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Now let's dive into today's message.
For those of you who don't know me, uh my name is Eric Burkhart, and this is my lovely bride, Amanda.
Um if you are used to coming to this service, you may not see me around the place very often.
Uh, because at this time uh we are leading a service in downtown to a facility um called the Buck uh the Commons at Buckingham.
It's a residence facility for those who've experienced homelessness before.
Um and so we do a Sunday service there every week and have a she leads the music and I preach there every week.
And then we have a team that that does a midweek Bible study there as well, and I'm the the pastor there.
Uh so uh if you don't know me, uh uh that's who I am, Eric Burkhart, and it's and I look forward to meeting anyone who haven't.
Uh but I entitled this message, Look at the Stars.
Now I want you to do something with me here.
I want you to close your eyes for a second.
I promise not to do anything too crazy.
Close your eyes for a second.
Pretend you're way out in the middle of nowhere, not in the middle of the city where there's all this light pollution, but pretend you're further out and you look up to the night sky.
What do you see?
That's not rhetorical, you're allowed to answer.
What do you see?
Stars.
Yes.
More than you can count.
Anybody, anybody, uh, any kids want to guess how many they can see in the sky?
Yeah.
2,000! That's a that's more than I could count.
I don't think I think I'd stu give up after 500, I think.
Good.
Maybe, maybe.
When I went to my grandmother's house when I was a kid, I we would always leave and it would always be after dark, and I would look, and she lived out in the middle of nowhere.
We we grew up in the Ohio Valley, uh far from any major cities, so we didn't have a lot of light pollution.
And when I would go out to grandma's house and I would leave, I always took a second to look up at the sky, and it was beautiful.
It piqued my curiosity, this beautiful display of all these more stars than I can count.
I I don't, like I said, I probably would have given up after 500.
2,000 is a good guess.
I don't know how many stars there are in the sky, but it is beautiful to behold.
And when I look at the sky, and when I looked at it as a kid, it made me always wonder what's all out there?
What's that one there?
Is that a planet?
Is that a star?
What's over there?
And it made me want to be in a rocket ship and go explore them all.
In fact, being an astronaut would probably be like if I was better at math and science, I totally would have signed up for astronaut because that sounds like a really cool job to me.
Even the entertainment that I consume reflects this curiosity with what's out there.
I was one of those weird hybrid people that liked both Star Wars and Star Trek.
I know that's weird because most people like camp out on one side or the other, but I'm geeky geeky enough that I like it all.
Uh I even like have a dabble in like 50s sci-fi and like with the weird flying saucers and all that sort of stuff.
It always makes me curious what is out there?
What would I find if I went and explored out beyond our solar system?
So, not surprisingly, lately I've been absolutely geeking out about this whole Artemis II thing.
Anyone else geek out about NASA and Artemis II?
Yes, I get at least a couple hands.
In the first service, I got like one person that care that cares about uh space exploration like I do.
So maybe we're the the rare breed that that is excited about this.
But I was absolutely stoked.
In fact, my wife and I go to these uh these concerts, these orchestra concerts sometimes, and we were scheduled to go to an orchestra concert, and they were playing a bunch of Cole Porter songs, which if you don't know Cole Porter, great artist.
Um and no disrespect to Mr.
Porter, but the Artemis 2 mission was about to conclude with the splashdown right as the orchestra is picking up to play their music.
And you know what?
I can listen to Cole Porter anytime at Spotify.
So guess what I was doing?
I was sitting there surreptitiously with my phone down in my lap, watching Splashdown and trying not to disturb anybody's concert.
Now, kids, don't please don't follow my example.
That's a terrible example.
You're supposed to be polite and not pull out your devices in that time.
But this doesn't happen every day.
I didn't grow up in the Apollo missions.
I don't remember what it was like to see Neil Armstrong step on the moon.
I didn't have that experience.
For my generation, the closest we ever got to this deep space stuff was what was it?
Say it again?
Year 2000.
Well, that there's a lot, there's a lot of hype around that, uh, for sure.
No, I was I was actually thinking uh of Buzz Lightyear going to infinity and beyond.
That that was my generation, right?
We didn't have you know all the Apollo missions.
But the more I look at all these pictures from this mission, and if you know the the sp the the Webb Space Telescope, you know this?
It's like supposed to replace the Hubble, right?
Even better images, more, you know, more resolution, right?
When I look at all these images that come back from deep space, it reminds me that our universe is vast.
It's vast.
Do you know we live in a thing called a galaxy?
So we live on planet Earth, and a galaxy is a whole bunch of stars like our sun all grouped together.
Anyone under the age of 18, can you tell me what the name of our galaxy is?
