STARS AND MORE STARS

(Post by: Lilly Hobbs)

This morning, I was looking back at some of the different Bible Study lesson notes that I have saved over the past couple of years, and I found one titled “Who is God” from September of 2019.

I remember being so excited to preach that night for Bible Study because I had recently listened to a sermon by Ravi Zacharias prior to that study night. It was super deep; packed with so much truth. I couldn’t wait to share everything I had learned with the girls in the group.

He included a story, in that sermon, that I think many of us can learn from and relate to. So, I’d like to share it with y’all today.

When this story made its rounds a long time ago, it was considered one of the funniest stories ever. I’m not sure who actually wrote it, but it is the story of Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Watson, on a camping trip.

Ravi Zacharias told the story like this, “They had been out really late into the night, and they went in to sleep. In the middle of the night, Holmes awoke and looked out into the night sky rather stunned. He woke up his sidekick Watson, and said to him, “Watson! Watson! Look up into the night sky, what do you see??”

Watson said, “I see stars, and stars, and more stars.” He said, “What does that tell you, Watson?” Watson said, “Well, astronomically it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Oralogically, it tells me that it’s about quarter to 3:00 in the morning. Metrologically, it tells me that tomorrow will probably be a beautiful day. Theologically, it tells me that in this vast universe, we are just a little part of it. Why Holmes? What does it tell you?”

Holmes said, “Watson you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!”

While you might laugh and read that story in a lighthearted way just like I did, I think that we are much more like Watson than we’d all like to admit.

It has appeared to me that many Christians have a terrible tendency to over complicate this “Jesus thing” and the simple Gospel in every way we can.

I believe that we have made the Gospel what we personally want it to be. Honestly, we have taken away the Cross to make it look all nice and pretty. But when you do that, there is no reason for the Gospel.

You see, we have made God look how we want Him to look, and we only pay attention to the parts of Him that we like and “agree” with. We add to that and take away from this and pretty soon nothing makes sense because we’ve made everything so complicated.

Voddie Baucham once said this, “The modern Church is producing passionate people with empty heads. People who love Jesus, but have no idea who He is.”

Sound familiar?

We have no idea who God actually is. We don’t know where to start. What we end up doing is making Him look how we want Him to look. We define Him for ourselves.

Guys, lets step back and look at the big picture for a minute here. All we can really know about God is who He says He is in His Word. And all we can really know about ourselves is who He says we are.

As Christians, I think we need to fix our minds on Scriptures like Micah 7:18 which starts off with the question, “Who is a God like you?” Let’s not just assume we already know.

You see, there is no one like Him. So we can’t begin to define who God truly is. We cannot comprehend Him because our imagination isn’t big enough to contain God.

He is too big for us to fathom.

Yet, we put God in this kind of ball, and we roll Him into what we want Him to be. We limit God, because WE are limited in understanding Him! He has not allowed us to grasp His holiness because He wants us to have a relationship of mystery with Him.

Beth Moore once said, “There is no mastery in mystery.”

You can’t have an intimate relationship with a person without mystery, because if you know everything about the person, then there is no excitement. You’ve mastered them. There’s nothing new to learn about them.

When an inventor invents something, he masters it. The inventor knows everything down to the very last detail of their invention. However, the invention will never be able to master its inventor. The invention just does what it is created to do. It knows its place.

As humans, we are so narrow minded, like Watson was, and we focus so much on the question and what WE want the answer to be, or what WE think the answer is, that WE end up getting it all wrong in the end.

Sadly, that’s exactly what we have done with God. We think we know who He is, but by thinking that, we limit Him. We confine Him to only what we can comprehend in our minds.

I want to challenge y’all today. God is so much bigger than what you and I can comprehend. He made us to have a deep and intimate relationship with Him. A relationship full of mystery, joy, and satisfaction.

That’s what we were made for! We don’t have to be distracted by all of the stars and miss the entire point of life. In our lives, the “stars” that you may be distracted by might be things like worldly activities, theology, or different “sides” and opinions.  

The simple answer to this whole thing, is that we just need to accept that we don’t/can’t know everything about God. We can’t master Him no matter how hard we try.

As God’s invention, we just need to do what He made us to do. You and I need to spend one on one time with Jesus, and let Him reveal parts of Himself to us in His time.

He has always been everything that we have needed Him to be. Amen? We don’t ever have to worry that He won’t be something that we need Him to be.

So, don’t get distracted by little things like the stars. Now’s the time to get to know your Savior for yourself.

“You, God, are my God. Earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”   (Psalm 61:3)

SO WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?

= Do you have trouble staying focused on Jesus alone and His purpose for your life?

= In what ways do you limit God?

= What are you going to do differently?