Let There Be Lights

Good morning, everyone. It's great to see all of you, this morning and good to be back with you after. being away, last, weekend, had the opportunity to be up at, Scroon Lake, New York, speaking at a, a conference. At the Word of Life, conference Center.

And while I was there, Charles Warfield was at that, men's conference and he and Yvonne, are, attending the church that I preached at last Sunday morning. Do we have a picture of them? Oh, I do that. OK.

This is Charles. He was actually on the worship team at the conference that I was at, and I don't know if this was accidental, but That was actually the word closer, like closer to God. But Anyway, and on Sunday night, I had a chance to have dinner with them. They had me over for dinner and had a wonderful time with them, but they send their greetings to you, the people of Cornerstone.

And for those of you that are new with us, long story, a family that has experienced a tremendous amount of brokenness, but they are well on this amazing journey through the power of the gospel of being made whole. And they're so thankful for you, the people of Cornerstone, and thankful also to be where they are right now. God's doing a great work in, in, in their life and in their family. So continue praying for them and holding them in their heart, in your hearts, because I know that they hold you, in their hearts, very dear.

Well, Genesis chapter 1, Genesis chapter 1 for our time of study in the word, this morning, we are doing a series to the Book of Genesis and we come this morning to Genesis chapter 1, verse 14. And we're going to be looking at verses 14 through 19. Looking at what God does on this 4th day of creation. If you want to give a title to the message, it would be, Let there be lights.

Let there be lights. How many of you have heard of Jackie Hill Perry? Raise your hand. All right, a few.

She's a spoken word poet from Chicago. She's a Christian rapper, basically. and there was an article about her in The Washington Times about, 3 weeks ago. her story is a fascinating one.

She was sexually abused by a family friend. When she was 5 years of age and around that time, she began to experience gender confusion that, and this is what it said in the Washington Times article, gender confusion that coalesced into an attraction to women when she turned 17. She became sexually active with her first girlfriend and then another. She became a regular at gay clubs and at gay pride parades.

In Saint Louis. Well, she was raised in the church up to the age of 10 and it wasn't long before the teaching that she had heard about Christ and about the Lord began to work in her heart in a powerful way. And she says this, she says, what I had been taught in church until the age of 10 coincided with the truth in my conscience. that a holy God and just God would be justified in sending me an unrepentant sinner to hell.

But also that the same God had sent His Son to die on my behalf and forgive me, if only I believe. It wasn't long as the Spirit of God began to work in her heart that she turned to Christ and she left her sinful lifestyle. And ever since, She has been giving her life to trumpeting the good news of salvation and deliverance through Jesus, and bringing to people the good news that true, genuine deep-seated transformation of life is possible in Christ. Like, listen to her testimony, she says, God not only changes your affections and your heart when you believe in Jesus, but he gives you new affections that you didn't have before.

Instead of desires for sin, you're given new affections, a desire for holiness and wholeness and relationship with God. But she doesn't want us to simply look at her testimony and take her word for it. She said this in a radio program back in 2012, the word of God itself, apart from Jackie Hill, testifies that people can change. What's really interesting though about her testimony, and this is why I begin with this, this morning, is that she herself points to what happened on the 4th day of creation.

To make her point to herself and to others to show that God has the power to change lives. Listen to what she says. I think we've made God very little. If we believe that he cannot change people.

If he can make a moon, stars, and galaxy that we have yet to fully comprehend, how can he not simply change my desires? Here's what Jackie Hill has done. In her thinking, she goes back to the 4th day of creation, and she sees a God who can create the sun, the moon, and the stars and the galaxies, and she concludes something very practical about this God. And that is that such a God who can create such things should have no trouble in changing her and changing you and me.

She finds the creation account of what God did on the 4th day loaded with practical insight about her God and about his ability to change a human life. 2 weeks ago, we saw how Pope Francis was concerned that people read the Genesis account and make the mistake of imagining a God who's able to do everything. In contrast to his concern, Jackie Hill's concern is that we make the mistake of imagining a little God who can hardly do anything and who cowers before deep-seated desires within us, and he can't even begin to change who we are.

