Astronomical Grace

I want to welcome you to Venture Church Sunday after Easter.

Thank you guys for being here. If you're here for

the first time, I've never met you before. I'm Brandon,

I'm the lead pastor of the church. Thanks for coming

and checking out Venture today.

I'd love to meet you.

I'll hang out in the lobby after the service and

if you want to come up, introduce yourself to me.

I'd love to be able to shake your hand, be

able to see who you are. I do want to

thank everybody that was involved with Easter.

It was amazing.

Across all of our campuses during Easter week, over fifty

six hundred people come on pretty amazing. Three hundred people

made decisions to follow Jesus.

So that's why we do what we do.

And it took hundreds of volunteers to pull off everything

that happened this past week. And I just want to

thank you for your faithful service. And as a way

to say thank you, we're giving you all a free shirt.

That's all you have to do.

And we know that free shirts get people to do

anything because I've seen it at sporting events. By your heads,

close your eyes. I want everyone to repeat this prayer.

After me, everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to my heart,

change my life in Jesus' name.

Amen.

This morning, I would like to attempt to describe to

you how incredible God is. It's incredibly difficult task, though,

because frankly, God is indescribable. I think one of the

ways that you can truly understand how awesome, amazing, incredible

God is is to go outside at night, not between

the months of November to March in Seattle, but like

when you can see the stars in the sky, look

up and see all those stars, and you get a

slight glimpse of how indescribable God is. In Psalms nineteen,

the Bible says that the heavens declare His glory if

you see all the stars in the sky. No, they

aren't just saying twinkle, twinkle, little star, they.

Are shouting down. God is amazing.

He is indescribable, he is incredible. He's bigger than anything

you've ever dreamed of. He's larger than anything you've ever imagined.

And all you have to do is look up. The

heavens declare his glory. The skies proclaim the work of

God's hands. I hope today you learn this that God

is so big. No matter what you're dealing with, what

you're facing, you can't ever count God out. He's huge,

He's enormous. He's greater than any thought that you've ever

had about him. And the stars are a billboard every

single day reminding us that God is spectacular, he is indescribable.

We just finished a series through the book of Genesis,

and it began with Genesis one, one that says in

the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And

there's some people who prescribe to a big bang theory.

Now I believe that God spoke everything into existence, but

I think it was probably a pretty big bang when

God spoke it into existence.

God said, let there be light, and there was light.

And when God asks, God gets he wanted light. God

got light, and boom, the universe came into existence.

And this universe Church, it's massive.

We don't even know how big the universe is, so

scientists referred to it as the known universe. In other words,

we haven't built a telescope large enough for us to

determine how big this universe that God created is. And

every time we build a bigger telescope. We're wowed once

again because the universe is larger than we.

Had thought before.

And every time we build a bigger telescope, we find

more amazing stuff that we had never seen before. And

I always get this picture that God is up there

in heaven and he is laughing at us. He's saying,

come on, build something bigger, build something better. I got

more stuff that I want to blow your mind with.

Hurry up, build it faster. I've got things that will

shock you. And scientists they're stumped. Their greatest dilemma is

they believe there has to be other inhabited planets. And

they believe this because the universe is way too.

Massive to just be a habitation for you and I.

Right on, it's way too big to just be a

home for us. But what if the primary purpose of

the universe isn't to be a habitation place for us,

but instead to display and show off the beauty, the splendor,

and the magnificence of the God who created it all.

If that is the case, the universe isn't too big.

When God said let there be light, in light came

out of the mouth of God. I've heard some people

say I would love to be there when God created everything,

like I would love to be able to hop in

a time machine go back in time and be able.

To watch the creation.

And in fact, I'm sure some of you have said

that before, but I gotta be honest, there's no way

I'd want to be there because when God said, let

there be light, and he opened his mouth, light came

flying out of his mouth at the speed of one

hundred and eighty six thousand miles a second. That's the

speed of light. Light travels at one hundred and eighty

six thousand in miles a second. Ladies, you were trying

to get your husband to slow down as he was

rushing down thirty fifth to get you to church on

time to get a parking spot. Light travels way faster

than he did. We wouldn't have wanted to be there

when light shot out of the mouth of God, a

blazing glory like nothing that we've ever seen before. But

when God said it, the universe lit up. Psalms thirty

three said, by the word of God, the heavens were

made the starry host by the breath of his mouth.

I think it's important for you, and I'm taking you

back to like high school astronomy. I think it's important

to remember that you and I live in a very

small suburb of this universe called the Milky Way Galaxy.

Some of you are like, hold On Brandon, I live

in Seattle, thought I lived in Everett. Now you and

I live in the Milky Way galaxy. It's our subdivision

in the universe, which is a very big universe that

we have to use something called a light year to

travel around in. A light year is how fast light

travels in a year.

I already told you.

