How God Fills the Created Kingdom

This morning we are once again in the book of Genesis, chapter 1. We are continuing our study of creation week. I know we have lingered here for a while, but I've always wanted to preach through Genesis 1, and I've always wanted to take my time and look at each day of creation, because each day of creation has so much to teach us: the order, the pattern of creation. Eventually, in a couple of weeks, we're going to draw all these strings together, and we're going to look at the back of our Bibles, seeing how the front and the back mirror and echo one another. The creation in Genesis 1 and 2 will point us to the new creation in Revelation 21 and 22. So we are continuing our theme concerning the created kingdom.

In verses 1 through 2, we looked at how God formed the created kingdom. We looked at how, in the very beginning, there is God. We looked at God's power in His spoken word, how He brings everything into existence ex nihilo—that is, bringing everything into existence from nothing. So God forms the created kingdom, and then frames it. You remember how He framed it? He did so with lights, limits, and land. This morning, we're looking at chapter 1, verse 14, to see how God fills the created kingdom. God forms out of nothing, frames it with lights, limits, and land, and then fills the created kingdom. He fills it with the sun, moon, stars, animals, and on Day 6, with humans made in His image.

Let's look at Day 4, beginning in verse 14. The Bible says, "God said"—remember that familiar pattern: God speaks and things come into existence. Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens, to divide the day from night. And let them be for suns and seasons, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens, to give light on the earth." And it was so. God speaks, God says, and it is so. And then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. And He made the stars also. Keep that little phrase in mind. God set them in the firmament of the heavens, to give light on the Earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And once again, God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Here is the fourth day of creation. On the first day, God said, "Let there be light." And light was. On the second day, He said, "Let there be limits," creating limits between the waters above, the atmosphere, and the waters below. On the third day, He said, "Let there be," and separated the seas from the dry land. But on the fourth day, God said, "Let there be life. Let there be life."

Remember, I've told you before, Genesis 1 is divided into two triads, two groups of three. God begins to fill the sky, the seas, and the land that He forms. The first triad deals with forming. The second triad deals with filling. Think about this: God is the Master Artist. The first three days, He sets the canvas. Now, the Master Artist begins to fill His masterpiece. We get to observe God at work. He begins to fill it in by creating the luminaries—the celestial bodies, planets, and stars. Notice what Moses says: He sets them in place for man to measure times. They mark dates and seasons. From the very beginning, man is given the stars and planets to mark calendar dates and navigate the globe.

God made two great lights, right? The sun and the moon. One to rule the day, the other to rule the night. These lights come out in their respective times of evening and morning, which had already been created on the first day. What do we learn here, guys, about the greatness of God? We learn about the planets and the stars. We see the stars are used by mankind to measure times and dates. But get this: God was there before the planets and the stars, before their very existence. That means He has no need of measuring time because He exists outside of time and space. Because God is eternal. He always has been, and He will be forever. Therefore, the sun, moon, and stars are for man to measure his time because we live a temporary existence on this Earth.

We also see God's power by looking at the heavens and observing these great celestial bodies. The Bible says in Psalm 19:1 that the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky shows His handiwork. So, every time you look up into the sky at night and see billions of stars, that is the handiwork of God. All of creation—from the sun to the moon, the planets and stars—they are screaming, "There is a God." There is an infinitely wise and powerful Creator.

Anybody ever dreamed of becoming an astronaut when you were a kid? Anybody ever wanted to go to space? I think it would be terrifying, but also cool, to go up in space and look down, see the Earth, and get that perspective. Anybody follow the astronauts who just landed after 286 days in space? They were supposed to have been there for eight days. They were stranded out there, and they just made it home. I love this—they're Christians, by the way, these astronauts. I love what Butch Wilmore said. He began to pray. He began to preach the gospel from the International Space Station—you can look it up. He said something along these lines: "When I look out the window and I see the vast expanse of the cosmos, how can I not see that there is a Creator?"