And that's her concern.

Pope Francis, Jackie Hill, I'm with her on this. The bigger problem to be concerned about is having too little of a view of God, who has no power to change a human life. May God give us the grace to read Genesis, the way it ought to be read. To see the God who wants to be seen in these verses and come away with tremendous hope for ourselves and for those whose lives we touch.

We come this morning to The 4th day of creation that Jackie Hill was talking about. This is Wednesday of the creation week. It is the exact middle day of the creation week and some writers suggest that because it's the middle day, it's something of a centerpiece in God's creative handiwork that we see on, in the first week of creation. What's interesting about the narrative for this day, and you'll notice this as we look at the text, is that it looms large in the creation account.

More is going to be said about this day, more space is going to be given to this day, day 4, than any other day in the creation account with the exception of day 6. Even to the point, the descriptions that we find here are actually, they're to the point of being redundant, repetitive. more so than we find anywhere else in the creation account, and as one writer says, the fullness of the descriptions that we find in these verses suggests that the creation of the heavenly bodies held a special significance for the author.

And we're gonna see why this is so as we work through the passage, this morning.

Let me read verses 14 through 19, to you. Says then God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so.

And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He made the stars also. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, a 4th day. This is the word of God and may God help us to understand. All that He has for us here. Let's frame things this way, this morning, we're gonna look at 7 truths, 7 truths regarding God's creation of the heavenly lights on this, the 4th day.

Of the creation, week. A truth number one that we observe here is that God spoke the heavenly lights into existence. He spoke the heavenly lights into existence, says then God said, let there be lights in the expanse. Of the heavens.

It's interesting on, on day one that we looked at 2 weeks ago, in verse 3, God said, let there be light. Yet on day 4, he says, let there be lights. The word for lights here in verse 14 is from the same root, but it is a different form of the word than what we find in verse 3 when God said, let there be light. The word used here in verse 14 is actually the word used to speak Of the lamp stand that was in the tabernacle in the Old Testament.

The idea is let there be lamps, he's saying, let there be light bearers. In all likelihood, the light that he created on day one was a disembodied light, but the lights of day four are embodied. Lights. So for the 1st 3 days of creation, there's a light shining on the earth that God created on day 1, as the earth is turning on its axis, but there's no shining sun, reflecting moon, or shining stars until day 4.

The light that the sun and the stars are receiving here on day 4 is probably being derived from the stuff of the light that God created on day 1. What is clear, is that the sun, moon, and stars on day 4 are completely taking over the functions of the light that God created on day 1. In verse 14, God doesn't just speak these luminaries into existence, but he brings them into existence in a certain place, which is the expanse of the heavens. Let there be lights.

And here's why I want them in the expanse of the heavens, he says. There's a second truth that we observe regarding God's creation of the heavenly lights. In these verses, and that is that God established the functions of the heavenly lights. We don't just witness here, God's creation of the heavenly lights, we, we actually observe Him creating them, and then giving them a job to do.

And those functions are to separate the day from the night, let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. And this brings us to one of the unique things about, about these verses. One of the things that makes the account of the 4th day stand out as unique amongst all the other days of creation. is how filled it is with statements or descriptions of purpose.

There's more detail given here in these verses regarding the functions of the heavenly lights than you find regarding anything else created in the six days of creation. In fact, notice all of these statements of function. Verse 14 to separate the day from the night. Verse 14, let them be for signs, verse 14 for seasons, verse 14 for days and years, verse 15, let them be for lights to give light on the earth.

Verse 16 to govern the day, verse 16 to govern the night, verse 17, to give light on the earth, verse 18, to govern the day and the night, verse 18 to separate the light from the darkness. You'll notice that a lot of these got stated more than once. The question is, why does Moses do this? In these verses Commentators wrestle with this and here's what most of them will say that is happening.

