How Great Is Our God | Pastor Louie Giglio

but you guys welcome my friend louis giglio [Applause] you guys can have a seat thank you so much man what a great confession we're calling this i think you knew this already how great is our god tour not just because god has given chris this phenomenal song that circled the globe but we're calling it how great is our god tour because we are here tonight worshiping a god that is far beyond anything we could ever dream of or imagine we are here tonight to worship a huge massive god of grace and glory if there's anything that could happen tonight our heart is that we will leave tonight with at least a couple of things having happened to us one being that our view of god will be completely blown up all over again and that the view that we have of god will be expanded in this place tonight and that we will leave here with the confidence that he is able to hold on to us and hold us together no matter what circumstances come our way in this lifetime and if you were with us on the indescribable tour we sort of took a swing at that first part looking at the bigness of god and the greatness of the universe anybody make it out to the indescribable tour by the way a few of you guys were there the story of it in a nutshell was that the heavens are telling the glory of god their expanse declares the work of his hands in other words all you have to do is look up and you see the size of the god that we're worshiping tonight we ended that just a little review with this galaxy right here the whirlpool galaxy you're like man alive we're talking about astronomy at a christian worship service why not the god that we're worshiping tonight is the one who created that right there it's called the darling of astronomy the reason why is it's sitting completely perpendicular to us on earth and when we look up at it we get this beautiful view but check this out the whirlpool galaxy is 31 million light years away from where you're sitting right now okay they got nothing in here tonight 31 million light years away that's just the first little thing we got to catch up with tonight by the way the story opens like this in case you forgot in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth and he said let there be light and there was light and that was a phenomenal moment when that happened because light came out of the mouth of god traveling 186 000 miles a second that's how fast light is traveling through the universe and so a light year therefore is how far light travels in one year and i'll do the math for you it's 5.88 trillion miles is a light year so as we talked about before when you start to get around in the neighborhood of god the mile is not going to help you the yardstick the ruler the tape measure these things are of no value in the universe that god has made we're using a ruler called a light year that's 5.88 trillion miles long and if you'd like to go to the whirlpool galaxy be my guest all you have to do is multiply 31 million that's how many light years it is away by 5.88 trillion miles and that's the distance that you've got to cover anybody with me so far i'm i'm wondering are there any science lovers here tonight kids we're going to have a little scientific content tonight i need to know if anybody's going to be with me so far so you do the math or you could look at it a different way you just have to travel 186 000 miles a second for 31 million years and voila you will arrive at the whirlpool galaxy second thing that's pretty stunning given that our god made that is it contains 300 billion stars in that one galaxy 300 billion stars and it is one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies in the known universe that god has made and it just reminds us all over again tonight and this god that we're singing to tonight he's enormous he's bigger than anything we've ever dreamed of he's bigger than our wildest imagination of him but we ended by looking inside that thing and this is pretty stunning those of you who've seen it remember but the hubble space telescope is circling the earth at 360 miles above the earth and it takes amazing images of these galaxies and other phenomena of the cosmos and it looked into that white core of the whirlpool galaxy and lo and behold there is a black hole in there and we never seen it before until hubble could take an image of it and i found this on nasa's site hubblesite.org this is what hubble sent back to us from 31 million light years away from the black hole core of the whirlpool galaxy they sent us back this image right here and it's just crazy it's crazy it's the glory of god the grandeur of god it's the grace of god in the mercy of god everywhere we look it's the imprint of god in all of creation everywhere we turn and tonight we just want to begin with the bigness of god the grandeur of god all over again we're going to do it by looking at four stars can can you handle four stars tonight the first one's easy because there's just one star in our solar system and that star is called the sun thank you very much yes it's our own star it's uh there's an image of it for you by the way it's a little more fierce than we often think it's 10 000 degrees fahrenheit on the surface but what i want you to see about it is how big it is it's 93 million miles away so when you're looking up in the sky it's