Created: Why is there something rather than nothing?

how's everybody doing today great I want to pray in a moment I just want to share with you if I can quickly an image that the Lord gave to myself and two of my teammates who were here with me Steve and Mary as we were praying this morning how many people had a chance to go to Mass this morning those of you didn't get to Mass how many they had a chance to read the Gospels alright so for those of you don't know either one of those things we just remind you quickly so the gospel this morning is the the feeding of the four thousand with seven loaves of bread and a few fish so Jesus as always is provoked by and stirred up by the situation of the people who are around him so he translated to English rather weakly is something like he was moved with compassion just not what it really says this Morley because his guts are turned inside out as he sees the situation to people he says to the Apostles I don't want to send them back home we got to feed them they say not a chance and I'm the food kind of like here although it sounds like do unless you want a salad and then he says how many loaves of bread you got they have seven and so he does what he always does right he prays he breaks the bread and then he gives them to the disciples and he says to them distribute the food and so I feel like that's what the Lord wants to do this morning and this afternoon with us we ourselves certainly me I have nothing to offer anybody were to feed anybody with but God has an abundance and even this morning as we were celebrating Mass what we're staying just felt like the Lord was putting into our hands the food that he wants to give to us and that his desire is that you and I would all leave here having eaten and feeling satisfied so made that happen right so mindful that what's great showing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit [Music] good and gracious father we want to thank you for the wondrous gift of life [Music] the blessing of this day for the opportunity to reflect leisurely at length here in the presence of your son hidden behind the appearance of bread on all that you have done for us [Music] father we thank you for creating us to be alive in this moment in the church and in our country in this place we thank you for the gifts that you've so generously poured into every person here in this church lord I pray for those here who do not yet know what it is that your son has accomplished that this day they might be overwhelmed by your love your kindness your power your goodness [Music] and that she would send us all forth from this place eager to rescue others around us who are today as we once were and so father we thank you in advance for all you're gonna do we ask your spirit to be in my mouth in our ears and our hearts that we would hear only those things that you wish us to hear we ask it all in Jesus name Amen the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit all right so let me just say something quick if I can about the work that I do know so if I can just ask Steve and Mary if you guys would stand real quick so Deacon Steve Mitchell he's the tall one and then Mary guilfoyle so Steve Mary myself there's two other members and we make up this team called acts 29 so I just want to give you a context of what we do so this isn't what we do although we're honored to be here trust me so I am a priest of 23 years of a pastor the last 15 and about a year and a half ago or so I approached our Archbishop in Detroit and just asked him if he would be open to considering my doing something different after that assignment came to a conclusion then he said yeah let's pray about that so he allowed me to do that with my spiritual director and then through a variety of different situations conversations and whatnot we landed on creating this so acts 29 how many people know what happens in the 29th chapter of Acts say nothing right there's 28 chapters in acts right so the whole the whole point of this and I wish I could say that I came up with it but I didn't um you you and I are living the 29th chapter of Acts that's the point or better yet the Holy Spirit is writing through you and me right now the 29th chapter of acts the same spirit who is moving in the lives of Paul and Timothy and Titus and Peter is wanting to move through you and me to do now in our age what he was doing in their age this is our time that was their time this is our time we passionate the leek believe that you and I were born for this moment God could have created you to be alive at any moment in history but he didn't it shows you to be alive right now with everything that's happening in the church and in the world and he has equipped you with all the gifts supernatural and natural that you have and his desire is that you would let him pick you up and use you as an instrument in his hands to accomplish his desire and his desire is what's at the top of that screen he wants his world back he could do that in any way he wanted for some reason he chooses to work through broken people like me and like you our task is once we've encountered the Lord and been overwhelmed by him to then understand that there's nothing more worth doing with our lives than to be agents of rescue or as CS Lewis put it in nearest unity instruments of sabotage which is a expression I love I'll get to that later so anyway we created this so we're a non-profit we travel all around the country our work is primarily to pour into priests my experience over the last 15 years especially as a pastor and then my experience of just working with my brothers all around the country is no matter what the facades look like on the outside of our faces the priesthood right now is desperately in need of revival and I don't mean that because they're a problem I mean that because the situation of parish life is broken how many priests are here