The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth His handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night showeth knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap:
He layeth up the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord:
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
For He spake, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Father, we do just come before You. Lord, we pray that You would reveal a glimpse of Your glory to us this morning. Lord, we acknowledge that You did not have to create anything. You did not have to create us. But, Lord, it was according to the good pleasure of Your will.
Lord, we just come and say that we are thankful to You. We are thankful that You created us. We are thankful that You redeemed us.
I am reminded, Lord, how You said that when the Holy Spirit comes, He will glorify Thee. Holy Spirit, we look to You to glorify the beloved Son this morning in our hearts, that He would be high and exalted, and that we would stand in awe of You this morning. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I am going to read a number of verses, and you do not need to turn there, but I can just read them. Isaiah 40:26—if you want to turn there, you can.
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these,
That bringeth out their host by number;
He calleth them all by name;
By the greatness of His might, and for that He is strong in power,
Not one is lacking.
And so this morning, I just wanted to do that for probably the first ten minutes: just look. Let us lift our eyes on high and see these stars. So it is going to be somewhat like a science class for the first ten minutes, but there is a method to my madness. At the end, you will see the point of all of it.
The question I would ask in this message is: Why did God create anything? Why did God create the universe—all that we see and everything that is created? Why did He create that?
There are many correct answers to that question. I am not saying there is only one, but the chief answer to that question would be His glory. He created all things for His glory.
We start with the moon: Mercury, Mars, Venus, and the Earth. You are here.
Now, I was just going to talk about the Earth for one second. The circumference of the Earth is 25,000 miles. To give you an example of its size, if we were in a plane traveling 550 miles an hour, it would take 45 hours to travel around the entire circumference of the Earth.
Neptune is 58 times the size of the Earth. Saturn is 833 Earths. Jupiter is a thousand Earths.
Here is the sun. That blue speck right there is not the Earth. The Earth is so small compared to the sun that you cannot even see it. The sun is a million times the size of the Earth—a million times the size of the Earth.
The circumference of the sun is 2.7 million miles, as opposed to the Earth being 25,000 miles. If we were in that same plane traveling 550 miles an hour, it would take 200 days to go around the sun one time. The Earth took 45 hours.
I have a chart here. I like this chart because it shows things to scale. This is a NASA photo of the sun, and it shows the Earth as a little dot here. You can go on the NASA website and actually see the picture of this.
They say that there is a solar flare coming off the sun here which is massive. They say it is equivalent to a million atomic bombs going off. It is so powerful. The sun releases in one second more energy than the Earth has released in its entire existence.
Just how the Lord, by His breath, created this—the power of God is amazing.
The sun is 93 million miles away from Earth. We read in Psalm 19 that the expanse showeth forth the work of His hands. It is 93 million miles away. It takes eight minutes for a ray of sun, traveling at the speed of light—180,000 miles a second—to touch your skin. It takes eight minutes. It is massive, and it is very far away.
The sun is huge, but some of these other stars that you will see make the sun not quite so big: Pollux, Arcturus, and Rigel, the brightest star. At this point already, the sun is not all the way at the left—you cannot even see the sun. The comparison is that if you put a head of a pin there, that would not even represent the sun.
These are all in our solar system, in the Milky Way galaxy. This is Canis Majoris. That is the largest known star in our corner of the universe.
This star is so big. Its circumference is 5,553,107,000 miles. The Earth was 25,000 miles; this is 5.5 billion. That means if we were in our plane traveling at 550 miles an hour around the circumference of this star, it would take 1,100 years to circle it one time.
It takes seven quadrillion Earths to fit into this star—seven quadrillion Earths. I was trying to put it on the calculator, but you cannot; there are too many zeros. It is massive. It is really incomprehensible, the size of this star.
Now, the expanse thereof: a light-year is equivalent to 6 trillion miles. That is how far light travels in one year—6 trillion miles. This star is 4,900 light-years away. That is 4,900 times 6 trillion miles away. The expanse thereof is unimaginable.
They have a thing on how you can even see this star if it is so far away. How can you even see it? The way they say it, I could not understand it. But it is unbelievable.
To me, I look at this and I just stand in awe of God. That is what these things were created for.
This is just one star that we found in our Milky Way galaxy. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy—who knows how many that we cannot even see? There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe. There may be stars out there that dwarf this star. We do not know.
It shocks me how the Bible does not exaggerate anything. If anything, it under-exaggerates everything. When God made this, it simply says, “And He made the stars also,” in Genesis 1.