Moses really emphasizes the functions of these heavenly bodies because the purpose or functions of the heavenly bodies, the sun, moon and stars had been misunderstood grossly by the surrounding cultures and Moses' day. The surrounding nations deified the sun. They deified the moon. And they worship them as deities.

The Egyptians worship the sun god and the moon god. This is the culture that the Jews lived in for 400 years. The Canaanites worship the sun and the moon. In fact, there's a city in the land of Canaan during Moses' day that the children of Israel are about to enter into.

There's a city in the land of Canaan called Bethhemesh. Shemesh is the Hebrew word for sun. It's a city whose name is Temple of the sun. There's also evidence, archaeological evidence of the worship of the moon god in this part of the world as far back as 3000 BC.

the name of the moon god was Yareak. Yareak or Yarek, and some of the Canaanite communities actually viewed the moon god Yarek as the chief deity. In the pantheon of Canaanite, gods. In fact, what's interesting, the very first city that the Israelites are going to spy out and conquer as they enter the land is a city called Yario.

Yario that we pronounce. Jericho. the name Jericho literally means moon or belonging to the moon. In fact, if you go to Jericho today, there are tourist centers, there in that city where they refer to Jericho as the city of the moon.

And this was its identification even back in this day. Because of this, we can actually see how strategically important from a theological standpoint it was that Israel would go after Yario first, as they sought to conquer the land and taking the city of Yario, they were taking on one of the chief deities. In the pantheon of Canaanite gods. They're not, hey, let's build up to this one.

No, we're going after the big one first. And imagine as they conquered Yario, the statement, the theological statement that that sent to all of the peoples in the land of Canaan. Well, what Moses is doing is he's grounding them theologically, preparing them for this conquest, assuring them that this is the creation of the sun and the moon and the stars, and you have nothing to fear from any moon god or any city devoted to the worship of the moon God. So what Moses is doing here is very important.

He's first of all, making it clear that God created the sun, moon, and stars, so they had a beginning point, they're not eternal, and indicating that he's the one to be worshiped, not these things that he created. But Moses also wants us to know. That God created the sun, moon, and stars for specific purposes that he determined. That he gets to determine, indicating that the sun, moon and stars are God's servant boys, who are commissioned by God to do their jobs on this day.

They're not deities who get to self-determine whatever they want to do. They are servants of Jehovah God, and they're given their duties in these verses here in Genesis chapter one. As one writer says, listen to this, he says, these personified powers that were so worshiped have been demoted in Genesis to mere artifacts, lamps rising and setting on command of the one Creator. This is a lower view of the sun, moon, and stars in this account.

Than what the surrounding peoples had as they deified the sun and the moon and gave way too much credit to the stars for controlling their destinies. And so Moses says God created them, brought them into existence, and he also gave them assignments, and here's the assignments. Let's try to run through these. I think 5 purposes in all.

first of all, to separate the day from the night, to separate the day from the night, as the Earth would turn on its axis in a 24 hour period, each spot on Earth would experience a daytime. In which the sun is shining and at nighttime, when it is dark and the moon and the stars are in the sky. The second purpose is let them be for signs. We could talk about this for quite a bit of time, but to make it brief, guys, just keep in mind that a sign is something that points people's attention to something else.

God is etching or engraving these entities in the heavens so that we, the people of Earth could see them and be pointed elsewhere, to have our attention directed elsewhere. The sign is never intended to be the thing. But it's always that which points to the main thing. If someone is pointing a finger toward God, and you see someone pointing a finger toward God, you don't worship their finger.

Right? You worship the God that they are pointing to, and that's the function of the sun and the moon and the stars. They are signs that point primarily to the glory of their Creator. In Psalm 191, write that reference down, the psalmist says the heavens are telling of the glory of God.

And their expanse is declaring the work of his hands. He's saying they're pointing and they're speaking to us. I'm reading the signs, and the signs point to the glory of the one who created them. You don't worship the sun, you don't worship the moon and the stars, you turn and look at the one that they are pointing to.

