinary events that has happened on the planet is when Jesus

Christ was born, God in the flesh.

Remember those wise men from the East who came looking for the star, the king born in

the East.

They looked for a star, didn't they?

As they looked to the star, there was a star over the manger in Bethlehem and it guided

those wise men to find Jesus.

Now, every Christmas I preach about Christmas things and I go through again reminding myself

of this star and reading all the explanations about how that star came to be.

And people say all the stars were just aligned on that particular day so that they all saw

that over the manger at Bethlehem.

But I don't believe that's what happened.

I believe God literally used the star in the same way he placed it in the first place.

He brought the star over the manger at Bethlehem to help people know the extraordinary was

taking place.

God used his star to tell people about his promise and the fulfillment of prophecy that

his son was going to come.

He was born in this particular place and that he would make it possible for those to see

the supernatural sign of this star and believe.

Men who came from the East would believe and they did.

God uses stars for the extraordinary but he'll also use stars for the future.

You know, when you keep reading your Bible, you're going to find another cataclysmic

major event that takes place when Christ returns.

How many of you believe Christ is coming back someday?

Say amen.

He's coming back.

Do you know one of the stars and the signs of his return is what he does with the sun

and the moon?

As a matter of fact, if you read Luke chapter 21, it tells us there will be signs in the

Luke 21 · chapter mention

sun and moon and stars.

In fact, the prophet Joel says the sun will grow dark and the moon will become like blood.

And the earth dismay among the nations will take place.

The perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the

expectation of the things which are coming upon the world.

Get this last line, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Now I know when we talk about Christ returning, sometimes people hear about some of these

different signs that may show us that Christ is about to return and they really don't believe

the signs.

But when the sun gets dark one day and the moon turns to blood, I believe you'll believe

that Christ is about to come back.

He's going to make that sign so evident, so powerful that there is no denying the fact

this is not an ordinary day.

Just like the day of creation wasn't an ordinary day.

Just like the day of the birth of Christ wasn't an ordinary day.

The day of his return will not be ordinary and the sign of the future is also in the

stars.

So the stars, the moon, the sun, they're all for signs but they're also for seasons.

Seasons.

You know here in Texas we have four seasons in the year.

I have to tell some people about that because they don't believe me.

But in verse 14 it says, for seasons.

Now I've calculated very carefully, not scientifically but carefully, how many weeks of each season

we have in Texas.

I've concluded that we have 43 weeks of summer, three weeks each of winter, fall and spring.

Am I right or am I not?

But you know we have seasons for a reason.

When God placed the sun, moon and the stars the way he did and allowed earth to orbit

around the sun the way he did, he set it up where there would be seasons by which we have

different rhythms of life that are absolutely necessary.

Let me read this to you.

As the earth spins on its axis producing night and day it also moves about the sun and in

an elliptical orbit that requires 364 and one quarter day to complete.

The axis is tilted with respect to its orbital plane which causes the seasons.

When the axis points to the sun it's summer for that hemisphere when it points away we

have winter.

Since the tilt is 23 and a half degrees, specifically the north pole, never points directly to the

sun.

It's a remarkable placement.

But I would say that placement is absolutely necessary for our way of life.

Now we know about this.

We know it's necessary for agricultural reasons, for food reasons, for migration purposes of

animals and fish and other wildlife.

The hibernation that takes place among animals is because of this.

We know that fur grows heavier in winter months.

We know that people grow heavier in winter months for a variety of reasons.

Another author said it like this, our seasons come because of the perfect tilt of our planet.

Were it tilted any more the swing in temperature would be far more and less tilt we would have

no seasons at all.

Scientists think another planet knocked into earth 4.5 billion years ago and that's why

it's tilted so perfectly.

And my own comment is I don't think so.

Winter protects much of the world's population from a long nasty list of tropical diseases.

Want to share your living space with malarial mosquitoes or T.C. flies?

I've experienced some mosquitoes in recent weeks that are on steroids.

I would not want them all year round.

I want the winter to come just because of what it does to mosquitoes.

But it's all perfectly balanced.

Really God has placed everything in perfect balance so that everything would work and

it has been for centuries.

The book of Genesis records this in Genesis chapter 8 verse 22.

Genesis 8:22

While the earth remains seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and

day and night shall not cease.

God said that all those years ago after the flood, nearly 6,000 years ago and my conclusion

is if I can count on that promise taking place every year as it has for these thousands of

years then it's reliable and God's word is true.

Even the seasons, God uses in a way that reminds us of his power and his ability.

You know balance happens when something is perfectly designed and perfectly created and

perfectly upheld.

Adding creation, everything works just like it's supposed to work.

The stars stay in their places.

The sun, moon and the earth perfectly synchronize.

The season works.

You know the only thing that doesn't work well and that's mankind.

We've said this before.

Everything responds to the creative word and power of God except us because we have a will

and we have our ways.