That light travels at a speed of one hundred and

eighty six thousand miles a second. In other words, light

circles the entire Earth every second. A light year travels

five point eight eight trillion miles. A light year is

five point eight eight trillion miles. That is the main

measurement you have to use to get around this universe.

That God created. That's how big it is.

If you wanted to measure it, you'd need a ruler,

a tape measure that was five point eight eight trillion

miles long, just to begin to measure this universe.

That God created.

So here's a picture of our subdivision, the Milky Way galaxy,

and now stay seated.

There. It is.

That is our subdivision, which is one of scientists think

possibly of billions of other subdivisions. Did you know that

our particular galaxy is made up of billions of stars?

Some scientists believe there's over five one hundred billion stars

just in our galaxy alone, and there's billions of other galaxies.

They zeroed in on one of those stars. This was

a picture taken by doctor David Block. Go ahead to

the next picture. Did you already do it all right?

I can't pay attention.

Uh.

This was a picture of a uh star forming region.

Did you know that if you tried to count all

the stars in this subdivision one at a time, one

per second, let's starve here on the left, one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

cried I miss when I gotta start again? One two

three That they say, if you try to count every

one of the star ours just in our galaxy alone,

one per second, it would take you twenty five hundred

years to count all the stars just in our galaxy.

The prophet Isaiah said, to whom can you compare God?

Who is God's equal?

Lift your eyes up, look to the heavens, who created

all these, who brings out the starry host one by

one and calls each one of them by name. Because

of his great power and might, not one of them

is missing.

Church.

You and I need to right size God in our minds.

In other words, God is not your size. He does

not have a brain like you have. He doesn't think

the way that you think. He is working on a

canvas that is so much larger than anything you and

I have ever dreamed or imagined.

God is bigger.

Than anything you and I have ever seen or we'll

see in our lifetime. He is huge, and the heavens

are shouting at us something else. Just as God is

bigger than anything you and I have ever imagined, you

and I are really, really.

Really small.

Here is a composite shot of our subdivision. They went

back took the best picture they could take. This is

a shot of the Milky Way galaxy.

Here it is.

God about as far out as they could get and

took a picture of it. You're probably wondering where we are.

I don't see myself here. You probably think we are

right here. We're actually not. We are way over here

that there isn't our our planet is so small you

can't see it in this galaxy.

This picture was.

Developed by combining one thousand different photographs, and it's because

we haven't managed to get out far enough so that

we can take a broad enough, clear enough picture. But

this is what NASA believes that it looks like. It's

called a spiral galaxy, and it is one hundred thousand

light years across. If you want to go from there

and visit your neighbors on the other side of your galaxy,

you just have to travel at one hundred and eighty

six thousand miles per second for one hundred thousand year

years to get from here to here. Scientists describe it

this way that our solar system is the size of

a quarter and the Milky Way galaxy is the size

of the North American content continent. Interestingly, way over there,

in that small galaxy that we can't see of ours,

somewhere in there is a star, not the biggest star,

not the brightest star, but it is our sun. Show

the picture, that's our home. If you look close, that's

you and me. This particular image is from Apollo seventeen.

If you look you can see kind of a whisk

of clouds over the continent of Africa. You look up,

you can see Asia, a little bit of Europe, you

can see Australia.

Here's the amazing.

Thing is when you see this picture, you don't see countries.

You don't see cities, you don't see people. You don't

see the great need, You don't see the poverty, the strife.

The pain.

You don't see the success. You don't see the glory.

You don't see the glamour. You don't see anyone's yard,

you don't see anybody's car. But if you step back,

you get this feeling that you and I aren't so

big after all. But the one who made this world

he's got to be he's got.

To be huge.

It's almost like we have been lied to and trip

that we have been convinced that we are personally more

important than we thought we were, that maybe our lives

aren't quite as grand as we made them out to be.

Neil Armstrong, who was the first man that walked on

the moon, said this. He said, I remember, on my

way home on Apollo eleven, it suddenly struck.

Me that tiny pea pretty in blue, was the Earth.

He said.

I put up my thumb and I shut one eye

and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth, he said.

But I didn't feel like a giant, he said, in

that moment.

I felt very very small.

Psalms eight said, when I consider your heavens, the work

of your fingers, the moon, the stars which you set

in place. What is man that you are mindful of him?

The sun of Man that you care for him. In

nineteen seventy seven, we launched the spacecraft called Voyager, and

its mission was to periodically turn around and take pictures

of our Solar system and the planets.

And it was thirteen years later.

On Valentine's Day of nineteen ninety nine, nineteen ninety that

scientists sent a messenger to Voyager saying, before you go

any further, will you turn around and take a panoramic

snapshot of the planets that you visited, specifically planet Earth. Now,

at this point, Voyager is three point seven billion miles

from Earth. It is traveling at the speed of forty

thousand miles an hour away from us, and it turns

around and it takes a series of.