Then Job tells us in Job 26 that this is but a whisper of His ways. Who can understand the thunder of His power? It is incredible—the power of God, the glory of God.
Why did He create this? Why did He create a star this big that would not even be discovered until two hundred years ago? He created this for that reason: for His glory, that we would look upon this and stand in awe of Him and say, “How great is our God that created this.” That was the purpose of creation.
The next question I would have is: Why did God create us? If you could turn to Isaiah 43.
Again, there are many reasons as to why God created us, but the chief reason, I believe, is that He has created us for His glory.
I will say to the north, Give up;
And to the south, Keep not back:
Bring My sons from far,
And My daughters from the end of the earth;
Every one that is called by My name,
And whom I have created for My glory,
Whom I have formed, yea, whom I have made.
Turn also to Romans 1:20-21. We read there in Isaiah 43, “Whom I have created for My glory.”
For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen,
Being perceived through the things that are made,
Even His everlasting power and divinity;
That they may be without excuse:
Because that, knowing God, they glorified Him not as God,
Neither gave thanks;
But became vain in their reasonings,
And their senseless heart was darkened.
But notice here: the chief charge brought against the unbelieving is that they glorified Him not. The very purpose for which they were created was to glorify God, and they glorified Him not.
Romans 3:23 says:
For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.
So the very thing we were created for—to give God glory—we fell short of.
But creation itself, what Paul is telling us here, what the Holy Spirit is telling us here, testifies of the existence of the Creator, just as this building testifies of the existence of a builder.
I do not need to see Kenny to believe that an architect existed. Okay, bad example, bad example. But there was a builder. There was an architect of this building.
Let us just say Kenny was the architect of the building. I do not need to see Kenny to believe that he exists—that an architect existed, that a builder existed. The building itself proves that he existed. That is what Romans 1 is telling us: creation itself testifies of the Creator.
Now I want to go to why God saved us. Again, there are many right answers to that, but the chief answer is for His glory. He saved us for His glory.
I cannot go into this without the verse in Hebrews—I did not write down where it is—but the verse that tells us to consider well Him who suffered. We need to consider that when we ask this question, “Why did He save us?” so that we can remember what He did.
Behold, My servant shall deal wisely,
He shall be exalted and lifted up,
And shall be very high.
Like as many were astonished at Thee
(His visage was so marred more than any man,
And His form more than the sons of men).
The Scriptures do not go into detail as far as it just says they took Him and scourged Him. But if you study what they actually did, Eusebius, an historian in the third century, gives an eyewitness account of a flogging that took place before crucifixion.
They would not flog everyone they crucified. They would just crucify most of them, but some of them they flogged. Christ was one whom they flogged beforehand.
Eusebius gives a description of what happened. He says that the sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.
They would whip them with little metal balls of some sort, and they had pieces of bone in them. So when they would whip you with it, it would just tear you open. This happened to Christ. He went through this before He was even crucified.
I was listening to a medical doctor on a Christian radio station, and he was talking about what Christ went through in His sufferings. It says He sweat drops of blood from the anxiety in Gethsemane. There is a medical term for that. It is very rare, and I did not write down the medical term, but it is a known thing that happens very, very rarely from extreme anxiety.
We can see the suffering of His soul in Gethsemane. Then he went on to talk about how the word that we use for the most painful experience we could have is excruciating, and that word comes from the Latin excruciatus, which means “out of the cross.”
They actually made a word to describe the pain that comes out of the cross—pretty much that there is nothing greater. And that was after the flogging.
Just consider what the Lord meant when it says He was pleased to crush Him, and that He was bruised for our iniquities and crushed for our transgressions—what the Lord went through. That is pretty incomprehensible.
But in Romans 9:23, we have the reason why God saved us. He says that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy.
Just as God, to make known His glorious power, created something as massive as this that we could stand and look at in creation and say, “My God, how great Thou art. How powerful is this God who could create by the breath of His mouth something like this?”
In the same way, Christ hung on the cross to display the riches of His glory—not just His glory, but the riches of His glory—which is His great love.