Sir Isaac Newton, the great scientist said this, he said this most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. This is him using his brilliant mind and studying the heavens, and he looks at the sun and the moon and the stars, and he sees them for the signs that they are pointing to an intelligent and a powerful being whose counsel and whose dominion is awesome. That's a good scientist. The sun, moon and stars would also serve as signs in a variety of other ways, would be signs by which people can gain their physical bearings.

Sailors will be able to chart their course across the seas, being guided by the stars at night. Nowadays we have GPS. Devices, but for most of human history, the stars were the GPS system used by navigators. We also know from scripture that there would be times in human history when the sun would be darkened.

And the moon would be turned to blood from the vantage point of people on Earth looking at them, which would signify judgments or outpourings by God. In fact, on the day of Pentecost, the birthday of the church, the sun and the moon get mentioned in the first sermon ever preached in the history of the church. Peter quotes from Joel, where it says the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

In Luke 21:25, Jesus speaks of a time of tribulation coming upon the world, and during that time he says there will be signs in the sun, and the moon and the stars.

There's probably other things we can point to, you might want to make note of this, the rainbow is actually a sign from the sun. What is a rainbow but the sun hitting water droplets in the air in a certain way. Such that it's light gets separated into different colors. So even the rainbow is a sign from the sun that God would not destroy the earth again by water.

So these heavenly entities would serve to separate the day from the night and also to serve in various ways as signs that would be helpful for humankind. And a third purpose, they would also be for seasons. This indicates that the Earth was positioned at a slant on its axis. We know today it was the, our axis is about 23 degrees and the creation of the seasons is essential for the natural cycles of earth and ocean currents and the movements and migrations of animals and all the benefits.

That come with that, with the seasons, farmers would be able to set their schedules based on the seasons of summer and fall and winter and spring. There would be planting times and harvest times and then winters while the ground lies fallow, rejuvenating itself in preparation for spring when the crops are planted again. 1/4 purpose is that these heavenly entities would be for days and for years to help humans in marking the days of their life and the years of their existence.

The earth would be rotating on its axis in a 24 hour period, experiencing a daytime and a nighttime, and the earth would take About 365 days to orbit around the sun, making a solar year.

And we would be able to measure our days and our years accordingly with the help of the sun and the moon. And the stars. There's a 5th purpose that's stated here, and that is to give light upon the earth, to give light upon the earth. Based on the wording of Genesis, the sun, moon and stars were created for the benefit of Earth, for the regulation of seasons and days and years, and also to just give their light.

upon the earth. Matthew Henry says it this way, the lights of the heavens do not shine for themselves, nor for the world of spirits above who do not need them, but they shine for us, for our pleasure and for our advantage. As you read this account, you begin to get a sense that the solar system was set up as a finely tuned system. Everything was thought of.

The movement of the Earth around the sun in 365 days making up a year. The movement of the moon around the Earth in 27.5 days making up a month. The rotation of the Earth on its axis every 24 hours is like a finely crafted watch. With amazing, intricate, moving parts.

In fact, Maybe write these numbers down. Look at it this way, the Earth or the moon is orbiting around the Earth at 2,288 miles an hour. The moon going around the Earth. The Earth is traveling around the sun.

At a speed of 66,000 MPH and it's taken the moon right along with it. Our sun is orbiting the center of the Milky Way galaxy at 52,000 MPH, and our whole Milky Way galaxy is heading somewhere, who knows where, at 1.2 million miles an hour. It's all like a watch with multiple fast moving parts, and it's all designed by God and set in motion. On this day of creation.

God speaks these luminaries into existence. He establishes and decrees their function. A third truth we observe God's word concerning the lights becomes reality. The text says, and it was so.

God said, and it was so. The statement is loaded with meaning. God has said a number of things. He said, let there be lights, let them be in the expanse, let them serve multiple functions among which is, let them give light upon the earth.

So when Moses says, and it was so, he means that all that God spoke came to pass. The sun, moon and stars came into existence at God's command, they showed up in the place he wanted them to show up, and they immediately began fulfilling their purposes. And among those purposes was to shine their light upon The earth. God says, let there be lights, amongst other things, to give light upon the earth, and the text says, and it was so.