Yeah.
Say it again.
Milky Way, very good.
The Milky Way.
If I had a Milky Way candy bar, you'd have it right now, but unfortunately I didn't prepare for that.
Do you know how many they believe?
No one knows for sure, but do you know how many stars they believe are in the Milky Way?
This anybody can answer this.
Say it again?
10 trillion?
That's a really good guess.
Uh that's a little bit big for the Milky Way, but that's closer to that's closer to the wider universe.
They believe, just in our one galaxy, that there's approximately 100 billion stars just in the Milky Way.
Just in our now, did you know the Milky Way is part of a neighborhood of galaxies?
I thought houses were in neighborhoods.
Apparently, galaxies are in neighborhoods too.
And there's about 50 of those things with 100 billion stars in them, right?
Just in our little neighborhood of the universe, right?
Uh also people under the age of 18.
How what's the closest planet to us here?
Yeah.
Mars.
Very good.
Do you know how long anybody it takes to go to Mars?
That's the closest to us.
How long does it take to go to Mars?
Yeah.
An hour?
How fast do your parents drive?
That's a good guess.
Uh a little bit off.
Anyone else guess, want to guess how long it takes?
Two plus years.
Two plus years?
Uh that's that's really close.
It depends on how fast you're going, but the last time that we sent anything, like they send like rovers and stuff out to Mars, it took about nine months to get there.
Do you know the speed they were going was thirty six thousand miles per hour?
Not 3,600, but 36,000 miles per hour, and it took nine months to get there.
Our universe is fast! So how fast?
Frankly, we don't even know.
How many stars are there?
More than we could count, more than we could fathom.
But the more I think about it, the more I marvel.
Why?
Because God created it all.
How great must God be?
The Bible describes creation as being ex nihilo.
That's Latin for out of nothing.
How great is our God to make billions and trillions and numbers.
Uh actually, it was, I'm gonna I'm gonna identify, it was uh Beckett Yol in the first service that introduced me to a new number.
He said, a Googleplex.
A Googleplex is apparently one with a hundred zeros after it.
There's a Googleplex of stars in the universe.
There's so many, we don't even have a number for how many stars, and God created it all out of nothing.
Now, one of God's prophets, Isaiah, writing to the people of God, the people of Israel, and trying to reassure them at a very dark time in their history, uses this vast created universe to help them see how great their God was.
This is what it says in Isaiah 40, verse 25.
It says, To whom will you compare me, or who is my equal?
That's God is speaking in this.
To whom will you compare me, or who is my equal, says the Holy One.
The Holy One's a way of referencing God.
Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
How many are not missing?
Zero, exactly.
You have the concept of zero, very good.
Not one is missing out of the whatever the word was, Googleplex of stars, or maybe even more than that number of stars, not one is out of place because of God's great power, his mighty strength.
Now, this verse emphasizes God's strength, God's creative power.
You know, God creates the universe and sustains it.
He creates all the stars and hangs them right where he wants them in the sky and sustains all that exists.
This aspect of God, a fancy Bible word for it, is his transcendence.
That means that God is greater than that which God creates.
God is all-powerful.
But the passage hints at another divine attribute.
What we call in Bible speak God's imminence.
Imminence means that he's close to us, he's near, he's intimate.
Notice that God calls each star by name.
How many in here can name, you're allowed to answer honestly, how many people can name all the people who live on your street?
We actually have, we got one there?
How how many approximately is that, do you think?
11?
All right.
How many in here uh students perhaps can name all the kids in their class?
Yeah?
How many are in your class approximately?
25, how many in your class?
28?
Oh, you have a big class.
22, you have a small class.
All right.
Yeah.
22, you have 22 in your class as well?
Very good.
God has oh, sorry, I missed one.
How many?
Oh, wow.
67.
What class is it?
Like orchestra?
Oh, yeah?
Oh yeah?
Very nice.
Alright, that's a lot of names.
I don't think I can remember that many names.
Very good.
God remembers where every star is and calls each of them by name.
How many ever stars there are, God calls each of them by name.
God not only created the vast universe and all the stars and hung them right where he wanted to be, he has names for each one.
Now, when I was in a in first grade, I had the privilege of naming a pet.
We bought a um a Beagle pup, and I named her uh Cindy after a girl that I liked in the first grade.
Now, thinking back on it, that probably wasn't as flattering to Cindy as I wanted it to be.
Nevertheless, that's what I did.
Uh so if your name is Cindy and you think I might have named our dog after you, uh, I apologize.
It was meant to be a compliment.
Um I denied it to my parents.
My parents said it was because I had a crush on Cindy.