pretty good pace out there by the way light traveling 186 000 miles a second it's only taken eight minutes to cover that 93 million mile journey to touch your skin here in atlanta georgia but what i want you to see is the size of it it's like a million times the size of the earth and that matters to us tonight when you hear what the psalmist said listen to his words by the word of the lord this is psalm 33 the heavens were made in other words god didn't lift a finger when he made the universe by the word of the lord the heavens were made but he goes on to say their starry hosts by the breath of his mouth so we're looking at something so intense that we don't want to get any closer than 93 million miles away which is what we are right now and then we read that god just breathes out stars it's crazy to think about it a million times the size of the earth so here's a little perspective that sort of changed my life if the earth were the size of a golf ball okay the sun would be 15 feet in diameter okay that didn't seem to move anybody either so let me try it a different way let me just try it just a different way i thought i might need this so i brought a golf ball okay so all through the evening this is going to represent earth all right so this is where we are i need everybody in the building to look as closely as you can and find yourself okay and when you found yourself i want you to nod your head so that i know you've located you on the earth okay you're nodding your head okay you found yourself if the earth were a golf ball the sun would be 15 feet in diameter that's not 15 feet in diameter can we blow that up just a hair maybe give them 15 feet diameter so here's a little perspective for you okay is this working for anybody here we are on the earth and that's the sun it's so big it's so big you could put 960 000 earths inside the sun so if the earth were a golf ball and the in the sun were 15 feet in diameter you could put 960 000 golf balls inside that 15-foot diameter sun that's enough golf balls by the way because i know that seems like a big number to fill a school bus with golf balls could fit inside the 15 foot in diameter sun it's a massive star and it's one of hundreds of billions of stars in the milky way galaxy our cul-de-sac in the neighborhood called the cosmos that god has made it's huge and we're worshiping a star-breathing god tonight but i want to tell you about the second star okay because the second star absolutely wrecked my life i heard about it when i was a high school student here in atlanta one of our youth leaders did a talk and he mentioned this star i didn't know how to talk to god for about two months after i heard about this star it's called beetle geese or beetlejuice you can pick your pronunciation i'm obviously going with beetlejuice and beetlejuice is incredible here it is in the night sky i know it doesn't look incredibly ferocious but it's 427 light years away so that's 427 times 5.88 trillion miles away from us right now draw it in a little closer with the hubble space telescope and you can start to get a little bit of the feeling of its intensity but this is the crazy thing about beetlejuice are you ready for this beetlejuice is twice the size are you ready you think i'm going to say twice the size of the sun oh no it's twice the size of the earth's orbit around the sun beetlejuice is it's crazy if the earth were a golf ball beetlejuice would be the height of six empire state buildings on top of each other now come on have you seen the empire state building i mean maybe what you're going to need to do is gather the family get a golf ball get some plane tickets and fly up to new york and you're going to go into midtown you're going to take your golf ball and put it on the sidewalk outside the empire state building don't worry about people thinking you're crazy they're not even going to notice you in new york you're going to go across the street you're going to look up at the empire state building and imagine five more empire state buildings on top of the empire state building that's beetlejuice and that's the earth and somewhere you're on it you could fit 260 trillion earth's inside beetlejuice so if the earth wore a golf ball that would be enough golf balls to fill up the superdome with golf balls three thousand times when i heard that as a teenager that stumped me right there because most of my praying had been advising god correcting god suggesting things to god drawing diagrams for god reviewing things with god counseling god the third star let's just can you go a little bit bigger with me the third star is called musifi here it is in the night sky it's that gold star to the top left we have the big image of it it's 3 000 light years away but i just want you to see it in the in the span of all these little glittering stars so that you know that at times when you look up at night it is not just twinkle twinkle little star how i wonder what you are i'm telling you what you are what you are is intense and huge and massive and ferocious is what you are and and this one used to be called herschel's garnet star check it out if the earth were a golf ball musifi would be the width of two golden gate bridges end to end apparently you're going to need to go from new york to the west coast go to san francisco with your family and your golf ball