Transcription
You know, I edit up some stuff. Oh, you have to stop talking. It's kind of cool. I like, like to hear the fellowship, man.
Um, one thing that I was thinking about a lot—I think I talked to you about it, uh, Chris—was, um, how the spiritual things or the things of God we seem to keep up in the air, like in the… it's untouchable; it's ghostly type stuff. So we talk about spiritual things; we always talk about it like it's some… the word is ethereal, but something like you can't really grasp it. As always, you got to be meditating and floating on air and and and, you know, on top of a mountain listening to the whispers of the flowers and and things like that—just silly stuff like that.
But one, I, one thing I realized I want to, I want to talk to you about, uh, you guys about, for the next three weeks we're going to be talking about this: how earthy our theology is, how grounded in reality the word of God is, um, and the first thing we're talking about, we're going back to the beginning of everything: Genesis 1 verse 1. Genesis 1 verse 1, and it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. Since God is not a liar or author—the author of confusion, like um, 1 Corinthians 14:33 says—you should see order in the world. Things should make sense; things should stack up on each other in a way that, that causes that shows that there is a Creator and there, there is a designer. Since God is not an author of confusion, there should be sense to the world, correct? Everything should, everything should make sense; that the, the way that things are put together—our, our genetic material or DNA or bone structure and all that stuff—should all make sense to point to the fact that there is a Creator. Everything should be fine-tuned and perfectly in balance.
So I want you to watch this video. From galaxies and stars down to atoms and subatomic particles, the very structure of our universe is determined by these numbers. These are the fundamental constants and quantities of the universe. Scientists have come to the shocking realization that each of these numbers has been carefully dialed to an astonishingly precise value, a value that falls within an exceedingly narrow life-permitting range. If any one of these numbers were altered by even a hair's breath, no physical interactive life of any kind could exist anywhere. There'd be no stars, no life, no planets, no chemistry. Consider gravity, for example. The force of gravity is determined by the gravitational constant. If this constant varied by just 1 in 10 to the 60th parts, none of us would exist to understand how exceedingly narrow this life-permitting range is. Imagine a dial divided into 10 to the 60th increments. To get a handle on how many tiny points on the dial this is, compare it to the number of cells in your body or the number of seconds that have ticked by since time began. If the gravitational constant had been out of tune by just one of these infinitesimally small increments, the universe would either have expanded and thinned out so rapidly that no stars could form and life couldn't exist, or it would have collapsed back on itself with the same result: no stars, no planets, and no life. Or consider the expansion rate of the universe. This is driven by the cosmological constant. A change in its value by a mere one part in 10 to the 120th parts would cause the universe to expand too rapidly or too slowly; in either case, the universe would again be life-prohibiting. Or another example of fine-tuning: if the mass and energy of the early universe were not evenly distributed to an incomprehensible precision of one part in 10 to the 10 to the 123rd, the universe would be hostile to life of any kind, kind. The fact is, our universe permits physical interactive life only because these and many other numbers have been independently and exquisitely balanced on a razor's edge. Wherever physicists look, they see examples of fine-tuning. The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he's hiding his head in the sand. These special features are surprising and unlikely. What is the best explanation for this astounding phenomenon? There are three live options: the fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. Which of these options is the most plausible? According to this alternative, the universe must be life-permitting; the precise values of these constants and quantities could not be otherwise. But is this plausible? Is a life-prohibiting universe impossible? Far from it; it's not only possible, it's far more likely than a life-permitting universe. The constants and quantities are not determined by the laws of nature; there's no reason or evidence suggests that fine-tuning is necessary. How about chance? Did we just get really, really, really, really lucky? No. The probabilities involved are so ridiculously remote as to put the fine-tuning well beyond the reach of chance. So, in an effort to keep this option alive, some have gone beyond empirical science and opted for a more speculative approach known as the Multiverse. They imagine a universe generator that cranks out such a vast number of universes that odds are life-permitting universes will eventually pop out. However, there's