Think about it. When you look up in the night sky with the naked eye or through a telescope and see these planets and stars in perfect orbit, these things didn't just happen by chance. All of creation, the heavens, are declaring that there is a God. In Psalm 19, David goes on to say the heavenly bodies pour out speech day by day, night by night. He says there's no language where their voice is not heard or understood. In other words, every person from every culture can look up in the sky and find evidence from the natural realm that there is a Creator God. He says that the sun goes out like a strong man running a race. After completing its circuit, it returns to its place. This is poetic imagery, but it describes the heliocentric nature of our galaxy. In other words, the sun is in the middle, and all the other planets revolve around the sun. We understand from the Scriptures that the Earth is round and that it orbits around the sun. Before scientists figured that out, Isaiah 14 says, "It is He"—speaking of God—"who sets above the circle of the earth," and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. And God stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. So when you look up in the night sky, or maybe in the morning if you wake up early and see the sunrise, God is just stretching out the canvas one more time. He is painting a new masterpiece every day and every night.

Think about this sun, this greater light. It has been placed ingeniously at just the right distance from Earth, approximately 93 million miles away. It provides light to the Earth as the Earth turns on its axis, rotating towards the sun. It provides light for those on one side so they can work, and darkness on the other side of the Earth so that those people can sleep. Friends, this creation is perfectly in tune. Any closer to the sun, we would burn up; any further away, we would freeze.

Next, we have the moon. Secular scientists want to say this just happened to be. Biological life just happened to occur on this planet that just happens to be the perfect distance from the sun. And that the Earth just happens to rotate a thousand miles per hour on its axis as it orbits the sun. Then we look at the moon. The moon does not have any light of its own. It simply reflects the light of the sun. What does the moon do? The moon is essential for regulating the tides. Without the moon, we'd be flooded. The Earth could not regulate its climate. The moon distributes heat from the equator towards the poles. But the moon's main job is to provide light at night. It is the lesser light to rule the night.

Now, this may be a little cheesy, but I'm going to make an application here anyway. We as believers, we do not produce our own light. But we, like the moon, are to regulate the light. We, like the moon, are to regulate the light. We are to reflect the light. Not of the S-U-N, but of the S-O-N, the light of Jesus. We are to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and give glory to God. We are to reflect His glory. And no wonder the psalmist, he's amazed when he looks at the night sky and he says the stars are singing, the moon is singing, in the morning the sun is singing, there is a God.

Also, a third thing I want you to think about. Moses records that light existed before the sun. Day one, God said, let there be light, and there was light. We also learned that God created vegetation on Day Three. Why does vegetation require light to live? It requires light for photosynthesis to take place. It is vital for both plants and animals to survive. We understand that God created everything in a specific order. This order should be the same. It shows that it is God, not the sun, who is the giver and the sustainer of life. God was giving life before He created the sun. There was life on Day Three before there was the sun on Day Four. And then He gave the sun its responsibility to burn and provide light and enable photosynthesis and give people at the beach that awesome tan they've been looking for.

All of this emphasizes that God has need of nothing. Nothing. Nothing. If God had created the sun on Day One, everything would have depended upon it for life. Instead, God waits till Day Four and says, "I can create life with or without the sun." I'm the giver of life. He is independent of His creation.

Fourthly, remember who Moses was writing to—Israel, who were surrounded by pagans who worshiped the sun and moon as gods and their pantheon of deities. They actually saw these celestial bodies as givers. They saw them as gods. They saw them as givers of life and fertility. In the book of Deuteronomy 4 and Deuteronomy 17, God prohibits the Israelites from worshiping the sun and the moon. So when Moses is penning the creation narrative, he's pointing people to the true God, the true Creator who is worthy and deserving of our worship.

And then the Psalmist in Psalm 8:3, he says that the stars are just the works of God's fingers. And he implies that God simply flung the planets and stars into their orbit. Think of what a mighty God we serve. Here's Pluto, which is always being debated, is it the star or is it the planet? Feel sorry for the guy. Then there's Saturn with its icy rings. And you've got these big, giant planets like Uranus. And then you've got the millions of star systems. Wow. And God just flings them out in space. And there it is. That is not a mighty God. That is an almighty God. He sets the planets in their rotation so they don't collide into one another. He sets the stars in their fixed positions.