And the truth is if the stars and the solar system, the sun and everything God created

and put in the universe had the same will as we had it would be total, total collapse.

Everything would be running into everything else.

There would be explosions day in and day out.

The seasons would be out of whack.

It would be amazing.

They would be having life anywhere on any planet.

God did not give the rest of creation a will, just mankind.

That's why it's important for us to acknowledge who he is on a day by day basis.

So signs, seasons, number three, days and years, days and years.

Now you can read this as time, time.

God created time.

Here it is right here.

And because God created matter, because he created the sun, the moon and the stars, because

evening and morning were defined as we know the first days and continue to define as days,

evening and morning that we know we have time.

I want to remind you that because God is eternal, he exists outside the bounds of time.

Now we know that for a lot of reasons, but in the beginning before time, before creation,

in the beginning God was.

So he exists outside the boundaries of time, but you and I, we exist inside the boundaries

of time.

We are not eternal and we exist within those limitations.

Psalms 90 is one of the great Psalms in the Bible and it's called the prayer of Moses

and it speaks about time.

In fact, Psalms 90 speaks so much about time.

There's a wealth of lessons in it, but let me just share a few of those with you.

It tells us everything we need to know about time.

Psalms 90 verse one and two, for example, says this, Lord, you have been our dwelling

places in all generations before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth and

the world even from everlasting to everlasting.

You are God.

So the Psalm of Moses begins by saying, God, you're eternal.

Before time came along, you are God.

So we know this about God, he's eternal and he precedes time and creation.

He'll stand after it all ends.

That's what Psalms 90 says.

But second, it says that we're not infinite, that we are finite.

We're not eternal.

We're temporal.

And it's actually healthy for you and I to know you're not God, you're not eternal,

you're not infinite.

You have boundaries around the amount of time that you have on the earth as a reminder of

his bigness and our smallness.

The universe does that.

I look at the sun, moon, and the stars and I think, man, I'm small.

He's big.

I look at time and eternity and I think God is big and I am small.

Psalm 90 verse 10, as for the days of our lives, they contain 70 years or if due to

Psalms 90:10

strength 80 years, yet their pride is about labor and sorrow for soon it is gone and we

fly away.

You feel the limitations now?

You feel how God has confined us within time to just a short period of time?

Even though he's eternal, we are not.

And Psalm 90 also tells us that we should make our days count by learning from the one

who gave us life and days and years.

This is verse 12.

So teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.

Every time the sun rises then goes down, I'm reminded I've got one less day to live.

Every time it comes up and then goes down, I've got one more less day to live.

I'm limited, he is not.

It makes all the sense in the world for me with my limited time to look to him with his

unlimited time and ability to give me wisdom and to give me the light that I need for life.

You and I have a short period of time.

It matters how we live.

Count for something because it'll go very quickly.

How many of you have ever heard the term, the days are long but the years are short?

Would you raise your hand?

You believe that's true?

You know, when I was a kid, I thought the days were long and the years were long.

I really believe that.

I mean, it was going to be forever before I became a teenager as though that was some

great place to be.

And it was even longer forever until I got my driver's license.

Even longer it seemed until I graduated from my high school and was able to go to college.

Even longer until I got my college degree.

It seemed like a long time until I would get married.

A long time until I would have children.

And then all of a sudden things started getting shorter and quicker.

And I look back and I think where have the years gone?

I mean, the days may still be long sometimes, but the years are very, very short.

And then at some point in your life, you get past the first quarter or the second quarter

or the third quarter and you ask the question, where has life gone?

It's by design that you have a limited amount of time so that you would look at one who

is not limited at all for light in how to live while on this planet.

And that's the fourth reason that God put the luminaries in the sky for light.

For light.

Notice what it says there in verse 15, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the

heavens to give light on the earth.

And it was so.

Can you imagine a world with no lights at all?

Can you imagine a room with no light at all?

With nothing to light it up that's manmade or any otherwise?

Where you didn't know what was on the floor, on the walls around you.

You just shut the dark room and you have to navigate your way through that room.

Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine a dark world where you couldn't navigate anywhere to travel or to see each

other where you literally couldn't see the hand in front of your face?

What if we all had to make our own light?

It would be a rough world.

One of the things I've enjoyed doing over recent years is cycling, bicycling.

And especially because we have 43 weeks of summer in Texas, I like to ride my bike early

in the morning before the sun comes up.

But I will tell you today that if I had to ride my bike without any manmade light, I'd

be in trouble.

With the trails that you ride on with a bicycle or fast curving trails, you're going pretty

fast down that path and you never know what you're going to see.

I've seen a skunk.

I have seen what I consider the largest rat I've ever seen in my whole life.

I've seen all kinds of things in addition to the trees that I nearly miss and the little

breaks in the sidewalk that I would miss nearly if it weren't for light.

So I have a light on my bicycle and it helps give me a perspective of what I should not

run into as a bicyclist.