in this parish three priests how many parishes Purser's how many families in this parish 2,600 okay so 2,600 families so maybe like 10,000 people eight to ten thousand people three priests not happening I was a pastor of 36 hundred families I had three priests two of the guys with me 12,000 people you can't care for 12,000 people it's just not and there's a lot of resources here obviously and presumably a great staff and team that work with those three priests but it's still not possible parish life has got to radically change if people are going to get cared for in the way that God wants them to get cared for because st. Michael's or wherever you're from doesn't exist simply for the sake of those people who come here right the Catholic Church to my knowledge is the only organization that exists for the sake of those that don't belong to it all right father Brian is the pastor here he's responsible for together with if there's other pastors in this area every single person not every Catholic every single person who lives in this territory so you get to the boundary of the next parish that's not doable the way that we're set up right now so because of what we've seen God has called us in a particular way to first pour into pastors around the country to work with them to help them really to just love them rejuvenate them because at least in my own experience I realized I took the month of July off before I started this new work with Steve and Mary and Chris and Nick in the third week of July I woke up one day and I realized I think I'm in PTSD and I mean it because parish life you go from trauma to trauma to trauma to trauma to trauma your heads on a swivel all day long we just play whack-a-mole and you live in the middle of that all the time nobody calls a priest and says hey I'd like to come by and spend a half hour just telling you how good my life is we don't get those people let me just get crisis after crisis after crisis after crisis and so to the lay men and women who work with us and it's a great gift and it's an honor don't get me wrong it's it's just that the way we're set up right now is not the way I think God intends it to be so it's a great honor and joy for us to go around the country and to pour into priests so we've we typically do retreats for priests around the country we do them as a diocese and convocation so a bishop contacts us we go to a diocese and we bring all the priests on retreat and just try to pour into them and love them we've had a chance to be in front of about 15 550 priests over the last six months and have just been beyond grateful for the opportunity to share with them what we feel like God has shared with us don't get me wrong we don't think we have the answer nobody has the answer God is the answer we just want to be agents of revival and transformation as best we can so that's our work at the heart of our work really is telling the story so that's pretty what I'm here to do today I want to be a storyteller I'm not sure why it says Romans 1:16 there if you open your Bible that's not what you're gonna find in Romans 1:16 but I love technology it never always works but so forget the quote always the citation a friend of mine a woman who have come to greatly respect tremendously over the last number of years said this recently in the final analysis theological speculation can only take us so far we need to know the story I'm here to proclaim the story the story the one story the only story that changes lives and it's so easy right now with all that's going on in the church whether it's internationally or nationally or all that's going on in the country to get lost in the weeds if you will I would argue there's never been a more important time for us to back up and to recapture the big picture and to try to understand what God's plan is for the world and then for you and I who are living in it right now so throughout the course of the day this is what we're gonna do I'm gonna try to lead us through it's really three talks and then an opportunity for us to respond before the Lord in the Eucharist okay so that's what we're gonna go today it's intended to be a retreat not a talk and hopefully that become clear as we walk our way through huh so here's our title we capturing the big picture of God's plan for the world and our mission in it there's the Romans 1:16 quote right so so Paul says I am not ashamed of the gospel that is the power of God for salvation the word he uses therefore power that's the greek word from which we get the word dynamite in other words the gospel is not news the gospel is extraordinary news it's life-changing news it's the only life-changing news I'm thrilled the Chiefs won the Super Bowl I would have been happier if the Lions won a Super Bowl but the closest Detroit can get to winning the Super Bowl is the Tigers drafted Patrick mahomes and we will probably never get closer to the Super Bowl again but that won't change your life like the moment you win ask a man who do we lose this year who we gonna sign what we can do next year it's an amazing rush I love sports for those reasons but then what like I got to keep winning right the gospel is not like that the gospel is amazing extraordinary life-changing news my problem is I don't think most people have ever experienced it that way at least not most Catholics so when Paul says the gospel he doesn't mean Matthew Mark Luke and John there isn't a Matthew Mark Luke and John when Paul's preaching that comes after Paul he means the story what we're gonna try to unpack here today and note this right away this is really important for those of us which is all of us who are called to be heralds of the gospel the power is not in the proclaimer in other words it doesn't have anything to do with me or my gifting the power is in the message itself catch that all we have to do is to share it you're not gonna worry about trying