Now, I don't know about you, but I love studying space. I do. Never really wanted to be an astronaut, but I love reading about space. And I love looking up in the night sky. And I love reading articles from the findings of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Kepler Space Telescope. Does anybody want to know how many stars, according to current estimation, there are in our observable universe? Listen to this. There are estimated to be 100 to 200 billion galaxies in our observable universe. We live in the Milky Way galaxy. But there are estimated to be 100 to 200 billion more galaxies in the observable universe. And each galaxy contains an average of 100 billion stars. Now this is a rough estimate, but scientists say there's roughly around one sextillion stars or about 10 followed by 24 zeros. That many stars in the observable universe. There are a lot of stars. Think about planets. And by the way, most stars have planets that orbit around them. Estimates say there could be as many as one to two trillion planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone. Now, given there are 100 to 200 billion galaxies, and you multiply this estimate across the observable universe, it leads to an estimate of several quintillion planets in the observable universe.

No wonder David writes in Psalm 8: "When I consider the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of him, human beings that you care about them?" And of all the vastness of space, David is saying, "I'm not even a drop in the ocean, yet I have your complete, undivided love and attention." And Earth is a very tiny planet compared to the other planets. It is the only one. It is the only one. It is the only one capable of sustaining life that they have found. And of all that God created, it is upon this planet that He designed this habitable place for us to live. Not only that, but it is upon this planet that He became flesh and walked the face of this dusty Earth to come and redeem mankind. We have God's love, His undivided attention.

Now, out of all the innumerable stars in the heavens, Psalm 147, verse 4 says that God calls them all by name. Now these are just rough estimates, all these billion quintillion numbers I'm throwing at you. And by the way, they are not on the quiz at the end, okay. God knows every one of them by name. You know, there are some companies who sell maps of the stars. And you can buy your own star and they'll name it after you. I don't know if they do or not. God knows His own name. He knows it by name.

Friends, listen to this. If God knows the stars by name, does He not know you by name? Does He not know your needs, your wants, your desires? Does He not love you? The same God who created the vast universe and set the stars in motion, friends, is the same God who loves you and I personally, intimately, sacrificially. Friends, He knows us better than we know ourselves. There's no way we can even keep a count of the number of stars, yet God has them all by name. Don't you think He can take care of you and I this morning? We serve a God who's great and awesome and big and loves those people upon planet Earth.

Let's talk about the sun. Anybody want to know some cool facts about the sun? All right, well, here it goes. It says the sun generates an enormous, enormous amount of energy. It is always outputting energy. The total power output of the sun is about 3.8 times 10 to the 26th watts. Now, if you're like me and you have no clue what that means, here's what that means. It's roughly equivalent to the energy of 9.2 billion one-megaton nuclear bombs going off every single second. That's some power. And yet God says, let there be.

Anybody ever done a row machine at the gym? It shows you how many watts of power you produce. And I'm like, all right, I'm getting it. Oh, man, I'm barely even powering enough to power a light bulb. But here's God who can just speak this massive, burning ball of fire that's producing 9.2 billion one-megaton nuclear bombs of energy every second and it's just nothing to Him. Friends, how powerful must our God be? Many times the problem with Christians is that their God is not big enough. Their God's not the God of the Bible. They look for a small demigod. Friends, there is no other God but Jehovah and He is almighty. Praise God. Praise God for Him.

But I want you to think of, we think of the power of the sun, the sun. And I want to point you to the power of the Son, the Son of God. Now, when we look at the sun, we're blown away by its power. But friends, when we look at Jesus, we are blown away by His power and glory and majesty. Remember in Revelation 1, verse 16, John gets a vision into the throne room of heaven and there is Christ seated at the right hand of the Father and He is clothed in a white robe and the Bible says He is shining like the sun and all is well. It's brilliance. And John looks away; the seraphim, who are burning ones, take their wings and cover their eyes because they cannot stand to gaze into perfect holiness. And they cry out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty who was and is and is to come.

You ever tried looking in the sun? It hurts, doesn't it? Eventually you would burn your retinas out. That's the reason why we wear cool sunglasses. We can't stare into the sun for very long. Now imagine viewing the one who spoke this sun into existence. Friends, it's going to require glorified bodies in order for us to be in His presence and not absolutely be obliterated. Now, many people think, oh, when I get to heaven, I'm going to stroll up to Jesus and I'm going to tell Him a thing or two and I'm going to ask Him a thing or two. Wrong. You can't even look into the sun for more than a second without saying, man, that hurts. And you think you're going to stroll into the presence of the sun's Creator? Absolutely not. We will all fall down in humble adoration at the greatness of God. Praise God.