This means that the stars, however far they were away, were giving their light upon the earth right away. God said, and it was so. This should not surprise us. If God is powerful enough to create millions of stars in our universe, he should have no problem getting their light to Earth right away.

To where God could say, this is what I want. And it was so. I create them, I speak them into existence to give their light upon the earth, and it was instantly so. This is the pattern of the creation account.

God said, and it was so. Do you realize when you look at the sun, and when you look at the moon, and when you look at the stars, you are literally staring at the words that God spoke on the 4th day of creation, put into tangible physical form. You're looking at the words of God. This is the power of God's word.

His words are not just truthful, they are truth. His words don't just conform to reality, they define. And create reality. There's a 4th truth that we observe here in this text beginning in verse 16, and that is this, that God made the sun, the moon, and the stars.

This might be a little repetitive, but we're just gonna roll with the text because this is the language that is used. In verse 16, it says, and God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night, and he made the stars also. Moses is now restating what he's already said, but he's restating it with greater specificity. He talks about the two lights, the great light and the lesser light.

The greater lamp, as it were, and the lesser lamp. The greater lamp to govern the day, the lesser lamp to govern the night. Commentators. speculate on why does Moses not use the word son.

Shemesh. Why does he not use the Hebrew word Yariak for The moon. Why does he just say the big lamp and the small lamp? Why does he do that?

One writer says this, and this is pretty conventional as to what commentators will say. The reason for this choice of terms may be due to the fact that these words, which are very similar in other Semitic languages are the names of the divinities. And had Moses used the word Shemesh. Had he used the word Yareak for the sun and the moon.

He would have unduly called to his readers' attention the deities that peoples worshiped and Moses did not want to create that confusion. So one writer is definitely on target when he says that Moses' awkward avoidance of the terms sun and moon highlight the anti-mythical thrust of the passage. He's making a statement. And he's choosing his language very precisely so as to avoid any indication of encouraging idolatry at all.

And then what I love about this text, it says, and he made the stars also. Literally the text says just, and the stars. I love this, look at this. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night, and the stars.

this is almost as an afterthought. Almost every writer you read on this passage will say that this is thrown in almost as an afterthought, but this is intentional on Moses' part. The pagans during this day magnified the role of the stars. They viewed the stars as things that shaped and controlled their destinies.

They attributed way too much power to the stars, but in the creation account, Moses says, oh yeah, and God created the stars too. This is the greatness of our God on display. Unfortunately, where we live here in Riverside and, and the surrounding area, our stars are not all that impressive that we look at, right? They're washed out by light pollution.

It's one of the unfortunate side effects of electricity and modern technology that the moon and the stars. End up getting washed out, leaving us unimpressed with their glory as we ought to be impressed by them. We're left impoverished by this, without even realizing it. But how many of you have ever been like in a place far away from the city, no city lights, no light pollution, and you were able to see the stars in a really incredibly vivid way.

Raise your hand if you've ever had that experience. Yeah, I remember years ago, I was driving home from Mammoth, from one of our men's mammoth trips and I was by myself. It was night and no city lights anywhere and I kept noticing out of the corner of my eye, something really bright was up in the sky. And I ignored it, but then I kept kinda like, what is that?

And I pulled over by the side of the road. It was pitch black. Not, not a light could be seen anywhere. And I look up into the heavens and it took my breath away.

The stars were so incredibly vivid. I could see the band of the Milky Way. And then I realized what I've been cheated out of living in Moreno Valley, California. If we do have those moments where we do see the band of the Milky Way and we see the stars, as they really look, if you take away light pollution, you can begin to understand why the ancient peoples attributed so much power.

to them. But God created them. Oh yeah, yeah, I created the stars. The trillions and trillions of them.