I said it's a total coincidence.
I just picked that name because I thought it fit a female dog, right?
Um they they they called me out for it.
Um but why do we name our pets?
This isn't rhetorical, you can answer.
Why do we name our pets?
Why don't we just call them thing one and thing two or call them hey dog or hey cat or hey goldfish or whatever?
Why do we name our pets?
We love them, yeah.
Any other thoughts why we name our pets?
Yeah.
They're special, yeah.
We love them and they're special to us.
God names the stars because the stars matter.
In other words, that creation, the created order, matters.
That's what reflects God's imminence.
Not only is God the creator, the almighty, but he cares about creation.
God cares for what God creates.
God didn't name the stars because he was bored and he needed something to do.
God gave them names because they matter to him, because creation matters to him.
God is not some absentee landlord that only checks in when you forgot to pay the rent.
God cares for what God creates.
So what Isaiah is doing here when he's trying to reassure Israel is he's bringing together and holding together God's almighty transcendence, on the one hand, with God's closeness, his intimacy, his imminence, we call it.
C.
S.
Lewis in his book, The Problem of Pain, which by the way, don't read it unless you like to geek out over hard things to read, because it's a very hard book to read, but it is filled with a lot of really good theology.
He attempts to do the same idea.
He says this: he says, God is both further from us and nearer to us than any other being.
God is both the Almighty Creator who speaks and things happen, but he's also, as John 15 describes, he's also close as a friend.
You see, both aspects of God's nature are critical to understand if we're going to trust God when things go sideways.
Okay, so take your fingers and put them right up here on your neck.
Do you ever all have a pulse?
Yeah?
Hopefully.
We don't need to call a squad.
Alright, if you have a pulse, things are gonna go sideways in life.
They either have, they are now, or they will, or they will again.
That's life.
We live in a fallen world.
And if you're going to endure and trust God in those moments, we have to understand that God is both the Almighty Creator and the one who calls us friends.
So when we get the bad news that we fear the most, maybe it's a diagnosis, maybe it's you lost your job, maybe it's who knows, you could fill in the blank.
But when you get that bad news, it's comforting to know that the Almighty God who placed the stars is still at work in his creation.
And when we feel lost and alone and we feel adrift in this world, it's comforting to know that the God who calls us friends cares deeply for us and he's close to us.
The writer of Psalm 147 reflects both of these attributes, uh, actually referring to the same event that Isaiah was talking about when things had gone sideways for Israel.
Excuse me.
Listen to what he says in Psalm 147, verse 1.
He says, Praise the Lord! How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem, he gathers the exiles of Israel, he heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.
He determines, sounds very much like Isaiah, he determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power, his understanding has no limit.
How much of a limit there is on a God's understanding?
None, no limit.
He understands it all.
He's able to hold all the stars right where he wants them to be and give them all names, no matter how many names that is.
Now we might hear this beautiful hymn of praise, and it is.
There's exclamation points in our translation for a reason.
It's meant to be exuberant, it's meant to be exciting, right?
We might hear this exciting upbeat tone and get it twisted.
This was not written at a high point in Israel's history.
This is in fact quite the opposite.
It's written coming out of the worst time in Israel's history up to that point.
Something we call the exile.
See, after years of disobedience, God had allowed Israel to be carried off into another country, what we call the exile in Babylon.
Yet in all that time, God never forgot.
God never forsook his people.
God continued to bless and preserve them throughout that difficult time.
And when we're in the middle of the storm, and we will be, God never forgets.
God never forsakes.
Whether that storm is self-inflicted, something that we've done to ourselves, or whether it's done to us by someone else, either way, God never forgets us.
God never forsakes us.
That's why we can sing songs like, Your love never fails and never gives up and never runs out on me.
Or how about this one?
Great is thy faithfulness.
Oh God my Father.
Now we couldn't sing those things and really mean it if God hadn't shown up in our lives.
You see, the psalmist here is confident and he praises God's transcendent power.
He's the Almighty.
He determines how many stars there are.
And yet he calls them by name.
He's the one who's close, he's imminent with us in our darkest days.
The message is loud and clear.
God can be trusted.
God created each star.
God can be trusted.
He not only created them, he cares about them enough to give them names.
Now Jesus drives this point home even more clearly, appealing to another part of creation.
Listen to what he says in Luke 12.
He says in Luke 12, verse 6, are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
Sparrows is Bible speak for poor people's food.
Okay, so in our context, you might substitute fish ticks.
Who in here likes fish sticks?
I think they're gross.
I love fish, but bless your hearts, I don't get fish sticks, they are only vaguely a sort of fish.