Remember I told you, remember this little phrase? The end of verse 16. He made the stars also. It's almost like Moses, this is just writing, writing, writing—sun, moon, great. Oh yeah, almost forgot. He made the stars also. And of all the billions, trillions of stars, it's just a passing phrase. He made the stars. No big deal. God's almost like, yeah, I did a little thing the other day. I made all the stars. It's the work of my fingers. I flicked them out in space. My friends, if the heavens are the works of His fingers, what can He do with His whole hand? What can He do with His whole arm? Well, I'm glad you asked because Isaiah 59:16 says that God's own arm worked salvation for Him. So as great as the creation is, that's just the works of His fingers. But His greatest work is when He provided salvation for mankind. Friends, can I tell you, the greatest work is when He rolled up His sleeves and stretched them out—His hands were nailed to a cross. That is the power of God on display that takes sinners and redeems them and ransoms Adam's race. That is the greatest crowning achievement of God's works. Not when He spoke the sun and moon and stars into existence, but when He laid bare His holy, mighty arm and they were nailed to a cross and He worked salvation for us. Praise God.

One more point before we move on. Malachi 4:2 describes Jesus as the Son of Righteousness, who rises with healing in His wings. The word "wings" in the Hebrew can be translated "rays," it's like the rays of light. My friend, I praise God this morning that God didn't send His Son to scorch us, to burn us up the way that we deserved. But He would come as a Son of Righteousness, offering healing, offering warmth, and offering life. He's a sun and a shield for those who will trust in Him. Jesus Christ is the day, the day spring, the true sun that brings life and warmth to Adam's race.

Let's move on very quickly to the fifth day of creation. Verses 20 through 23. Then God said, Let the waters abound with living creatures and let the birds fly above the Earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens. So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves in the waters according to their kind and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good and God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas, and let the birds multiply on the Earth. So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. The fifth day.

God fills the sea and the sky with living creatures. It's interesting in the Hebrew, something we don't fully grasp here in the English translation, but God literally says "let the waters swarm." The KJV, I believe, says "abound." Let them abound with living creatures—with fish—and let the birds swarm in the heavens. We see swarming creatures in the sea and swarming creatures in the sky. So God is filling His masterpiece.

So let's talk about these marine creatures. Anybody like to go to the aquarium? Anybody like going through the tunnel there in Ripley's and you got the sharks swimming over you? And you're like, man, what if this thing burst? I guess we'd just swim with the sharks. We'd probably be crushed by the water, but that's a different discussion. But I think of how great these sea creatures are. We've got whales that can grow up to 100 feet and weigh as much as 200 tons. Then we've got little plankton, little microscopic things that float around with the current. Scientists say there's over 230,000 species of marine life, including fish, mammals, invertebrates. All the ocean showcases God's creativity.

Then we look up in the sky. All the thousands of species of birds. And I love birds, but Allison won't let me get one, so we had to settle for a cat. We think about the songbird. I love songbirds. They can hear a sound and they can mimic it. You can play an instrument outside and they can carry that tune. And did you know that they teach that tune to multiple generations? So there are tunes in England that date back to the medieval times because these songbirds have learned it, memorized it, and then they teach it to each subsequent generation. What are these songbirds doing? They are singing to their Creator. They are musical instruments for their Creator. You look at the parrot. I love the parrots. You go down into the Amazon and you see the vibrant colors on display. That's just the Creator showing off. He's showing off His creativity. So whether we look up in the heavens or we look below in the water, we see that God pays attention to detail.

Word of application: If God is so detail-oriented concerning His creatures who are not made in His image, don't you think He is concerned with you who were made in His image? Jesus said in Matthew 6:26-30, "If He clothes the flowers of the field with such ornate beauty, will He not also clothe you? And then He says, look at the birds of the air. If He feeds the birds of the heavens with their daily provision of food, don't you think He'll take care of you, O you of little faith?" Every morning, those birds wake up, start singing, and set out to find seeds and fruit, and they're not worried. They know their Creator is going to provide for them. But how many times do we wake up in the morning, already stressed and worrying—Is everything going to be all right? How am I going to pay this bill? Is my health going to fail? Can I trust God? Absolutely. God wakes you up every morning. He gives you breath. He gives you His sunshine. He feeds the birds. Are you not worth more than many sparrows? Absolutely. You were created in His image, and He sent His Son to die for you. You are worth more than many sparrows. He'll take care of you.