place your golf ball at the beginning of the golden gate bridge go across the bay into oakland to a high place where you can see the entire golden gate bridge another second golden break golden gate bridge will be in your imagination span all the way back the two golden gate bridges to the very beginning and find your golf ball over there that's the earth and somewhere you're on it one of the stars in the milky way galaxy it's so big you could fit 2.7 quadrillion earths inside this one star thank you so much where have you been all night now quadrillion we have not talked about and i need to explain this just briefly because i don't know about you but i do not understand the national debt or any number is bigger than about 875 dollars and 28 cents i get that number go bigger than that i don't know but you need to understand a quadrillion okay because this star is crazy big a quadrillion uh let's do it this way everybody knows a million right how do you know what a million is you can kind of get your head around a million everybody all right you know that a billions a thousand million and a trillion is a thousand billion and a quadrillion is a thousand trillion right everybody knew that here's the perspective this changed my life right a million seconds ago 12 days ago isn't that cool see that saves you doing that on your little calculator at home which i dare you to try to do when you get home tonight but a billion seconds ago you're thinking oh my goodness if it's 12 days ago i'm going all the way back to like september with you louie this must be crazy right how about may 1975. is a billion seconds to go you're like whoa that's a little bit bigger than a million oh yeah a trillion seconds ago you're like uh-huh i'm on the 1800s no christopher columbus no 29 700 bc is a trillion seconds ago a quadrillion seconds ago 30 million 800 000 years ago is a quadrillion seconds ago we're talking about a really large number and musifi is so big you could put 2.7 quadrillion earths inside this one star but it is not even the biggest star we have found i love science and science has just brought us the largest star they found it's called are you ready for this canis majoris now i'm no linguist but that's a cool name for the biggest star we've found so far i think that means the big dog star and that's exactly what it is i bring it to you as a little bitty purple you know glow just to the right of center there but canis majoris oh wow if the earth were a golf ball canis majoris would be the height of mount everest thank you you just saved your family plane fair from california to kathmandu nepal almost six miles above sea level the highest point on the planet and i just dare you to get up there and unzip the parka and pull out your golf ball [Music] you could fit seven quadrillion earths inside canis majoris that's enough earth if the earth were a golf ball to cover the entire state of texas in golf balls 22 inches deep you see the one you're on [Music] maybe this will help a little bit more this absolutely blew my mind just a little journey through our solar system everyone knows our planets and sort of how we fit in the story here they see really quickly that we're not even the biggest deal in our own solar system but as earth comes by you have to know tonight that we are living on a privileged planet anyone would tell you we're living at one of the most special places if not the most special place in all of creation but neptune comes by in saturn and then jupiter and you're like okay we're not all that big even in our own little cul-de-sac i just noticed the blue dot fading away is not the earth that's neptune the earth has gotten too small to see anymore sirius comes by a little plug for satellite radio [Music] not the biggest star but the brightest star that we have found so far [Music] pollux which we didn't mention arcturus such a beautifully named one regal but then the one that messed me up [Music] our third star music lucify's cousin w c [Music] and canis majoris and do you know that you couldn't come up here right now with a sharpie and make a mark on the screen that would approximate the size of our sun you couldn't even do it when you look at these in their relative size we just have to put a little arrow over there that says if you could put the sun on here which you can't it would go somewhere about here and um can you hang on let it for me and when you see this i don't know what happens to you but i'll tell you what happens to me a shrinking feeling comes over me and it's not a bad shrinking feeling it's a good shrinking feeling because sin it has a way of shrinking god down in our minds and puffing us up in our own estimation but just a glance into the universe that god has made resizes everything in a heartbeat and you realize tonight we are worshiping an unrivaled uncontested god of all kind of might and power and glory in all who is there's none like him anywhere in all of creation tonight we are not here worshiping some little teeny tiny god we are the teeny tiny ones you and me we are small and weak and fragile and frail we are you and me tonight one of six and a half billion people on this little golf ball-sized planet in this massive universe that god has made but i'll tell you the miracle of tonight is is crazy and crazier to me than the size of any star is