no scientific evidence for the existence of this Multiverse. It cannot be detected, observed, measured, or proved, and the universe generator itself would require an enormous amount of fine-tuning. Furthermore, small patches of order are far more probable than big ones, so the most probable observable universe would be a small one inhabited by a single simple observer. But what we actually observe is the very thing that we should least expect: a vast, spectacularly complex, highly ordered universe inhabited by billions of other observers. So even if the Multiverse existed, which is a moot point, it wouldn't do anything to explain the fine-tuning. Given the implausibility of physical necessity or chance, the best explanation for why the universe is fine-tuned for life may very well be: it was designed that way. [Music]
A common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect monkeyed with physics and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. There is, for me, powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” [Music]
So you see that even scientists can't figure out or can't comprehend the fine-tuning of the universe. Actually, it makes people that are go, are going against God stumble a lot because they can't explain how, by chance, a random thing—that if we were two inches closer to the sun we will burn up, or if we were two inches away from the sun the whole planet will freeze—they can't, they can't explain that. The fine-tuning of the universe has been a thorn in the side of those who suppress the truth, um, that God created in the beginning; that God is the being that created the heavens and earth in, in the beginning. You have people that want to suppress that truth. So have you noticed anything about that Multiverse thing, like Multiverse? They, they put it in the comics and our TV shows and stuff like that, so it's easier for us to accept the nonsense. So if you have multiple universes, that could be an infinite amount of people, infinite amount of things, things that you can, you can excuse God, but they start with putting it in little entertainment so you get entertained by that idea, right?
Um, the reason why people do this and the reason why I want us to think about the, the, the earthiness of God's word and the how it is real—it's not just in the air, it's not just wispy, it's not just—but it's real, physical, dirty, earthy—that's the only way I can put it—is like hardworking, sweat-brow type stuff—is because the world is trying to… they don't, because they don't want to be held accountable. Because people don't want to be held accountable to what God says, they make up fantasies; they make up different ideas. The theory of evolution is a fantasy that people came from monkeys, or dinosaurs are birds, or they now they say dinosaurs are chickens and chickens are descendants of dinos. I still don't understand how you get a lizard to something delicious on my plate, but you know, I, I haven't seen that yet. I, I don't, I don't get it. I don't get it. But it's because they don't want to be held accountable for their actions.
Now, Stephen Hawking, um, he, he says, um, “If the overall density of the universe were changed by 0.00000000000000000000001%, no stars and galaxies will be formed.” The rate of expansion one second after the big bang, which we don't believe in, uh, had, had been smaller by even one part of a hundredth of a thousandth of a million millionth, the galaxy, I mean the universe would have recollapsed before it reached its present size. They can't explain the fine-tuning of the universe; they can't explain how powerful our God is to make things to the point where humans can flourish, animals can flourish, the planets align. If you think about it, even if you look at the, the, the how neutrons and protons act in our bodies, even that rotates in and, um, not rotates, uh, orbits around itself; the atoms orbit around like planets orbit around the sun. It, it, it's amazing how things work. And here's another atheist that says it will be, uh, at the same, it would be some early time where somewhere in the universe a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian, um, means—a very, very, very high level of technology. So he's saying there was a civilization beforehand that had really good technology, which is goofy anyway, a, and designed and formed life that they seeded into perhaps this planet. So some civilization over here, alien civilization, made the Earth and seeded the Earth over here. This is goofy stuff. Um, “I suppose it is possible that you might find evidence, uh, for, for that if you looking at the details of biochemistry, nuclear biology, I mean molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.” Richard Dawkins is the atheist, uh, one of the, one of the new, the neo-atheists that go against, debate Christians all the time and things like that. He's trying to find a planet somewhere that has aliens that has some good technology, um, had some good iPhones—the iPhone 37s, uh, with the 3D cameras and all that—some aliens that had all that. He's trying to find them, and maybe they are the ones that created the Earth. Anything, anything except God, anything except God.