to convince people you just have to share it and so what I want to try to do is to equip us as best we can to leave here able to share it and I feel like I'm 54 I'm 23 years ordained I feel like I've learned how to share this better over the last two years than I ever have in my life that's why this is my one passion right now is just to continue to be a storyteller if you will Pope Francis and the letter he wrote the joy the gospel in speaking about the gospel small G this thing which is power for salvation says it's the message that's capable of responding to the desire for the infinite which abides in every human heart and oh by the way nothing else can you and I were made with this insatiable desire to know that we'd matter that life has meaning for love for an understanding of what this is all about only the gospel can answer that desire Pope John Paul the second in a letter that he wrote on the importance of teaching the faith he says this that the result of the proclamation of the gospel which I'll unpack for us here in a moment it's supposed to be this that a person is one day overwhelmed and brought to the decision to surrender themselves or entrust themselves to Jesus in faith now Saint Mike's might be the most extraordinary parish in the country but here's my bet if that was up here tonight at Mass or tomorrow morning at Mass and I just asked for a show of hands in this parish and I said how many people here have been overwhelmed by the gospel don't raise your hands right now it's an exercise in your imagination how many hands do you think would go up I don't think very many it's not because of the preaching here that's not my point then ask a follow-up question how many people here have made a decision to surrender their lives their lives to Jesus in faith how many hands do you think would go up one two fewer right not us who've come out on a on a Saturday morning who've decided to give a day to the Lord but I'm talking what the typical person who comes to church on a Sunday I don't think most Catholics have ever been overwhelmed by the gospel and I don't think most Catholics have surrendered themselves to Jesus and faith and they'd say of course I haven't I'm Catholic why would I do that alright my desire my prayer our per Steve and Mary's in mind is that God will this day again starting with me overwhelm us with what he's done to the point that we make again a decision to surrender ourselves to Jesus in faith because I have to make that day after day after day and the challenge of being a priest quite frankly is it's dangerous because you get used to the Magnificent Fulton sheen used to say to priests all the time brothers don't ever get used to handling the body of Christ but that's not just in the Eucharist that's also in his word we do this for a living we don't make any money but we do this for a living and it's easy to become accustomed to speaking about these things and no longer be moved I was at a conference back in January not too long ago and it was a layman who was teaching priests they were all priests who were the conference and he was teaching he himself as a convert he was a former minister and it one point is he's teaching he just kind of looked away and he started to cry as he was teaching no but these two priests sitting in front of us and they both kind of looked at each other like what's up with that and then they both looked at each other and went oh shoot like was the last time I cried preaching or teaching the faith we need to be overwhelmed by the gospel so the most powerful way that God has helped me to speak about the gospel is to use an image and the images d-day anybody here in high school okay one over there great praying for you so Matt imagine this is a high school history exam here's the picture and and we have a little multiple-choice quiz you know like so why are they there it's June 6 1944 why are they there option a in the quiz the coffee on shomsul is a in Paris is just like the best right like no one's circling that right option be the beaches in France are second to none right like no one's answering that option to see you have got to see the Mona Lisa no right it's a no-brainer why are they there they're there to fight they're there because a continent has been taken over by a demonic dictator whose desire is to enslave the people here's the problem I put that picture up this sweet little saccharin picture and I ask you what's he doing there I don't think we know not in the same that we know the answer to the previous picture the answer is the same he's there to fight God didn't become a man to tell stories although he told them and he didn't become a man to do miracles although he did them God became a man to rescue his creation and when we know that and we experience it you live to tell everybody because that's the answer to life imagine Deacon Stephen and I are living in France it's June 7th 1944 our parents have been killed by the Nazis family members have been imprisoned our country's overrun by a dictator there is no hope there's no help coming this is our life now it has been since 1941 and we're sitting there having a cup of coffee it's bad coffee because it's the war and as I'm sitting there the paperboy tosses in a paper and I open up the paper and I open up to this and I'm sitting there reading it and Steve looks at me he goes so what happened yesterday and I go well not much Allies landed hmm looks like it might rain today you think I'd read it that way not a chance right this isn't news not for the people of France not for the people of Europe not on June 7th 1944 that's not news it's extraordinary news it changed everything for them someone's coming for us someone's come to rescue us somebody cares somebody's come to fight freedom is an actual possibility for us No someone's come to do something about this wacko in Berlin the gospel is better than