A Sermon Too Big for Sundays
From Gospel Translations
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Current revision as of 04:46, 5 December 2017
By John Piper
About The Glory of God
Part of the series Message Excerpt
What the Universe Says About God
Audio Transcript
Genesis 1:27: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him. Male and female, he created them.”
What’s the point of that? The point of an image is to image. Images are erected in cities to display the original person. Images point to originals. Images are there to glorify the original. God made human beings in his image so that the world will be filled with reflectors of God — images of God, six billion statues of God. You should ask how you’re doing, so that nobody would miss the point — God. That’s the point of humanity.
Six billion people created in the image of God. The point is God. Do you see it? Are you seeing it? Are you stunned every day in this world? Six billion statues to God, lest anybody miss the point. The angels cry in Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory,” full of millions upon millions of human image bearers. Glorious ruins.
Not only humans, right? Nature too. Why such a breathtaking world for us to live in? Why such a universe? I read the other day, can’t verify it, that there are more stars in the universe than there are sounds or words that have ever been spoken by all human beings in all of history. That’s a lot of stars. Why? The Bible is crystal clear. Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” This is not hard. Why? God — that’s why.
Sometimes people say, “Well, if earth is the only inhabited place in the universe, the only inhabited planet, and man is the only rational inhabited among the stars, why such a large place? Why so many stars, galaxies, billions of them? Why?” The answer is this: It’s not about us, it’s about God. And it’s an understatement. God created us to know him, love him, and show him, and then he gave us a little hint of what he’s like called the universe, and it’s an understatement.
That’s why it’s there. The universe is declaring the glory of God, and the reason we exist is to see it, be stunned by it, and glorify God because of it. It is why Paul says in Romans 1:20: “His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since creation in the things that have been made so that we are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God.”
They didn’t get it. Oh, the Bible is clear as to why there is a universe, and human beings.