Snapshots like is that what the picture sounds like? Whatever?

You know? Click, click, click, It can't get one wide

angle shot. So it takes the succession of sixty photographs

and it starts sending these images back to Earth. Each

image has six hundred and forty thousand pixels.

What is a pixel?

When you look at a picture and you see that

little dot, that is a pixel from three point seven

billion miles away. Voyager sends these images back to Earth.

One pixel at a time.

Each pixel takes five and a half hours to reach Earth.

Stop complaining about your Internet problems. It takes months for

all of these images to come back, and when it

finally does, it stuns astronomy. And this is a very

famous picture. It's called the pale blue dot.

Here it is.

That's it, that's us right there, and it just happened

to be caught in a ray of sunlight. When astronomer

saw this, one of them made this statement. He said,

everyone who's ever lived their lives lived them out on

that tiny pale blue dot that he called a mode

of dust suspended in a sunbeam. When I first saw this,

I had a shrinking feeling come over me. It was

a realization that my life was just a tiny blip

on the radar of history, that I have a very

small life. Some of you are thinking pb you aren't

being very encouraging. You're making me feel very small. I'm

not trying to make you feel small. I'm trying to

tell you that you are small.

But here is what is amazing to me.

As small as you and I are, we are prized

and known by Majesty.

He loves us.

He knows us, even though we are these teeny tiny

people who live on a little spec that's floating through

this vast cosmos that he's made. He knows the name

of every star as he called them into being. He

knows everyone that's here this morning. The creator of the

universe can call every single person in this building by name.

He knows you, and he loves you, and he is

inviting you into a relationship with him.

It is amazing when you think.

Of how massive God is that he wants to know me.

Let me take you on a journey outward. Let's go

ninety three million miles from that pale blue dot to

our nearest star, the sun, living in Seattle. If you

forgot what that looks like, there's what it looks like.

This is a raging ball of fire. Your kids and

the Kids Ministry will draw a picture of the Sun

and it'll have a smiley face with you know, looks

all sweet.

Is not like that.

This is ten thousand degrees fahrenheit on the surface. It

is a raging intensity of heat. It is billions of

nuclear bombs going off at the same time.

It is so strong that it is.

Sending light out at one hundred and eighty six thousand

miles per second. And it only takes eight minutes to

go the ninety three million mile journey from the Sun

to our skin.

And it came out of the mouth of God. He

spoke it into existence.

By the way, this isn't some wimpy, passive God. He's ferocious,

he is intense, he's powerful, he's mighty.

He opens his mouth and outcomes that.

The Sun is one hundred times the diameter of Earth.

Here's a picture of the Sun on Earth. There's the

Sun and there's us right there. You can go to

sleep thanking God that it's ninety three million miles away.

But that Sun is just one of a billion stars

in our subdivision, the Milky Way galaxy, which is one

subdivision among billions of subdivisions in the known universe.

Church God is big, He's huge, all right.

Let's pull out our five point eight eight million light

year tape measure. Let's go out four hundred and forty

light years out and we come to this constellation.

Pretty cool.

It's called the Plightiest constellation. It's actually mentioned in scripture.

Job is having this conversation with God and God is

trying to describe to Job how big he is and

how small Job is. And it says this, Job, can

you hold the plighty's in your hand? Job is like no,

and God says I can't. Scripture says that God can

measure the entire universe in the span of his hand,

the entire universe. All right, let's keep going out. Let's

go one thousand light years from Earth. This is called

the Vella pulsar.

What is a pulsar? Honestly, I don't have a clue,

but here's the definition.

It's when a star explodes into a super nova, it

collapses back on itself into a magnetic intensity.

So this is a highly.

Magnetized I can't even say it, neutron star. And it's

oscillating at eleven times per second in the center.

And this is huge. When they first discovered this.

They aimed a radio telescope in it to see if

there were other people out there living there, and this

is the sound they got back. Listen.

It does this all day and all night. I like

to think that what you're listening to this is Morse

code saying God's big. He is really, really, really big.

He's a whole lot bigger than you ever imagine. Scripture

tells us that all of creation is worshiping God.

What does the vella pulsar doing making that little.

Noise, It's worshiping God. Let's jump eight thousand light years

out and we come to the hourglass nebula.

I think this thing's cool.

I like it because it reminds me that God is

watching me. Because it looks like an eyeball, it's actually

a dying star that's emitting tons of gases that are

cooling and creating.

This beautiful image.

Some of you, you're getting Guardians of the Galaxy flashbacks.

Now let's go a little bit further out. This is

called the helix nebula.

Further out, this is called the Stardust ring.

I want to take a massive leap out eight thousand

light years from Earth. Let's go twenty eight million light

years away. Twenty eight millions times five point eight eight

trillion miles.