that infinitely better than that every time every time now that somebody comes to talk to me about something I have found that it's essential for me to say before I answer what it is you've come to talk to me about can I explain to you quickly how I see the world so one of the ways of trying to understand what I'm trying to do with us today is I want to try to offer what I would call a biblical set of lenses how to see reality so a woman came to see me about a year and a half ago now she was in her mid-20s she was drop-dead beautiful she was extremely successful professionally internally her life was a total train wreck and so she called she asked if she could come by and see me I said sure she came by she started talking to me about what was going on in her life I said what would you like from me she says I want to know what to do I said before I answer that can I just tell you how I see the world because if I don't explain that to you nothing I'm about to say is gonna make any sense she said yeah so I shared with her in about five minutes which you're gonna have to endure over the course of the day and when I got done she looked at me she's bawling her eyes out and she said this that's not the God I knew growing up I've never heard this why have I never heard this here's the challenge I think if I can speak candidly as a Catholic priest the reason why most people never hear this is because of our lectionary might you come to Mass at Sunday and you hear from the lectionary the challenge for a priest right the most important thing in public speaking is who's my audience all right like Who am I talking to oh it was good to know this was the Rotary Club I thought this was halftime at the Super Bowl Wow it helps to know who I'm talking to I would argue I can see some of my brothers out here there is no more diverse audience than the congregate in a Catholic Church on any given Sunday right because half the people don't want to be there it's a miracle door there I mean it's amazing right I think Jeff Cavins says you want to see the rear real miracle and Sunday people are there they don't believe in the real presence he's not according to the statistics they don't know the Bible they haven't surrendered their lives to Jesus and they're there it's like a music right like why have they come I don't know but I'm thrilled right so you got some people there who are in love with the Lord who have surrendered to Jesus who are who are all-in right and they want meat but they're sitting next to somebody else who's like man what do we get to get out of here what time's the game what I got to do today they don't want me they don't even know what they want and so the the priest of the Deacon whoever's preaching he's trying to both multiply disciples and evangelize all at the same time it's an amazingly difficult thing to do and because of our lectionary the lectionary presupposes you know the Bible how many people in a typical Sunday Mass know the Bible almost nobody right so you get this reading about a guy who walks up to another guy who's plowing his field and he throws his coat over the guy and the guy responds by going what are you doing and then that guy like slaughters the oxen he was plowing with and he burns the utensils he was using and then they go off and they started doing some ministry it's like what in the world does this have to do with my life and so your hope and father Brian up there is just not talking too long he's kind of funny and he's got a point like that's not what the Word of God supposed to be reduced to and so I would argue I feel like God said this to me over and over again every parish at least once a year at least once a year don't don't get me wrong I'm not saying like go rogue and don't read the lectionary just don't preach on it for like four weeks in a row why because people need to know the story until no the story nothing else will make sense anybody here to teach high school few people usually certainly with freshmen anyway usually the beginning of the year what do you do you do review we never do review in the church or we rarely do review in the church and God's just impressed on me over and over again how essential it is whether it's the beginning of Lent the whole season of Lent beginning of the new year maybe it's in September take four or five weeks and all you do is you just tell the story you preach the gospel I think this is what many of our Protestant brothers and sisters do very well it's not uncommon at least in Michigan to hear people say things like I grew up Catholic and then I went to Kensington Community Church and I met Jesus now objectively speaking they're dead wrong because you can't meet Jesus anywhere like you can meet him in the Eucharist they didn't know that though and so I believe them when they say that because what they're saying in essence is I grew up Catholic I really didn't know what it's about and then someone preached the gospel to me and I got it now oftentimes so church is often not always but often times they don't do a whole lot after that but they do that really well and we have everything to offer but it doesn't make sense until you've grasped the story so what's the story the story is what's technically called the keurig my so this isn't exactly a word that just rolls off our tongues right it's a Greek word it means proclamation the one who proclaims the charisma is a Carrick's a herald that's what I want to be that's what we're all called to be heralds of the charisma all right the krugman is typically broken up into four parts the goodness of creation sin in its consequences God's response to our sin in our response to what God has done for us this is what we're gonna walk through today the result of this again John Paul says keep this constantly in your minds please it's supposed to be that a person is overwhelmed and brought to a decision to surrender in