Let's look at the first part of Day 6, verse 24. Then God said, "Let the Earth bring forth the living creatures according to their kind, cattle and creeping things and beasts of the Earth, each according to its kind." And it was so. And God made the beast of the Earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the Earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

There we have the pattern again. It's Day Four. God fills in the heavens. Day Five, God fills in the sea and the sky. Day Six, God begins to fill in the land. I want to preach about men so badly, but it's going to be next week because I don't want to keep you here until one o'clock. So we'll end here with the animals.

God fills in the land with cattle, with beasts of the field and every living creature that would roam on the Earth. Now, theologians separate these verses. They separate the cons within these verses. It says, "Let the Earth bring forth." That simply means let the Earth be populated with living creatures. Now, a living creature is the word *nefesh* in Hebrew. It means a living being. So unlike the plants, vegetation, these animals are living beings. That means they have a consciousness. That means they're able to roam and move from place to place. They have an animal instinct. They have a nature about them. They are a living being. However, they are not a living soul like Adam will be. We're going to study. We're going to study him next week.

So first we have the cattle. That’s the domesticated beast—the kind that can be corralled, herded, and used. Then there’s the creeping things. Think about the creepy crawlies: insects, bugs, spiders, all those nasty little creatures with billions of legs everywhere. These are the creeping things. And now, people are scratching at the ground, feeling them crawl on their skin. Then there’s the beast of the Earth—the untamed animals. Some animals have been tried to be tamed, but others resist. Some animals are best left alone in the wild.

But here we have all these species because once again, Moses uses the word kind. And as I've taught you before, it's the Hebrew word min, M-I-N. It's that species. And we see that they produce according to their kind. Here's a point that I've thought of this week. Secular scientists want to say that we evolved from a lower life form to a higher life form. That we were created, or not created. They try not to use that word. Sometimes they do slip up and use the word created and design. I'm like, huh, you know something, don't you? But they say, well, it just happened to be there was a little protoplasm, a little sail floating around in some primordial suit. And then they came out of the water and then they started sprouting legs and one form changing into another. We don't see that in Genesis, do we? We don't see that. We see God clearly making sea creatures according to their kind, birds according to their kind, and animals on the land according to their kind. And you know what they produce? More of their kind. It means more of their species. Now there are mutations and adaptations within the species, but we see that one species never changes into another species. People will say, well, what about the transitional fossils? What about the transitional fossils? I would love to see one if there are. They say, well, they've proven there's transitional fossils. Guess what they find? They were wrong. They were wrong. It turned out it was just an extinct animal that they hadn't had logged yet. They say, well, what about the man, Nebraska man, and what about Lucy and all these others? Well, it turns out that many of them were like the jawbone of a pig or the tooth of a pig, and then they used their imagination and structured a whole skeleton of what they thought it could be. No transitional fossils have ever been found because they do not exist. God created everything in its day according to its kind, and it continues to reproduce after its kind. It shows the manifold wisdom and creativity of our Maker.

Let's think about some of these animals. I also like to go to the zoo. I love going to the zoo and just looking at all the different species. You look at these mighty elephants. Now, we don't see many elephants where we're from, do we? And every time I come up to an elephant, it's like, man, these things are massive. I've seen them many times before, but it's like it just blows me away each time I see it. It's like that God could create something this big, and then you look at its trunk, and it's able to function like a hand or a garden hose, doing everything with its trunk. Then you look at the mighty lion. They're mighty, but they're lazy. They just lie around nearly 23 hours a day and eat. Sounds like life, doesn't it? You look at the cheetah. You know, the cheetah can run 50 to 70 miles per hour, and it can go from zero to 60 in less than three seconds. That's faster than most sports cars. Then you got the sloth, and I looked it up. How far do sloths move in a year? They move approximately 0.86 miles a year. Now, you think we're slow getting through Genesis 1.