But since God has fine, so fine-tuned this world that if it was off by a hair—a human hair—we will all not exist, and since he knows all, what does that mean for us? What does that mean for us as Christians living in this world? Wouldn't it be better or more beneficial for us—would it be better and more beneficial for us—to listen to the designer about how we should act and live? Listen to the designer: God's design for men and boys—God's design for them to be strong and and them to be protectors and them to, to work with their hands and them to, to be wise and all those things. God designed for women and girls—God designed for them to be nurturers and God designed for them to be, uh, feminine strong—there, there’s feminine strong femininity. There’s God’s design for that. But the world is doing the opposite. The world wants little boys to act like little girls; little girls to act like little boys. The world wants, um, men to, to act like women; women to act like men. The world wants everything topsy-turvy and and twisted because they don't want to acknowledge the designer; they don't want to acknowledge, “In the beginning God created the Heaven and Earth.” They don't want to acknowledge that God's design for marriage: one woman, one man, one woman for life and creating a family and and growing together and sanctification, uh, buffing up against each other, having arguments and growing and all that—that's God's design for marriage. God's design for family: that the husband and the wife are—the husband's the head; the wife is is the help meet and the, the CEO, CFO of the household and and all that other stuff like—and they work together to grow godly offspring, not just offspring. Not—you can have 20 kids and that doesn't mean your quiver's full. If you have two kids, one kid, and your, and that means your quiver's full, that means your, your arrows can work, but it makes no difference if you have—I heard this earlier this week—it makes no difference if you have 20 kids and all the arrows are broken and bent. God, God wants godly offspring; he wants your children and your children's children to know about the Lord. So wouldn't it behoove us—wouldn't it be better for us—just to follow the way God designed things? Follow the way God… if the Earth, if the world, if our universe is so fine-tuned that if it was off a hair this way or that way, then the world wouldn't exist or the world would collapse on itself and wouldn't exist, wouldn't it be the same to understand that if we follow the word of God and what he says that our life will, in our life lines up in righteousness the way he wants it to line up; that the blessings of the word, the blessing of the Lord, the, the peace that surpasses our understanding will be ours; will be—we will live in the way God promised us to live. But if we go the opposite direction, there's destruction; there's nothing there; there's emptiness, right? There's destruction; there's emptiness; there's, there's life or death. So if you, if you, if we're following the, “In the beginning God created,” and all, all, all I want to say today and and as we speak, I want y'all to think about this week is: if God, since God created all things, how shall we live? How should we live then? Where do we get our advice from? Does our advice line up with the things that we get? Does it line up with the way the word of God says we should live? And if it's not, can we get that way? Because he's a designer of all things; he put things perfectly in balance, so it would be beneficial for us to do things his way. I would not use a Spider-Man toy to unclog a toilet because that's not what it's designed for, right? You would not use a scrunchie to tie down lumber from, from, from Home Depot or anything like that because that's not what the scrunchie is made for; it's made to tie down hair, not tie down 2x4s. You don't use things the way… God doesn't design it. People don't wear their shoes on their hands for a reason because that's not the way the designer designed it, right? Well, it's the same thing with us. We have to use our bodies, use our talents, use our gifts, use, um, our voices, use our everything—mind, body, and spirit, all that stuff—all your strength, all your might; we have to use all those things the way God's designed it because you can see in the world when it's not done the way God designed it, there's chaos. If, if the relationship between man and woman is not done the way God designed, then you have fatherless homes; you have baby mama drama. If the way God designed family is not done, then you have chaos in the home where you have children being rebellious and you have a, a wife that feels unprotected and a husband that feels unlistened to and unrespected or disrespected. You have all these things if you're not doing things the way God designed them. We, it would be weird for us to buy something from Ikea and we got to build it all up and we just throw away the, the instructions and look at and be like, “It's supposed to be a desk, but I think I can ride this like a bike.” But what—you bought a desk; you went to buy a desk; you went to purchase this desk, but, “You know, I can make a paper airplane out of this, out of the desk—a paper airplane.” Oh, that's just silly; there's no way. But because we are humans, we have a tendency to think that way—that the way God designed us, we can, we can say, “Okay, I think I was…” You hear this a lot: “I was born in a different body; I think I'm supposed to do this; I think I'm supposed to do that,” without looking at the manual at all; they just throw it away. Forget God designed everything; “I'm my own God; I can do what I want.” And let me, let me take this box that I know was made to be a desk, let me try to build a garbage disposal out of it because it really feel like this could be a garbage disposal. You can see there's a little piece of metal right here that can, I can see it grinding; I can see it in the sink; I can feel it. Let me, let me build something out of this. But no, “In the beginning God created the Heaven and Earth.” In the beginning, when he spoke these things into the existence that didn't exist before, he made it so perfect, so aligned, so fine-tuned that life, life can be a part of it; life can be a part of it. That means doing things God's way is life. He came to give you life and that more abundantly; that's life. Doing things God's way; doing things your own way, the way you think, the way the, the world, uh, standards trying to, uh, make you feel and think and the perverted way Satan tries to talk to you; doing things that way will lead to death because it's out of alignment; it's out of alignment with the way God designed things. So his design for males and his design for females, he designed for marriage, he designed for family, he designed for salvation.