faith to be able to say to God you after I've considered all that you have done for me can have everything now use me to help others come to know this so the goodness of creation synonyms consequences God's response to our sin and our response to what God has done for us that's a mouthful so it's hard to remember all this so we need ways to to keep in our mind how to tell the story right here's one way to do it ask for questions they're all huge questions the first question having to do with the goodness of creation is this why is there something rather than nothing Mary and I were working in Des Moines a couple of months ago we were doing it at a high school there's one Catholic High School in all of Des Moines did you know that Dowling Catholic High School's the only high school and only Catholic High School in the diocese so we did a we did this for the high school students and after the end of the first talk this young guy came up to me I think he was a sophomore he just his father I didn't hear a thing you said after you asked that question I can't stop thinking about that question that's a huge question why is there something rather than nothing science can't give you the answer to that like why do you exist why are there planets why is there a universe why is there anything second question why is everything so obviously messed up because it is maybe you've noticed what if anything has God done about it and if he's done anything about it how come it still looks so messed up and then last how is it that we should respond to this that's still a mouthful so I was out in in Denver back in the year ago in the fall maybe it was the first time that I felt like the Lord had had led me to begin to try to teach this to people and so there was a gentleman there who was at the talk that I was given and who I respect greatly I asked him afterwards I would love your feedback on this like was this good was this helpful is this useful he said two things and you said John I think this is the best talk and the gospel I've ever heard in my life but it's not repeatable I went that's constructive feedback and so I prayed for months with his words in my mind lord help me to find a way to make this repeatable here's how I make it repeatable it's four words created captured rescued and response if you know those four words you know the gospel created captured rescued and response for each of these four words the way I try to pray with these and the way I try to encourage other people to go through them is for each word you ask for a very specific grace st. Ignatius the founder of the Jesuits would always encourage us when we pray go and ask God for a particular grace when you enter into prayer don't just don't just start praying ask for something so for each of these there's a grace the grace for created is I want to grow and wonder and entrust the grace for captured as odd as it sounds is despair the grace for rescued is unshakable confidence and the grace for response is gratitude surrender and courage so let's do this right now well do we'll take a break join you I just want to ask God to give us this grace okay so let's just pray father we ask right now that as we look at the grandeur of the universe that you have made and most especially the creature that you love the most in it that she would increase within all of us but most especially those of us who need it the most this morning wonder and trust in you who are a good father and we ask that in Jesus's name Amen all right so there's two things to highlight in going through this first word or the first part of the story which is power right which can change lives because it's extraordinary news not ordinary news so one thing to get clear on is the absolute uniqueness of the accounts of creation in Scripture and then the second is I just want to look at one verse in particular with you which for me has become a really powerful verse to pray with Genesis 1:16 so first the uniqueness of the accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 so I went to the University of Michigan I'm a liberal arts major my degrees in English in communications which means I had a lot of fun in school all right so those of you who are engineers those are servile arts all right those things are our means to an end liberal arts are things that you just do for their own sake so I had a lot of fun all my friends who are in engineering school they hated school but now they're making a lot of money so that's good for them anyway because I was doing liberal arts I had a lot of time to take classes that nobody had any use for like mythology so one of the things I remember this one woman she was teaching Greek mythology she tried to make the argument that every culture has a creation myth which is true and they're all more or less the same which is dead false there's nothing like the stories of creation that we find in Genesis 1 and 2 in what are called the ancient near-eastern myths the myths of creation and the neighbors of Israel nothing in those cultures they're stories of creation their worldview okay so the worldview is the lenses through which I see reality and the things which motivate my decisions everybody in here has a worldview even if you don't know it it's what determines what you choose to do and not do what you spend your time with what you spend your money on what you live for everybody's got a worldview right the ancient Near Eastern worldview look something like this there are many gods and none of them are any good they're actually a lot like us their lust fold or warring they're capricious or jealous they're envious they're not even really in charge they're underneath what are called the fates which are other beings which are greater than them and at a certain point in the universe these gods chose to make man just the male for one purpose to be their slave so that they could just