I don't know.
They're gross to me.
What about chicken nugs?
Anybody a nugs person?
Yeah, so this is sort of like Jesus saying, like cheap food, like a PB and J or whatever.
Sparrows were something that poor people ate.
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
How many of them are forgotten by God?
Zero! Not one is forgotten by God.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Now, for some of you, that's a little bit easier than others.
Nevertheless, it's a pretty cool feat.
Not one of the sparrows is forgotten by God.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Don't be afraid.
You are worth more than many sparrows.
Now, notice that not one of these commonplace, like chicken nuggets sort of food, these sparrows, not one of them is forgotten by God.
Now, just in case the audience missed this point, Jesus dials it in more succinctly.
You crowd, you audience, are worth more than many sparrows.
Now, Jesus isn't here promising a life without difficulty.
Quite the opposite, frankly.
He's only promising that in the midst of it, he cares.
He's not absentee.
He's not indifferent.
He is with you and he's close as a friend.
So to anyone who feels alone or abandoned, Jesus is with you.
You are worth more than many sparrows.
To anyone who feels discouraged by bad news, Jesus is with you.
You are worth more than many sparrows.
Does that mean Jesus doesn't care about chicken nuggets?
Of course not! Notice not one of those birds falls and is forgotten by God.
Not one.
Of course, God cares about his creation.
God cares so much that he remembers all the birds used to make your lunch.
Somebody say ooh.
It can be a gruesome prospect, I gr I grant.
Sorry, that made me laugh.
Of course God cares.
He named all the stars in the sky and placed them right where he wanted them to be.
It doesn't mean that God doesn't care about the rest of creation.
Rather, it means as much as God cares for the rest of creation, and he absolutely does, he cares for you and for me even more.
So how much do you think God cares for us?
A lot.
A lot?
That much?
Way more?
Big as the galaxy.
Yeah, my arms can't go any further.
What does this gesture look like?
It does look like a hug, that's good.
Did you say a hug?
The cross.
Yeah, that's what I was.
That's actually a good one.
A hug, but yeah, the cross is what I was going for.
Yes, this is how much God cares about you and about me.
You see, Jesus showed his love and his care by becoming human, by teaching humans and dying to restore humans.
You know, Jesus willingly gave up his glory to become a baby?
Vulnerable, needing cared for?
Anyone have little siblings?
Any of the kids have little siblings?
Yeah.
When they brought the baby home, was it able to do anything for itself?
No.
What are the things mom and dad have to do for a baby?
You can shout them out.
Feed them?
Yeah, what else?
Change their diapers.
You know, the first service was really shy about that answer.
I'm like, come on, it goes with the territory.
You're gonna eat, it's gotta come out, right?
Like, like, why are you shy about this?
This is a part of life.
Do you know Jesus had poopy diapers?
He had to be changed, he had to be burped, he had to be fed, he had to be carried, Joseph had to teach him how to do a trade.
Jesus didn't come with this stuff already installed in him.
He's fully human, just like you and me.
That means Mary had to rock him to sleep.
Why would the God of the universe endure that?
Because he cares about you and he cares about me.
Because he loves you and he loves me.
That's the only reason he would endure that.
The only reason anyone would sign up for that.
You know, Jesus willingly taught, you ever read the gospels and you're like, these guys are knuckleheads, these disciples.
You ever think they're knuckleheads?
You can tell the truth, we're in church.
These guys are a little bit knuckleheads.
You know, Jesus taught and modeled righteousness to a bunch of self-centered knuckleheads like you and like me.
Why?
Because he cares about you and he cares about me because he loves you and he loves me.
And Jesus willingly took our sins upon himself on the cross.
Do you know that we're the ones who disobeyed?
It wasn't him.
He didn't break faith with us, we broke faith with him.
We're the ones who disobeyed, we're the ones who mistreated people, we're the ones who sinned.
He's the one who took it upon himself.
Why?
Because he cares about you and he cares about me.
He loves you and he loves me.
But Jesus doesn't just care about you and me.
He doesn't just love those in the room.
Just like the universe is vast, Jesus' mission is vast.
Like the stars in the sky, his mission is vast.
You see, Jesus' mission is universal.
He is restoring all of creation to how it was in the beginning.
Don't believe me?
Read the beginning and the end of the book.
Beginning of Genesis, there's a creation story.
End of Revelation, there's a recreation story.
Things being brought back to the way they were before sin entered into the world.
God is redeeming that which he's created.
And in that process, God is drawing all people into relationship with himself.
How many people is he drawing?
All people.
Say it louder, like you mean it.
All people.
Yes, he's drawing all people.