Then I think about the platypus. Man, isn't that an interesting creature? It shows the creative genius of our Creator like none other. Now, the platypus, I think, is the most unique creature in all of God's kingdom. It's a mammal, yet it lives in the water. It has a duck-like bill, a beaver-like tail, and fur kind of like an otter. And to top it all off, it lays eggs. It hatches from an egg, and then it drinks its mom's milk because it's a mammal. It's like all these different animals put together. But you know what? They found fossils of platypuses. Okay. And guess what? They're the same. Thousands of years ago, they haven't changed. Now, if we wanted to argue for the advancement or evolution of species, we could look at the platypus and say, surely it came from all these different animals put together, interbreeding with each other, and eventually we have what we have here. Guess what? The platypus has always been a platypus. Perry has always been Perry. If you know the show I'm referring to, he's always been a detective, too. It's God's design. Now, I'll tell you a little joke here. It says when God created ducks, he said, "Hey, grab that chicken over there, make him waterproof, and then give him a kazoo." And then here we have ducks.

But on a more serious note, the Israelites, they lived, as was often the case, in a pagan society that not only worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, but also worshipped animals. They revered them as deities. For example, the Egyptians worshipped cats. Now, maybe you're a cat person. You might get it. Maybe you're a dog person. You're like, what on Earth is wrong with those Egyptians? But they worshipped cats. And their society was full of idolatry, these Canaanites with whom they lived. And Moses is reminding them, when you go into the land of Canaan, you must not worship animals. You worship Jehovah, the Creator of the created order.

Now, Paul writes in Romans 1, verse 20 through 25, and I want you to listen to this. He says, "For since creation, God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." That is, we have natural revelation of the created kingdom that declares there is a God, all people, even those who have not heard the gospel, are without excuse. And then Paul goes on to say, "Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God. They were not thankful, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. Listen to this. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like a corruptible man and birds and creeping things. And forfeited animals and creeping things."

What happens when man turns from the truth of God? They begin to worship the creation rather than the Creator. And we have thousands of people who hug trees but are willing to abort babies who are made in God's image. You have many people, new agers, who are worshiping the Earth and want to save the Earth. And I think we should be good stewards of the Earth. But they worship the Earth and the created order rather than lifting their eyes toward heaven and worshiping God. Therefore, God gives them up to uncleanness and the lust of their heart. God lets them have their own way. And they persist in the darkness of ignorance because they exchange the truth of God for a lie and they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. That's a devastating consequence of exchange. Changing the truth of God for a lie. You say, well, I don't worship animals. I don't worship a graven image. But what do we worship? Friends, we can worship material possessions which are part of the created order. We can worship relationships. We can worship our social status. We can worship our house, our car, our money, things, physical things of the created order. And we can try to find our satisfaction and our identity in them rather than in our Creator. Friends, these animals, they're made for service, made for companionship, but they are not to be worshipped.

Now, I want to close with this. Verse 26. Now God says, let us make man in our image. Friends, even though animals and man were created on the same day, there is a great infinite chasm between them because it is only man who is made in God's image. Now, I believe that this created order is intentional. I believe God creates the animals for man, for his benefit, for his companionship, and for man to rule over. But also, it creates a contrast, a juxtaposition between animals and man. Animals became living beings, as did man, but man was made in the image of God, able to fellowship and walk and commune with his Creator. And it is not for the animals, but for mankind that Christ came and died. It is for you and I. The crown, the apex of His creation—for which He came.

So they come and give us a psalm of invitation. We've learned a lot this morning. We see just how great and wise and powerful our God is. We see that He is worthy. We see how powerful He is in just flinging the planets and stars in their orbits. We see His ingenuity and His creativity and the created order. We also learn that God provides and sustains the animals and He will do the same for His image bearers. But I want you to know this morning that you are infinitely loved. You are intimately known and infinitely loved by an eternal God who created you for himself. And if you are lost this morning, Jesus came for you. He came to this planet—among all the galaxies—he came here for you. He lived a perfect life for you. He died for you. He rose again on the third day for you. And if you will call upon His name this morning, you will be saved. So this altar is open. And maybe you just want to come for a prayer. Maybe you just want to come and worship our Creator. The altar is open.