have more fun and then they make woman for one purpose children or pleasure so in a world like that there's no meaning to anything there's no meaning to life there's no meaning to marriage there's no meaning to sexuality there's no meaning to family there's no meaning to work there's no meaning and in a culture like that where there is no meaning the prevailing mood is despair there is no point to living therefore what do you do you maximize pleasure and you minimize pain what else would you live for he who dies with the most toys wins that's our culture into that worldview God brought the revelation that is Genesis 1 and 2 which is strikingly different and God reveals to us no there's actually only one me and he's really good and everything he made he made out of love not on a need God doesn't need me he doesn't need creation he's perfectly happy he's not waiting for the next toy to come out and everything he made he made effortlessly he just breathes things into existence he just speaks and things come into existence and the highlight of everything that he made is the human person who's not made to be a slave he's made out of love and he's made for friendship and he's made in His image and his likeness and he exists male and female and he's made for communion with God and with each other and the end of every single human person is to be divinized you were made I was made every person you'll ever meet was made the person the homeless guy in the corner the person on the porn website the woman who's in hospice care every person you and I will ever see is destined to be divinized to share in God's own divine nature that's why there's no one important people remember where you were on 9/11 I was in an airport it was in Chicago about to get on a plane to fly to Minneapolis to go with a priest friend of mine to do some talks standing in line there's a little monitor in the corner next to the gate and as I'm looking at the monitor about the on the plane it looks like a plane just flew in the World Trade Center and sheer pandemonium breaks out in the airport in Chicago everybody's evacuated out of the building they put us onto buses I was on a bus with a bunch of flight attendants they brought us over to a hotel they just dumped us in the lobby I waited for my friend to drive down from Wisconsin I'm sitting there waiting in the lobby for hour after hour after hour and I'm watching one of the Talking Heads on one of the major news networks talk about everything that's happening and for those of us who are alive at that moment you'll never forget where you were watching the towers come down and I remember there was a news anchor he's standing there on the screen or seated at his desk and somebody hands him something from off-screen and he looks at it he looks very perplexed and kind of saddened then he looks back at the TV audience and he says he just learned that those flights fly back and forth from Boston to LA and then he looks straight at the TV and he says I bet there were some important people on those planes Wow some important people I mean people like you people on TV actors politicians athletes the other people the teachers stayed home dad's the moms they're not important the audacity of some idiot to say something like that there are no unimportant people every person is destined to be divinized and to share in God's own life forever if you were to see CS Lewis once said the person sitting next to you right now in the pew as they will be in heaven you would be tempted to fall down and to worship them that's what we will look like when we are basking in God's glory but let me just do this and then we'll take a break let me zero in on one passage if I can so Genesis 1:16 says oh by the way right so you know Genesis 1 and 2 you don't read them literally Genesis just throws people for a loop so the Bible is a library it's not a it's it's filled with lots of different genres the challenge for those who don't know scripture is what genre am i reading I mean you got poetry you got love songs you got historical narrative you got Psalms you got apocalyptic literature you got all these different things and it's kinda like reading a newspaper except when you and I read the newspaper we've learned how to read the newspaper write editorials this is not true whether this is not true we just know these things right when we read the scripture it's like Oh what do I do with this is this literal is it not literal and the whole Bible is not literal many parts of the Bible are literal don't get me wrong like this whole idea about God coming back from the dead very literal but not everything is literal in Genesis 1 and 2 are two stories of creation they're different they're in back-to-back chapters and that's kind of like God's Way of saying dum-dum don't read this literally try to understand the truths that I'm revealing right so the best way to understand Genesis 1 to 11 is they're like inspired poetry which again if you're an engineer makes your head explode so sorry about that if you're an English and communications major you love it so poetry is a way of speaking to the whole person myth we think means not true that's not what myth means myth is the language that was used by every culture up until about 150 years ago to try to make sense out of things which mere historical data can't capture one of the ways you know that Genesis 1 and 2 are not to be made literally is that on the fourth day God creates the Sun how do you get a day without a Sun right so made the two great lights the greater light to rule the day that would be the good be the Sun the lesser light to rule the night that would be the very good the moon somebody you didn't seem so sure about that and then I don't know how you know whoever's writing Genesis for the first time putting it you know to paper or whatever he's writing on animal skin he's got something instrument