God actually invites us to be students of the stars, to look at the stars and to think about Him who created them. In Isaiah chapter 40, verse 26, God says, lift up your eyes on high and see who created these stars. He's like, I'm commanding you, my people, to look at the stars, and when you look at the stars, don't just see the stars, see me, who created them. The one who leads forth their hosts by number, he calls them all by name, and because of the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing.

God knows the names of all of the stars. I can't even remember the names of my four children. This is amazing. How many stars are there in the heavens, all of whom have names.

I was researching this this week. A good way to think about it is how many grains of sand are there on all of the beaches, all across our planet. One blogger named Robert Krulwich ran some calculations and suggested That there are roughly 7 quintillion, 500 quadrillion grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. He might be off by 1 or 2 based on my calculations, but I But just imagine that take 10 to 18th, multiply that by 7.5, and that's how many grains of sand.

are on our planet. So how many stars are there, in the known universe? This is how many stars there are in the known universe, and again, this is speculation, this is a guesstimate, no one has counted them. but take 4 times 10.

To the 22nd power. And God created them all. He has names for all of them. And by the way, these stars may look small in our sky compared to the sun.

But our sun is actually a dwarf star. Many of the stars in the universe are actually far larger than our sun. In fact, one star on Taurus is so large that you can fit 512 million of our own suns inside of it. And there are 40 sextillion stars in the known universe, and God has named all of them.

What's amazing, even more so is that this isn't the only thing God has to do. Or keep track of. For example, there are more atoms and 8 drops of water than there are stars in the known universe. God is an amazing, amazing God.

I wonder if such a God could change me. I wonder Truth number 5 that we observe here in this passage. about God's creation of the heavenly lights is that God placed the sun, moon and stars in the heavens. He didn't just create them, he placed them, he positioned them in the heavens.

It says, and God placed them in the expanse of the heavens. He placed them, he placed the sun 93 million miles away from the Earth. He placed the moon about 238. 1000 miles from the Earth as it orbits around our planet, and God placed the stars in their locations and he set them on their paths as they travel through the heavens.

From the nearest star to us, that is about 4 light years from Earth to stars that are over a billion light years away. God created them. Oh, and he positioned them just so. Scientists suggest that there are over 100 billion galaxies in the known universe, each containing over 100 million stars, and the heavens are filled with these galaxies, created and positioned by God in the heavens.

In fact, back in 2003, the Hubble telescope focused on a part of our sky. It was a really interesting thing that they did. They, they found a spot in our night sky where there appeared to be nothing, and for a million seconds, the Hubble telescope zoomed in on that small part of our sky where there appeared to be nothing. And the patch of sky that it, it honed in on, if you want to know how big that patch of sky was, just imagine a grain of rice.

I meant to bring a grain of rice this morning, but, imagine me having a grain of rice here and holding it arm's distance, from my face and I look up into the heavens and the patch of sky that is blocked by that grain of rice. That's how big the patch or small the patch was that the Hubble telescope honed in on for about a million seconds of exposure time. And what they found in that tiny sliver of sky was this. That's what they found They found over 10,000 galaxies, each containing over 100 million stars.

In that tiny sliver of sky, they found over 1 trillion stars. They said that if, if they studied the sky in exactly the same way with the same exposure time, it would take the Hubble telescope over a million years to process all of the sky. The same way that they did that tiny sliver. These galaxies were all placed in the heavens by an all powerful deity, a being of unimaginable power and wisdom and intelligence, and I wonder, I wonder if such a God could change you and me.

There's a 6th truth that we observe in this passage, and that is that God positioned the sun, moon, and stars to best fulfill their purpose. God has a reason for everything he does. Verse 17, and God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night and to separate the light from the darkness. He positioned them exactly where they need to be in order to best fulfill these functions, to give light on the earth, To govern the day and the night, the word govern means to exert ruling influence over.

It means to be present, to prevail over, to determine the boundaries of, to determine when a day will begin and end. These, these heavenly bodies govern, they rule over the day and the night at God's command and they separate the light from the darkness. Again, these massive monsters in the heavens are depicted in these verses as mere servants of Elohim. This should impress us with how great God is.