I was having a discussion, um, at work during a meeting time, and we, he was—we're talking about, um, someone was talking about how it's only a little bit of people that can be saved, a little bit, a small group. I was like, “No, that's not true,” because in, in Revelation talks about there's a, a multitude of people that cannot be numbered and things like that. It's the narrow way; it does not mean it's three, four people that can be saved. The narrow way means that's only one way to go through; you have to go through the door. The door is Jesus Christ. If you don't go through the door, you won't be saved. But that's not because God doesn't want you to be saved. God gives you a whole lot of opportunities to be saved; he's giving you the gospel; he's talking to you now, like… God gives a whole lot of opportunities for you to be saved, but you chose not to go through that door. You chose… you think Allah is the way of salvation; you think Buddha… people think themselves… people think the, the worship of Beyoncé… people think a whole lot of things is their way to salvation—the, their work; they can work their way into salvation; they can just work real hard; money is their salvation; fame is of is their salvation. They, they trust in all those things, and all those things are just different forms of sandcastles; it's just sinking sand; you're not going anywhere with it; it's not stable; it's just sinking sand. God gave—away—is given away for salvation; you be saved; you are saved through Jesus Christ and him alone, giving yourself up to him every day, understanding that you are and you have sinned and and and now through that, God wants to turn you into a saint, but you have to go through that door. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except by me.” If you want to be a part of God's sheepfold, you have to go through the, the door that the shepherd says his sheep go through, which is Jesus. He is a good shepherd. But the world and other people in the mindset, we thinking sometimes too, we could be saved some other way. There has to be another way of salvation; it can't be just giving up my old habits; it can't be dying to myself; it has to be God. I… you add God… people add Jesus to, um, their life, like people add Kool-Aid to water; it's just an additive; it's just… my life is really… I can sprinkle Jesus on top. That's this is what people do, and hopefully you don't. Since God created all things, that means everything that he lays out for you is for your good; it's for your good. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth,” so that means that everything's perfectly in balance for your thriving and you're flourishing if you align yourself with him. We already talked about why would people, why would the atheist, why would people in their mind create a fantasy? Why would they do that? And it says it in Romans. Romans says they suppressed the truth; the, they, they, they, they act like fools, suppressing the truth of God, worshiping the Creator, worshiping a creature rather than the Creator. So people know the truth. The Bible says that in Romans that God will leave you—Romans 1—God will leave you with no excuse because the very nature—how trees grow, how the wind blows, how birds sing, how, how, uh, geese know when to migrate or when they get in your way when you're driving through the park—that all those things, oh, how, how they know how to do all those things proves or is a witness to there being a God, and if you ignore it, it still leaves you with no excuse; you're still without an excuse. So atheists have to come up with the Multiverse; atheists have to come up with evolution; atheists have to come up with, um, u, a different secular humanism; atheists have to come up with all these things. People who don't want to believe in Christ, people that who don't want to submit to God have to come up with all these things: money, women, uh, worship their children, worship their youth, worship their… all the… you got to do all these things to suppress the truth that God created everything, and if they acknowledge that God created everything, that means God is sovereign over—he rules everything, man. If he's sovereign over everything, he rules everything; that means I have to listen to him. But if I have to listen to him, that means I have to stop sinning. But, but if I stop sinning, that I, I got, I can't let the sin go; I can't, I can't let my selfishness go; I can't let my, my, my love of money go. And that's why they make up these stories—Multiverse. Multiverse, seriously? Yeah, there's 565,000 variations of this Earth, and and one variation I'm a millionaire and the other variation I'm a hobo and the other variation I'm a crab. You a crab in one of these variations. Yeah, you know, because the Multiverse—anything's possible; anything's possible in the Multiverse—Multiverse—as long as, as long as I don't have to listen to the God, God, the creator of all things; as long as I don't have to stand on truth, then I can have my truth. I don't have to stand on the truth, which everybody knows, right? I can stand on my truth, which is whatever I want to make up today. I can stand on my truth, not the