in his hands so I pictured this guy or whoever it is he's sitting there going he made the Sun he made the moon oh yeah forgot to tell you he made the stars too he made the stars too are you kidding me how many stars there are this is just thrown in there like a toss away line see that picture those aren't stars these are galaxies every one of them the universe is least it was this morning 46 billion light years across that's 46 billion times five point eight eight trillion miles across oh yeah I forgot to mention he made those things too there are somewhere around a hundred billion some would say maybe a trillion galaxies in the universe each galaxy each one of those little things has roughly a hundred billion stars in them now look at God's creation these are all from the Hubble Space Telescope these are some science fiction artist's depictions of what reality might look like these are years of what the God who made you in His image and likeness can do you he didn't make that but that's the best way I know how to explain the universe so I heard a guy talking one time it's at a men's conference he was a high-energy particle astrophysicist I have no idea what that even means but he was trying to explain to people how big the universe is and so he says so you know how do you picture 46 billion times five point eight eight trillion miles especially if you're an English major so he says let me give you an image to try to grasp how big the universes the universe imagine building a sandcastle where every single star is a grain of sand how big with the castle be five miles high five miles wide and five miles long that's how big the castle would be where every single star is a grain of sand there are ten times more stars in the universe then there are grains of sand on the world's deserts and beaches there are in the universe seventy sextillion stars that's this number remember that number we'll come back to that in a moment there's a quiz here's another way to grasp the size of the universe and to try to ask God to help us grow and wonder and entrust so our Sun obviously a star right it's actually a small star you can fit roughly a million earths so about a million of these go into that a largest star that we found up until two years ago is this star which has the English translation of the name Big Dawg which is kind of a cool name for a star right so inside the big dog you can fit get a load of this seven quadrillion earths what's a quadrillion remember Bill Cosby right what's a narc so imagine what we do a little exercise and try to learn numbers so I'm asked Tim here to count to a million we're gonna see Tim in eleven and a half days that's gonna count to a billion and it's gonna be some time until we see you you're gonna come back in thirty one years Patsy's gonna count to a trillion we're not gonna see you again that's gonna take you thirty one thousand years and I'm gonna count to a quadrillion and it will take me 31 million years to count to a quadrillion you can fit seven quadrillion Earth's inside one star and God just breathed it into being without any effort remember that number so it's gonna take me 31 million years to account to a quadrillion you want to know how many years is gonna take me to count to a sextillion you'll have to count to a quadrillion which is 31 million years 10 million times that's how many stars are in the universe why is that so important because God knows every one of them by name that's what scripture tells us he counts the number of the stars he calls them all by name lift up your eyes on high who created all these he leads forth the starry host by number and he calls each one by name and in this universe which is 46 billion light-years across filled with 70 sextillion stars there's one creature he loves the most and it's you not y'all just you this God who made all of this without any effort out of love holds right now your life in his hands and he's not anxious and he has no rival and I don't buy you but when I go to pray I try to picture God who I'm talking to maybe you do the same whatever your image of God is it's wrong God is massive beyond all comprehension don't raise your hand right now let me just ask you anybody in here anxious about anything the point of looking on all this to start with is to shatter anxiety whatever you're worried about God can handle loved one who's away from the faith family member who's battling cancer concerns about our job whatever it is that's going on in your life God can handle it everything's gonna be easy that's not my point at all but as we're gonna see as we go out throughout the day this god who is not just all-powerful but good in a way we could never imagine he's the one who is weaving history it is after all his story and so right now we just want to thank him for the fact that our lives are in his hands and he's more than able to provide for us so cast all your anxiety upon him Petersons like right now because he cares for them keep these lingering in your mind before we come back together I was contemplating the grandeur of the universe impacting you right now in your experience how many Catholics have been overwhelmed by the message of the gospel and brought to a decision to surrender to Jesus maybe this part of the country is absolutely unique but I'll bet it's not and lastly what's causing you anxiety right now like name those things it's really important to do that name them write them down capture them and then bring them to the one who made the universe look at his grandeur in his power and remember you don't have to be anxious alright let's take a break [Music] you

Channel: ACTS XXIX

Views: 28,921

Rating: 4.9252338 out of 5

Keywords: #Lent, #HolyWeek, #FrJohnRiccardo, #GodWantsHisWorldBack, #YouWereBornForThis, #Gospel

Id: 74Qr751H8Fk

Length: 55min 29sec (3329 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 31 2020