that though we are but a vapor you and me and tiny and frail we are marked by majesty and we have been created in the very image of the god who breathes out the stars and put the universe into place you and i are fashioned and formed and ordained by the god of all creation we are fearfully and wonderfully made you and i [Music] we are a miracle you're a miracle sitting in the building tonight if i could just remind you just for a moment you are somebody incredibly special let me just dial back to the beginning and i i know you know this already but in the very very beginning here's how you happened okay one cell from your mom found one cell from your dad now there's more involved in that than that but that's enough for us right now and by the way we should applaud the one cell from your dad because that one cell did a pretty heroic thing to be the one cell in the story that we're talking about tonight one cell from your mom met up with one cell from your dad each one carrying 23 chromosomes the one from your mom was carrying half of her dna the one from your dad was carrying half of his dna and those two cells met and merged into one single cell and when they did those chromosomes matched and they began to form together a brand new dna code using four characters four nucleotides they begin to write out what we have now discovered is the three billion character description of who you are written in the language of god they wrote out your dna your human genome of three billion characters made up of those four simple nucleotides and when they did they described who god had ordained you to be in that one little simple cell scientists say if you took the dna out of that one little cell and stretched it out that dna would be six feet long three billion characters stretched out to six feet long so amazing that if i were to read your dna reading one character per second night and day it would take me 96 years just to read the description of you and when they formed together they wrote out and painted a picture which had never been written before in the history of humankind and then that cell did the unthinkable it set out to build that model from one cell i'm telling you you are a miracle sitting in this building tonight and you have come a long long way i mean here you are this may not be in the family photo album but here you are at three days old [Music] 16 cells of you you say what in the world is that it's a 16 cell human embryo on the tip of a safety pin at incredible magnification so by now that one cell had turned into 16 cells on its way to making the 75 trillion cells that make up your body tonight every one of those 75 trillion cells containing that six feet of the three billion character dna code that you there's so much dna in your body by the way if you stretched it all into end there'd be enough dna to go to the moon and back inside your body 178 000 times that's how amazing god has made you to be 75 trillion cells in your body and when i told you that 50 000 of those cells died and were replaced by brand new cells when i told you that and then just now 50 000 more cells died and were replaced by brand new cells it's happening every three seconds day and night all the days of your existence and you wonder why you're tired all the time i'll tell you you're doing some amazing stuff night and day for miracles you and me i love the way augustine said it one of the great fathers of the church and of the faith he just nailed it when he said it like this men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains the huge waves of the sea the long course of rivers the vast compass of the ocean the circular motion of the stars but they pass by themselves and they don't even notice [Music] in the womb miracles happening every moment here you are at five months in the womb you remember those days those were the good old days [Music] and just miracles happening every second let me tell you about one million optic nerve endings left the optic nerve center of your brain in the womb headed for a million optic nerves that had left your eye and they had to meet and match their exact partner one million looking for one million and when they found their exact partner out of a million and matched up together in that instant you had sight and anyone would tell you that to this moment the most technologically advanced thing on planet earth is your eye oh but it didn't do you any good because when that moment happened you just had one piece of skin completely covering your eyeball but as i read in one textbook miraculously and mysteriously at about the sixth month a little cutting device appeared and it cut perfectly that piece of skin and you had eyelids for the very first time in your mother's womb you are fearfully and wonderfully made and the god of the heavens is the one who fashioned you together [Music] and he knows your name tonight and he knows every single thing there is to know about you and he's made you a promise that for those who trust in him he will literally hold them in his hand and carry them all the days of their life this psalm 33 that talks about a star-breathing god turns an interesting corner it says for he spoke and it came to be he commanded and it stood fast that's power in awe but now it gets very personal from heaven the lord looks down and sees all mankind