But once that sun comes up, that little light is not necessary anymore and it's not comprehensive

enough to compare with the real light.

When the sun comes up, I see everything.

I see every tree, every animal.

I see every crack in the sidewalk.

I can see everything because God's light is always sufficient to guide us through everything

that we need on the planet.

Now listen, I love light.

I love the light of the sun.

I love the light that God has placed in front of us and he gives us this light, this amazing

light, this powerful light from all these luminaries and with it he makes a grand statement.

Here's the statement, God is the source of light.

He's the source.

You're going to be living in darkness without the light that God gives us and I do not just

mean physically in the dark.

You know, it was ancient civilizations, pagan civilizations that sometimes worship the sun,

the moon, and the stars and some of them still do.

They were so impressed by what they saw.

But we should look at the stars and the sun and the moon and be on them because God puts

them there and we should look at the God who made them there.

He's the true light and he gives light to those who want the light.

You know, one of the disciples of Jesus, his name is John, he wrote the Gospel of John,

also wrote the epistles of John, three letters, pastoral letters of John.

And here's what he said in 1 John chapter one verse five.

He said, this is the message that we have heard from him and announced to you.

He says, God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

God is light.

In him is no darkness at all.

One of the darkest places in the world, physically and spiritually, is a place called India.

I've been many times.

At night, India is truly dark, physically speaking.

There's just no light anywhere in the cities and the villages that I've gone to.

It's dark physically, but it's also dark spiritually.

If you're in India, for any amount of time, you know that many are searching for answers

and they're really hungry for light.

But some of those that would point them in certain directions, religiously, don't really

have light.

And the Indian people really want light from God.

They want life about life.

They want light about the future.

They want light about salvation.

I remember being gathered in a Colosseum type event years ago and there were very few lights

in the city that were on that night, but there was a pretty broadly lit stage.

I could barely see the people that I was preaching to.

About 20,000 people had gathered.

I remember being led to go to John chapter one and verses one through nine.

I'm going to read to you what I read to them that night and saw an amazing response from

people who were hungry for light.

Here's what it says.

Then the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through Him and apart from Him, nothing came into being that

has come into being.

In Him was life and the life was the light of men.

And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There came a man sent from God whose name was John, referring to John the Baptist.

He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through Him.

He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

And then he says there was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every

man.

You know who that refers to of course is Jesus Christ.

John 14 and John 118 it says, and we beheld as glory, glory as of the only begotten of

the Father full of grace and truth.

God sent His light through Jesus Christ.

Greater than the sun, greater than the moon, greater than the solar systems of Milky Way

or anything else is this God in the flesh, Jesus Christ.

Desperate people need to find the light of Jesus Christ.

So as you consider the earth that you stand on, as you look at the sky and the solar system

of the world you live in, as you think about the light that God places in the heavens the

way He has placed in the heaven, just remember He's the source of it all.

And He's doing that so that light can point to Him so that you can have light, light to

live life, the life you need, the light you need.

So you can have light about your life, about your relationships, about your family, about

your vocation, your friends, your choices.

So you can have light about the future.

So you can have light about salvation, light about eternity, light about when He's coming

by all the light.

Since God is the source of light, all the light that we need comes from Him, there's

nowhere else.

In John chapter 8 verse 12 we read this, I am the light, Jesus said, of the world.

John 8:12

He who follows me will not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.

Man, don't you just want the light of life in your life today?

He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

I want you to have the light of life today.

Christ wants you to have the light of life today.

God, who created the heavens and the earth and the light that you see wants you to have

the light of life, more important than the sun, the moon, the stars, is the light of

life.

In just a few moments I'm going to lead you into prayer, I want to encourage you.

If you're not sure that you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, to be sure today,

don't leave without making that decision.

We have decision stations that are placed conveniently for you that at the conclusion

of our service you can stop by and talk to someone.

So I encourage you to do that today.

Ask any question you want to ask, they're ready to try to answer those questions for

you with the Bible.

They're ready to help you see how Jesus can be the light of your life and the salvation

of your life.

After our service we have a guest reception center that's open.

I would love to visit with you there if you're a guest today.

Drop by and see me.

It will be really important for you also to know this.

Invite others to come with you next week as we continue to look at God's creation, day

five, then day six, then day seven, where God reveals more and more about himself and

his plan for us.

Would you stand with me as I pray?

Father today I'm so thankful for your word, so thankful that you reveal so much about

yourself in every day of creation, every verse of the scripture, and we learn about you.

Thank you that you're eternal, you're timeless, you're powerful, you're authoritative, you

have a design in mind.

Thank you that you know us and you love us.

Father today my prayer is that not one person will leave this room today without coming

to know you personally.

But I want them to have a relationship with you, and I know you desire that.

So Father today I pray that each person will have the boldness and the courage to take

that step of faith and place their trust and confidence in you.

Thank you Father.

In Jesus' name, Amen.