There is a theme through these verses that I want us to pay attention to.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ:
Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,
That we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love:
Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself,
According to the good pleasure of His will,
To the praise of the glory of His grace,
Which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved:
In whom we have our redemption through His blood,
The forgiveness of our trespasses,
According to the riches of His grace,
Which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
Making known unto us the mystery of His will,
According to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him
Unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times,
To sum up all things in Christ,
The things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth; in Him, I say,
In whom also we were made a heritage,
Having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him
Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will;
To the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory,
We who had before hoped in Christ:
In whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth,
The gospel of your salvation—in whom, having also believed,
Ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
Which is an earnest of our inheritance,
Unto the redemption of God’s own possession,
Unto the praise of His glory.
There is a lot in that chapter. But the one thing I wanted us to pay attention to was why He did all these things: it was to the praise of His glory.
We see it in verse 6: “To the praise of the glory of His grace.” In verse 12: “That we should be to the praise of His glory.” Verse 14: “To the praise of His glory.” We see that over and over again.
God loved us so much. He loves us so much, and His love is so great. God is love, and His love is so great that it was not just to display His love for us, not just because He loves us, that He endured the agonies of Calvary, but to show forth the glory of His love—to show the glorious greatness of His lovingkindness, to show the riches of His glory.
We see this twice: in Romans 9:23, “the riches of His glory,” and then in Ephesians 2:7, “the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness.” Christ, to display the surpassing greatness—the riches of His glory—went to Calvary. There was no other way for Him to display the greatness of His love, the glory of His love.
But God, being rich in mercy,
For His great love wherewith He loved us,
Even when we were dead through our trespasses,
Made us alive together with Christ
(by grace have ye been saved),
And raised us up with Him,
And made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come He might show
The exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Just as God placed this star to display the glory of His power, He saved us to display the glorious greatness of His lovingkindness.
What this verse is saying is that, in the coming ages, we will display the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us. Just as this star does, we display the glory of His love. In the ages to come, we will be a display of the glory of that love.
Psalm 50:23 says:
Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth Me;
And to him that ordereth his way aright
Will I show the salvation of God.
“Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me.”
I wanted to read a couple of quotes—one from C. S. Lewis and another from Jonathan Edwards.
There was something written after the Reformation, and John Knox was one who wrote it. They wrote it to read to their children, and it was basically like doctrinal statements. The first question was something like, “What was the purpose of God creating?” I wish I had written it down.
But the answer was: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” It struck me how they put “enjoy Him forever” in there. That is true.
C. S. Lewis, in Reflections on the Psalms, records thoughts from before he was saved, when he was coming to believe on the Lord. He says:
A great stumbling block to me was the presence of demands scattered through the Psalms that we should praise God. I did not see the point in all this. And besides, it seemed to me to picture God as craving for our worship like a vain woman who wants compliments.
But he goes on to show why he was wrong. He says:
But the most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. The world rings with praise—lovers praising their partners, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game; praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical persons, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.
I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it. “Isn’t she lovely?” “Wasn’t it glorious?” “Don’t you think that magnificent?” The psalmists, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.
When I read that, I was like, “Wow.” I think we can all relate to what he is saying. I thought of how I am a big baseball fan. I like the Texas Rangers. I really like Josh Hamilton. Some of you know who Josh Hamilton is.
He just tied the Major League Baseball record for most home runs in a game. I was actually at that game with my brother. When that happened, that is all we were talking about. We were like, “Did you see what he did? Can you believe he hit four home runs in one game?”
How much more the Creator of the universe? How much more the God who has saved us? Do we enjoy speaking of Him and telling others of Him?
Jonathan Edwards wrote:
God glorifies Himself toward His creatures in two ways: one, by appearing to their understanding; and two, in communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself.
God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. He that testifies his idea of God’s glory does not glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.
There are just a few verses I was going to read in closing.
Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice.
Thou wilt show me the path of life:
In Thy presence is fulness of joy;
In Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,
That ye may show forth the excellencies of Him
Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
That we should show forth the praises of Him. There is also a psalm—I did not write down which psalm it is—but it says:
All Thy works shall give thanks unto Thee, O Lord;
And Thy saints shall bless Thee.
That is really all I had to share this morning. Originally, I was only supposed to share twenty or thirty minutes, and then Stephen was going to share twenty, but he had more to share than me. So, anyway, we will close in prayer.
Father, we do just come again, and we do want to thank You for Your glorious love—the glory of this love. Lord, who can comprehend it? Lord, it is immeasurable. We just come and tell You, “Thank You.”
Lord, we pray that You would constrain us by this great love, that You would reveal to us what is the height and the depth and the breadth and the width of the love of Christ.
Lord, reveal to us a glimpse of Your glory. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.