from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth he who forms the hearts of them all and is intimately acquainted with everything they do and then he goes even further and he says the eyes of the lord are on those who fear him on those who hope in his unfailing love and here comes this promise to deliver them from death and to keep them alive in famine and that is the promise tonight because this building and our world is filled with hurting people with lives that are spinning out of control with pain that we don't we didn't ask for or could never imagine and god is making a promise to us tonight he's saying i am a universe maker and i am a heart former but i'm also big enough to be intimately acquainted with all the circumstances of every one of your lives and i promise you no matter what comes in this lifetime no matter how difficult the road or how dark the night i will hold on to you and i will literally hold you together and carry you through any and every circumstance that ever comes your way any moment on this planet it's the promise of god and you say well man that sounds good but how do i know that's true in my life right now louie i mean that's really what we want to know tonight and i'll tell you how you can know tonight that god will always hold you together no matter what it's by looking a little deeper into the human body and it's a little protein molecule called laminin [Music] that's about what i felt the first time i heard that long story short the tour was winding down last time around we were in tyler texas the night was over a guy walks up to me i wish i could tell you the whole story it was so of god introduces himself to me says how are you doing i just want to say hello i said it's nice to meet you he says you guys winding the tour down where are you going to go from here i said well i'm on my way back home to atlanta georgia he said what's next for you i said i'm going to be preaching the next two sundays for my pastor back in atlanta he said oh cool what are you preaching on i said well the series is on the glory of god in the human body he said that's really amazing i'm a molecular biologist at the university down the road [Music] give me your talk and i was like oh wow i wasn't quite yet ready to unload the talk for a molecular biologist so i kind of stumbled through what i had and he's kind of being kind and gracious and like uh-huh that's good and then he says well what's your big left hook you got to have a left hook a big finish right i said i don't have a left hook yet he said oh louie oh man your left hook is laminated and i'm totally blank on lamin and he goes louie it's a cell adhesion molecule protein molecule do you know about proteins i'm like no he said louie cells organize into certain molecular structures and that determines what protein there are they're between 10 and 60 000 proteins in the human body we don't even know how many proteins are in the human body but one of them is a cell adhesion molecule it's organized into this certain structure and that tells the cell what its job is in the body and this one is a cell adhesion molecule and i'm like all right he said no louie it's like the rebar of the human body the steel they put in the concrete when they lay the foundations of things it's that stuff it's it's holding your membranes together it's the glue of the human body louie it's laminate you've got to tell them about laminin and i'm like i promise you i'm going home and tell them about laminate and i'm sure when i do revival is going to sweep across the church and probably around the world when i tell them he said no no you've got to see laminin i'm like okay i see it he said no no you need to go look it up online you need to go google laminin i don't even know how to spell laminate takes his card out he writes on the back l-a-m-i-n-i-n i'm like okay i cannot wait to get to my computer and get on google click on images type in laminate and i'm waiting and these little thumbnails come up on the screen and i'm like wow that's laminin the cell adhesion molecule whoa i am so excited i am beside myself i cannot believe what i'm seeing i love laminin i'm so fired up [Music] you should see lamin and i guess that's the thing right okay here is a scientific diagram of the laminate cell adhesion molecule that's holding your body together right now okay this is what i found right here come on that's crazy that's just crazy [Applause] i just can't believe it [Applause] [Music] i emailed that guy back so fast i'm like wow wow wow wow what in the world he said you want to see an actual laminate molecule i'm like oh no man the diagram was cool for me i'm happy with that don't don't bother sending anything else i'm like yes and he sends me this image an electron microscopic image of an actual laminin protein molecule it looks just like this [Applause] [Music] i'm like how crazy is that that the stuff that holds our bodies together that's holding the lining of your organs together holding your skin on is in the perfect shape of the cross of our lord jesus christ and immediately i'm thinking about the words of paul in colossians 1. you know this beautiful passage where paul's talking about the supremacy of christ and the sufficiency of christ he says for by him talking about jesus christ all things have been created things in heaven and