Pastor Barry Braun

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Here’s a verse to think about, “He counts the number of stars. He gives names to every one of them. Great is our God. His understanding is infinite.” (Psalm 147:7 NABS) Consider the power and greatness of God as he created the universe. Just think of the solar system . . . at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second, sunlight takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth. That same light takes five more hours to reach the farthest planet in our solar system, Pluto (which in not even considered a planet anymore). After leaving our solar system, that sunlight must travel for four years and four months to reach the next star in the universe. That is the distance of 40,000,000,000,000 (trillion) kilometers (mere shooting distance in the universe).

The sun resides in the Milky Way galaxy, which is shaped like a flying saucer, flat with a bulge in the center. Our sun is roughly ¾ of the way to the edge of the galaxy. To get a feel for that distance, if our solar system were one inch across, the distance to the center of the Milky Way galaxy would be 379 miles. Our galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars. Yet the Milky Way is but one of roughly one trillion galaxies in the universe says astronomer Allan Sandage, “Galaxies are to astronomy what atoms are to physics.”

There are 20 galaxies in what is called our local group. The next sort of grouping universe is called a super cluster of galaxies. Within our super cluster, the nearest cluster of galaxies, called Virgo, is 50 million light years away. (A light year is the distance light travels in one year. To get a feel for the distance of one light year, if you drove your car at 75mph, it would take you 8.9 million years to travel one light year.) Astronomers estimate that the distance across the universe is roughly 4 billion light years and that there are roughly 100 billion trillion stars. It’s no wonder that the Bible refers to God as Almighty. I wonder if your God is big enough. Is he big enough to be trusted? Is there any reason to fear with a God that big? The Bible says, “If God is for us who can be against us?” These ideas will get you thinking as we anticipate being together on Sunday and sharing the final message in our series entitled, “Fear . . . Less.”