He desires to restore all people.
How many?
All people.
Inviting all of us to love and follow Jesus for life.
Now, some people will refuse that invitation, granted.
But the invitation is equally to all people.
God desires relationship with all people.
And God is relational.
He works in and through people like you and me to bring about that restoration.
That work starts inside of us.
As we trust God and as we obey God, God's grace transforms us more and more into the image of Christ.
However, we find out that our relationships don't end just with the vertical one with God.
They include relationships around us too.
We're integrated into a giant family that has people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue.
There are people in your spiritual family you never have met and you never will, at least not this side of heaven.
We are united with all people who love and follow Jesus, no matter where they come from, and it's called God's holy church.
And the Apostle Paul, who wrote a bunch of this that we call the Bible, calls the church Jesus' body.
Now that's a metaphor, it's not literal.
But in effect, the way the metaphor works, we're God's hand, we're Jesus' hands and his feet.
What's the purpose?
Anyone under the age of 18, under the age of 18, excuse me, what's the purpose of hands?
Don't say to pick your nose.
That's not the correct answer.
What's the purpose of hands?
Yeah.
So you can do stuff.
You read my notes.
That's exactly what I was gonna say.
To do stuff.
Hands do things.
Anybody in the age of 18, what's the purpose of feet?
Yeah.
That's how we get to places to do stuff.
So hands do stuff.
The feet take us to the places to do stuff, right?
That's the purpose.
That's what that metaphor is meant to convey.
We're meant to do things, and we're meant to go places where things need done.
You might be asking yourself, but Pastor Eck, where do I come in?
Well, I'm glad you asked.
Or maybe just in my head you asked.
What you should do, what you can do right now, is shine right where you are, shine where God has placed you.
You know, just as God carefully placed each star in the sky right where he wanted it to be, God places us right where he wants us to be.
Sometimes I think we get intimidated because God's mission is so vast.
There's a uniform, universal scope of what God wants to do.
He wants to restore all of creation.
And we think it's too big of a job.
And I get it, for us it is.
So where do you start?
Start small.
Start right where you are now.
You know there are people right on your street, in your family, in your life group.
If you're a student, they're in your classroom, or the people that work, they're in your workplace.
There are people in your life already, right now, today, that need reminded how much God cares for them.
And you can remind them, you can show them how much God cares in practical ways.
You could do something like volunteer to help somebody who's struggling.
Maybe you could be the one in your class who, when you get a new kid in class, takes the time to go over and make friends with them.
Maybe you could stick up for the person that other people want to beat down.
Maybe, and this is a revolutionary one, you could be the one person in the room that listens to someone instead of talking at them.
Maybe you could simply just ask them out to ice cream or dinner.
These sound like small investments, but let me tell you, there are no small parts in the kingdom of God.
Every investment matters.
Everything you do or I do matters.
Every investment, every act of kindness, every action out of love for the Lord Jesus Christ not only honors him, but makes a difference in our world, even though we may not always see it.
In all these things, we let our light shine before others that they may see our good deeds.
And what does Jesus say will result?
They will glorify God by our good deeds.
Our small acts of caring and love resound throughout the created order.
They bear witness, just like the stars do, they bear witness not only that there is a God, but that God that created everything cares about you and cares about me.
He's invested.
We matter to God.
So this is how I wanted to end to reflect on that, looking up to the skies.
Let us all lift up our eyes to the heavens and remember who created all the stars.
Let us remember that God cares for that which God creates.
That means he cares not only about all of creation, but specifically, it means he cares about us.
And there's people who need to know that God cares.
And maybe those people are in the room.
And it's my hope that you hear that, that God cares about you.
Maybe it's somebody that you need to say that to this week.
God cares about them, they matter.
Let us look to the stars and remember God created them and God cares for what he creates.
Pray with me.
Heavenly Father, thank you.
Thank you for this message from Isaiah and Psalms.
It is so comforting and from the Gospel of Luke.
It is so comforting to know not only that you are the Almighty, and so we can trust you in big and small things, but also that you're close to us.
You care about us.
You're not just all-powerful, but you're also all-caring.
Thank you for that.
May that penetrate our hearts and make a difference in our lives, and may we make a difference in other people's lives by reminding them in small acts of kindness, in small ways, how much you care.
May we, every time we look at the stars, may we remember who hung them in the sky right where you wanted them to be, and may we praise you with our lives.
Grow us in grace so that we become more like Jesus every day.
We ask you to be with us this week in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast.
If you're ready to take a next step in your faith, please reach out to us through our website at refineryohio.com, or you can email us at office at refineryohio.com.
We hope you have a blessed day.