things on earth all things were created by jesus and for jesus but then the next verse goes on to say this it's crazy and he jesus is before all things and in him that is in jesus christ all things hold together that's right it's right there i'm like of course they do of course they do everything holds together in jesus christ and he goes on at the end of this paragraph and he just tells a story of grace he says for god was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in christ and through christ to reconcile to himself all things by making peace through his blood shed on a cross [Music] so you're at the toughest place in your life how can you know that god is going to hold you together and bring you through [Music] you know because there is a cross standing over history and it is looming over this building tonight it is the place where the star breather became the sin bearer where the universe maker became mankind's savior and it is proof that god doesn't always change the circumstances he did not change them for jesus on that hillside outside jerusalem but the cross is also proof that god always has a purpose in the circumstances and that his purpose and his plan will prevail and will triumph through any circumstances in this world so we just close with this question [Music] it's found right in the middle of an interesting chapter in isaiah 40 where just talks about the expanse of god he stretches out the heavens like a curtain like a tent to dwell in he leads forth the starry host one by one and calls them each by name but then it takes a turn and the writer of isaiah says so why do you say o jacob and why do you complain o israel my way is hidden from the lord or say my cause is disregarded by my god in other words there was a moment in the history of israel when they felt like god had completely lost sight of them that yes i believe that god is big enough to make the world i even believe that god ordained and made me and now coming present tense i will accept the fact that god gave his son on a cross but what i really need to know right now what really matters most to me right now is does god see what i'm going through does he see what i'm carrying does he know that i can't take one more step or one more day does he care and can't he do something that's what i need to know and isaiah answers and he answers with another question and it's a question for us here he says do you not know have you not heard the lord is the everlasting god the creator of the ends of the earth he will not grow tired or weary and his understanding no one can fathom he's huge he is a star breather he's big but listen to what he loves to do that god that creator of the ends of the earth that i do not grow tired or weary that my understanding is too great for you that god here's what he does he gives strength to the weary and he increases the power of the weak for even the youths will grow tired and weary and young men will stumble and fall but those who hope in the lord another translation those who wait upon the lord the hebrew word simply means this when it says hope and weight it means but those who stand right in the midst of the craziness right in the midst of the pain right in the midst of the chaos right in the valley of the shadow of death and they don't gloss over it they're dealing with the hardest stuff in life but standing in the middle of it they say you know what i don't see what god's doing i don't understand what the plan is but i'll tell you one thing i am not going to give up on god and i want to stand right here in the middle of this moment and i'm going to trust that god is sitting on a throne that he has a purpose for my life and a plan for my life and i believe i'm gonna see the goodness of god in the land of the living and i'm not gonna stop believing that no matter what that's what the word means to wait and to hope on the lord and he said here's the promise you're gonna wake up to rosie's circumstances no oh he can do that and he does do that but the promise is greater than that he said those who wait upon the lord here's what i promise i will renew your strength and when you think you can't take one more breath i'll give you enough to keep going on and enough to keep going on and enough to keep going on and to keep going and to keep going and to keep going you keep hoping and i'll keep causing strength to rise when you hope and you'll keep going and you'll feel like you have been swept up on the wings of eagles and you will run and not get weary and walk through it all and not faint he said i will hold you even when you let go of me [Music] i'm not gonna let go of you did you know there are millions and millions and millions of microscopic crosses holding you together right now and one giant glorious cross of jesus christ that's holding every one of us that's trusted in him onto the heavenly father and holding the heavenly father onto us and it's going to keep holding us onto him that cross forever and ever and ever and ever we will never not be carried by the strong hand of a universe making god and he will bring us through that is the promise of the everlasting god amen you

Channel: Louie Giglio

Views: 160,309

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Id: X1rPalyUshw

Length: 40min 58sec (2458 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021