If you want to know something of the greatness of God, take a look at the sun, and the moon and the 46 trillion stars and realize that they are all the created servants of God. And our thought should be, if these giants in our sky are merely the servants of God who do his bidding, Then how great must this God be who has such awesome servants. And we should feel so privileged to be the sons and the daughters of this great God. One has to be crazy to not be in awe of God, who has such servants, and we should count it a blessing to be his servants and to be his sons and daughters, and to be happily devoted to such a God.

Johannes Kepler, a brilliant man who was the founder of modern astronomy, once said this, I love this. He says the devout astronomer is mad. What he's saying is if you can look at the heavens and not see a God worth believing in and devoting your life to, you're crazy. I wonder if such a God can change me.

Could he really save me from my sins and transform me from the inside out. It brings us to our 7th and final truth of the morning. Regarding God's creation, the heavenly lights, and that is that God saw that his handiwork regarding the heavenly lights was good. And God saw That it was good.

God's creation of these lights and his positioning of these lights was good, and the functioning of these lights and carrying out their purposes was good. They were all doing exactly what they were created to do. Everything was beautiful, everything was serviceable to his purposes. Nothing was unnecessary, not one star was unneeded.

God desired it. He decreed it, it came to pass, and it was good. This is the power of God and the power of His word. When God speaks, his words do not merely conform to reality.

When he speaks, reality changes itself to conform to his word. That's the power of God's word. God speaks, and it was so, and it was good. What could such a God do with me through his spoken word?

Could he bring about something good? In me through His word. As we witness what God did on this 4th day of creation, how should we respond? There's actually a ton of ways.

Let's just focus on a few as we wrap things up, this morning. First of all, we should join Jackie Hill in realizing that we have a big God. A big God, who is our savior. Listen, you may say, man, nothing can change me, no one can change me.

Don't flatter yourself. Seriously, I say that in all kindness, don't flatter yourself, nothing's too hard for God, not even you. You should be thinking what Jackie Hill said, if God can make a moon, stars, and a galaxy that we have yet to fully comprehend, how can he not simply change me? This God who said, let there be lights, and there were lights, could he not speak light into my heart and transform me too?

That's what we should be asking. Also, when reading this account, we should Take time to thank God for the fact that 2000 years ago, God said, let the light of the world come to Earth. But the true light come into the world and he sent his Son Jesus to enter into our world and live among us and show us the truth of who God is. In John chapter one, John says in him in Christ was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness was not able to overcome it.

He was the true light. Which coming into the world enlightens everyone. Guys, this is the mercy of God. We missed the message of the sun in our rebellion.

We missed the message of the moon, that the stars were telling us. And so God did one better than that. He sent the true light, who created all of these entities anyway. He sent him into the world so that he might shine his light upon us in a way that's more vivid.

More personal and more intimate. What more does our God have to do to reveal Himself to us? What more does he have to do if the light of a million suns In our universe, if the light of a million stars doesn't touch your heart, if the light of our own sun from 96 million miles away doesn't touch your heart, if the reflective light of the moon from over 200,000 miles away doesn't touch your heart, and if the light of Jesus Christ Whom God sent into our world, doesn't touch your heart.

And if the light of this book that is supposed to be a light under your path, doesn't touch your heart, what more can God do?

Actually, he does need to do one other thing. And that is he needs to look upon our darkened hearts and say, let there be light. Let there be light. And Paul says, for those of us that know the Lord, we're so thankful.

2 Corinthians 4, that God who said light shall shine out of darkness, has essentially spoken that over our hearts regenerating us, that we might believe in Christ and see the truth of who God is. But if your heart is cold and callous this morning and unmoved by these things, pray to God and say, God, look upon my darkened heart. And say let there be light. Speak those words over my heart, Lord.

Let there be light. There's one other place I wanna suggest that our thoughts should go as we look at the sun, moon, and stars. One of the things we should do when we look at the sun, moon and stars is we should think about ourselves for a moment and say, who are we? That's what we should ask.