truth. Uh, Psalms… oh, “In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.” That means you can trust him with everything since he created everything, and he knows all things; that means you could trust him with everything. You could trust him with your pains and your hurts and your confusion; you can trust him with your joy and your laughter and your enjoyment; you can trust him with your… Oh, God, we have this problem. God, I got all these talents and I want to use them, but if, if I drop them off, what, who else would I be? I, I, I, I grew up as a singer; I've been singing all my life; I grew up a singer. We actually had a group that from 8th grade all the way up to senior year high school, we sung at baseball games; we sung at clubs; we did all these things. Um, it came to a point where I told God, “If I can no longer sing, I'll still, I'll still worship you. If you take my voice away, I'll still worship you.” And it has to be that way when it comes to those talents and the gifts that God gives us and all those things because we think that's us; we think that's our identity, you know? It's just something that we can do really well, but no, no, it's us. We are the voice; we are the drawing; we are the writing; we are the… whatever. We can trust God with that; we can trust God that we, we can let go of everything we think we are to be what he thinks we are to be, what we are in him. We could trust God; we could trust God to let go of our lives as sinners to walk in life as a saint. We could trust God that we can be reborn in him, in him. We could trust God with that since he created all things and he knows all things and he's all-powerful; that means we can, we can trust him. We can trust him with our trauma; we could trust him that he can handle our trauma better than we have been handling it because when we handle it, we go to things that destroy us; we, we, not that we go to substances, we go to words that destroy us; we'll talk to ourselves like we're stupid, we're idiots, all these other things; we'll destroy ourselves. We can trust God with our issues. “Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden and burdened, and I will give you rest. Cast your cares upon me, because I care about you.” These, these are the words of Christ; these are the words of God. We can trust them; we can trust him with everything because he is the maker of everything; he's the only one that has the owner's manual to everything. He knows that Ikea desk that you bought cannot be a cash register; he knows that, and he will give you the right design to make things work properly.
Psalms 19, and we're going to talk about this this week and next week, but this is a, a very, very good Psalm. Psalm 19 verses 1-4: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies above proclaim his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech; night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard; their voice goes throughout the whole earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes down like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs his course to joy. Its rising is from the ends of the heaven, and its circuit of them, uh, to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, revealing the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commands of the Lord are pure, enlightening, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, more to be desired than than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare to me innocent from, uh, hidden faults. Keep back your servant from presumptuous sin; let them not have dominion over me; then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my rock, my Redeemer.” This is a Psalm; this is a, a Psalm of declaring the power and the majesty of who God is. This week I want you to read that on a daily, if you can—once a day—just get that in your, in your mind about God's commands being pure and true and and God's, uh, the fear of the Lord being clean and all these things. Get that in your mind, so when you look out in the world and the sun comes up the same time every day, all the time except today we'll be at to Spring Forward, uh, the sun comes up, sun goes down; you can, you can set your, your life to the time when, when the birds wake up at the same time, when your heart beats without your thinking about it, when you can hear things without you thinking about it, when you're thinking about things without you thinking about it. Just know that God put all those things in motion perfectly, in perfect alignment, in fine tement and fine, fine-tuning—not tuning, that's not even a word—and fine, fine-tuning it because “In the beginning God created everything.” That means he is the origin of all things good. Let us, uh, let us pray, and I can end. Dear God, we are thankful for this opportunity to come to you and worshipping you, knowing that you are the creator of all things. Help us submit our life to you wholeheartedly, not just in lip service, but with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength. Let us give it all to you because we can trust you with everything because you created everything. In Jesus' name we pray and we thank you. Amen. [Music]