You can do the math at home.

This is called the Sombrero galaxy.

It's one of the beauties of our universe.

It looks like kind of one of those giant frisbees

with the hole in the middle.

It's fifty thousand light.

Years wide, it's trillions of miles thick, and it sits

in space just above the elliptical plane. So you and

I from Earth are looking just above the edge of it.

We're actually looking six degrees above it. You should see

that and think, what the heck is it doing up there.

It's just glorifying God.

It's just showing off the greatness, the majesty of God.

It's just reflecting back to.

Him his glory right now, reminding us how amazing he is.

Let's go twenty eight million light years out. Let's oh,

that's twenty eight million. Let's go thirty one million light

years out and we get to the Whirlpool galaxy. They

call it the whirlpool galaxy because it looks like it's

could suck us in, and interestingly, it sits in space

face to face with Earth. It's called a Grand Design galaxy.

It's made up of a hundreds of billions of stars.

For a while, see that little blob right up there,

that's called NGC five one. They thought for years that

this galaxy was actually sucking in that blob. But after

studying it for years, they realized that they're actually millions

of miles apart, and at some point they're just going

to pass each other in space.

God is big.

He is so much bigger than you've ever thought of him. Church,

let me take you even further out.

I want us to go way, way, way out.

I can't even describe it with my own words.

You just have to see it. He made everything you've

seen today.

Scripture tells us that through Jesus, God made the world,

that he created all things, things in heaven, things on earth.

It's amazing because the creator of it all came to

the pale blue dot. The maker of the whole universe

is hanging on a cross that he himself created. Philippians

Paul made this statement. He said, Jesus, being in the

very nature God, did not consider equality with God something

to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very

nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, being

found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and

became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Written

thousand years before this moment, the Psalmist in Psalms one O.

Three said, the Lord is gracious.

And compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. He does

not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us

according to our iniquities. In other words, we don't get

what we deserve. We don't get what our rebellious hearts

have earned. Listen to what we get. For as high

as the heavens are above the earth, we don't even

know how high they are. We don't have a tape

measure big enough to measure it. So great is his

love for us. And then it says, as far as

the east is from the west, so far he has

removed our transgressions from us. I don't know about you,

but I just realized that it's pretty amazing that long

before I made a mess out of my life, Jesus.

Was willing to do this for me.

Romans eight one says that there is no condemnation for

those that are in.

Christ Jesus Church. That is astronomical grace.

I want to go back to that picture of the

Worldpool galaxy. Remember this is thirty one million light years away.

The Hubble telescope, which can see what we can't. They

pointed it straight into the middle of the Whirlpool galaxy

and from thirty one million light years away, this is

what NASA received.

Deep in the core of the Worldpool.

Galaxy, we get this image. It's called the X structure

in the core of the Whorldpool galaxy. Maybe it's because

I'm a preacher, but that looks like a cross, and

it reminds me. Jesus Christ, the Lamb who is slain,

is the foundation of the universe. Jesus is everywhere Church,

Grace is everywhere. Mercy can be found where you least expect.

It the whole time.

For hundreds of years, God has been laughing, thinking, are

you ever gonna point that telescope in the right direction?

Check this out.

It is me, It is grace, it is kindness, it

is forgiveness. Everywhere you look, God is reminding us that

He loves us. What is astronomical grace. It's long before

you decided what you were going to do with God,

he had already decided what he was going to do

for you. I want the lights are gonna pop back up.

I want to ask everyone to close your eyes. I

just have a simple question, the God who created this universe,

that loves you and knows you. If you're here and

you don't have a relationship with him, but you want to,

you're saying, Pastor Brandon, today is the day I want

to commit my life to Jesus. What I'm gonna do

is I'm gonna count to three, and when I say three,

I want you to raise your hand.

I also know that there's probably some of you.

You've gone to church, you've prayed prayers, but if you

were to be completely honest, you'd have to admit that

you are far from God. But if today you want

to say, Brandon, I want to leave this place knowing

I am right with Jesus.

When I say three, I want you to raise your hand.

So here I go. One, two, raise your hand.

Now three hands up all over us.

You can put them down, but everybody stand up on

your feet.

I want to invite everyone that's here to pray this

prayer with me, but specifically for those of you that

raised your hand. If you pray this prayer and you

mean this prayer, you leave this place knowing your sins

are forgiven and your future is heaven.

You are right with Jesus.

And I ask everyone to pray this prayer because I

want those that raise their hand to know you're not alone,

that we are family and we do family things together.

So when everyone closed their eyes, repeat this prayer after me.

Everyone say, Dear Jesus, I stand before you today, and

I admit I'm not perfect. But today I ask you

to forgive me, and I invite you to come into

my life and to change me. I choose from this

day forward to serve you with my life. Thank you

for forgiving me and for saving me. In Jesus' name.

Amen,