In Psalm 8, the psalmist ponders the 4th day of creation. And he says, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained. What is man? That's a totally legitimate question.

It's one of the great religious questions that we ask. We are so small compared to these heavenly bodies. Who are we among such beautiful, powerful giants who display the glory of God with such amazing splendor. What I love about Psalm 8, I would encourage you to read it this week.

What I love about Psalm 8 is that the psalmist doesn't just ask the question. A lot of times we'll just ask the question, and we don't stick around for the answer. He answers the question, what is man? And then look at the answer, verse 5.

Here's man, you have made him man a little lower than God, and you crown him with glory and with majesty. Turns out these heavenly luminaries don't hold a candle to us. They make us feel small, but on second thought, we realize that we too are the product of the creative handiwork of our God, and we are crowned with glory and majesty that the sun and the moon and the stars do not have. We learned later in Genesis that God created us in His image.

We bear the image of God in a way that the sun, moon and stars could never do. We are luminaries who bear the image of our glorious and majestic God and this is especially true for us as believers. There is more glory in your individual soul than there is in all of the stars of heaven combined. If you are a believer in Jesus.

And as Christians, we should realize that God has created us to be lights that give our light upon the world around us. In Matthew 5:14, Jesus says, you are the light of the world. In Philippians 2, Paul says that we shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and a perverse generation. In other words, God looks upon our darkened world, our darkened culture today, and he says, let there be lights to shine their light, my light upon the world of this day.

And you and I as Christians are among those lights that God has created. In the biography of your life with the narrative say, and God said to him or her, be a light that shines upon the world. And it was so Would your biography say that? Cornerstone has come into existence here in Riverside because God looked upon the city of Riverside and said, let there be light.

And Cornerstone came into existence. Are we a light as a community of people? Do we shine as lights in this community? When the history of Cornerstone is written with the narrative say, and God looked upon Riverside and said, let there be light.

To give its light upon this community. And it was so. Would the narrative say that? Does God look upon the way we are functioning and giving off the light of Christ and say, it's good?

It's good. This is so good. So good. You say, well, how do we give off light?

Give me a practical way to give off light. I'm just gonna end the sermon by reading Paul's words, very practical insight and counsel. If you want to be a light bearer in the midst of this darkened generation. You ready for it?

Here we go. Do all things without grumbling. And disputing So that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God, above reproach, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, and holding fast the word of life. Holding forth the word of the gospel and being a living embodiment of that gospel to others.

Ponder just that counsel that Paul gives in Philippians 2, and let's all ask God to help us to be the light that he is transforming us to be, that we might give hope and healing and warmth and direction to those whose lives we touch. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. For the front row seat that you give us in these verses, Lord, that we might Behold your glory.

Behold the wonder of what you do on this day of creation. This is merely one day, one day. You are a great God. And James one, you're called the Father of lights, and we begin to understand in these verses why this is An appropriate title for you.

Lord, these lights in the heavens are a manifestation of your loving kindness to us. They're an expression of your love and your grace towards us. You cause your sun to shine on the evil and the good. You're so generous with the bounty of what the sun, moon and stars give.

May we learn of your merciful ways just as we observe how generous you are with your sunlight and moonlight and starlight. May we seek to be like you and be merciful as you are. And Lord, you've, you've saved us. To be lights.

We ask that you would help us to shine as we ought to shine. That we would be a living embodiment of the grace and the truth of the gospel to others, that we would speak forth and hold forth this message of life. Of salvation through Jesus, and in the process shine as the lights that you have saved us to be. If there's any here today, Lord, who have never put their trust in you, may they just be stunned by your greatness, your power, your power to change lives, and may they come running to you.

The only true God who has loved all of us so by sending your Son, the true light into the world to die on the cross that we might have a way of salvation. You're a good God, and we say to you this morning that we love you and we trust you. We thank you Lord for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you. We ask that you would receive these funds and do much with every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus.

We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said. And