Transcript
Pastor Tim (0:01)
Thank the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Let's all stand together. Wow. Somebody looked at me and said, elder Vicki needs to go on vacation more often, so. What a blessing. Thank God. We're so grateful that all of you are here today. We welcome all of you here to Times Square Church. Those are watching from our Jersey campus, Pastor Brad and Lisa Geiss. We also welcome those in our annex, our overflow that couldn't get into the building. And we just say thank God that everyone's here, but not just in New York City, around the country and around the world. We just got. I'm going to read the nations to you. I think there's some 46, 47 states in the US that are joining. We welcome all those. But the exciting thing was they said all of South America is with us except two countries. So we're just so excited to see all of Central and South America with us. We want to say hello to Malaysia and Hong Kong. Indonesia is with us. We say hello to the Philippines, India, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Thailand and Sri Lanka. We go to Europe and say hello to United Kingdom, Wales, Scotland, Romania, Germany, Greece. We welcome Northern Ireland, Croatia, the Netherlands, the Ukraine and Russia. We're praying that God stop this war in Jesus name. Say hello to Belgium and Sweden. Italy.
Ricardo (1:24)
Yay.
Pastor Tim (1:26)
Getting louder. Even you non Italians. Thank you. Ireland, Norway, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Hungary, Finland, France, Australia, New Zealand. We welcome those from Africa, those in Nigeria, Liberia, South Africa, Eswatini, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Namibia, Ethiopia and Botswana. And obviously to Central and South America. We say Cristobibe to Brazil, Suriname, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia. We say hello to our northern neighbors, Canada. We welcome first nation from the reservations, Navajo Nation, Mexico, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Curacao, Nicaragua, Belize, Barbados, Guatemala, Jamaica, Bahamas. Wow. Bermuda, Honduras, Grenada. Those Italians need to step it up. I mean, we just got beat by Guatemala, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. I do want to welcome, I do want to just say, I really want to encourage you to be with us Tuesday night. Both online, 47 states. We say hello to all of you. I do want to say, encourage you to be here with us on Tuesday night. It is going to be a special night. Solu is coming in from Jerusalem. They worked with us on our New Year's Eve service. They're the ones who led worship in Hebrew. And so this is such a powerful night that we're going to be together with Solu, our worship team. And it's going to be a Night of praying for the nation of Israel. I'm so thankful for how you're supporting that nation. We're also looking at ways of doing work in Iran. Our, our Iranian station and Indonesia station. We're working on those to get those up. Thank you for all of your support giving to the Vision Fund. And we'll get those up ASAP, which will give us about 16 channels, language channels that are. That can reach up to 6 billion people. So we're so thankful for what God is doing. I have to tell you a story, but let's pray first. And I want the Holy Spirit just to come speak in these next few moments. Father, thank you for this amazing time. Thank you, God, that Kareem and Elder Vicki and the choir told us that great is your faithfulness. And we're also told that Jesus loves us. So we just thank you, Father. What an amazing day to be here. I'm so thankful for every person that's here. They're not here by accident. They're here because, God, you've worked it out. Whether they've come in from around the world or around the country or even around New York City. There is a reason that you have us here and there's a reason why what's happened is even to me yesterday is. Is why I'm supposed to be here today to share today. So I pray in these next few moments, come speak to us, God. Come speak to us in a powerful way. And we thank you for it. In Jesus name and everybody said amen. God bless you. You may be seated. Thank you, worship team. Thank you so much. Thank you, choir. It was a few weeks ago while my family was on vacation. I had to come home a little bit earlier. My daughter and son in law invited me over for dinner. They live in lower Manhattan. And while I was on my way to see them for dinner, I was blindsided by an emotion that I haven't felt in a long time. We were at a stoplight on the way to their apartment. And as I was going there and this emotion just overwhelmed me because I saw something I haven't seen for decades. And it was a sporting goods store called Paragon Sporting Goods, which has been there for decades. Emotion flooded me at that time. It was special memories about that place because when I was 12 years old, my dad brought me there to buy my first baseball glove. And I don't. I'm so emotional now even thinking about it. It was, it was. I remember that day because it was. I have to say it was just one of the greatest Days I spent with my father, who was at that time a New York City inspector for nypd. And I remember him taking me there. And then we went to Little Italy to eat spaghetti. And it was just one of those moments that I was blindsided by emotion. Didn't expect it to happen at a stoplight and didn't expect it to take place just on my way for dinner. And to a certain degree, I was blindsided yesterday by something. Not on the streets, not in a cab, and. And not going out to dinner, but I was blindsided when I was going from my kitchen to the living room just to sit down in our apartment and just to read the Scriptures. I was already pretty much knowing what I was gonna share with you. And putting everything together for 1 billion starts with 1. And as I was walking from the kitchen to a chair to read my Bible, I was blindsided again. I don't know why, I can't explain it, but felt something deep inside of me. I. On this walk that would probably take me from here just a few, maybe 10 yards. But I felt strongly from the Holy Spirit, strongly that there was an inner, inner voice to put away the message that God would guide me into something today, put everything aside and began to go to his Word and that. And felt that God was beginning to put something deep inside of me. Ricardo, who led worship and leads our TSC music, and I were together yesterday and he asked me about sermon preparation. And I told him this. I told him about that kitchen walk that I had. And I said, ricardo, I said, I have more confidence in the voice of God than in my own personal study. I am more confident that when God says, stop, pause, don't do it. I said, I am more confident with an empty page with the Lord's presence than a full page with my notes. And I said, so I feel strongly today that God is gonna begin to speak. Speak to us today. I wanna talk to you about. When you don't understand what's happening, go back to the beginning. When you don't understand what's happening, go back to the beginning at the end. I wanna share with you why this is really significant to me today. I wanna take you back to the beginning. I wanna take you back to the real beginning. I wanna take you back to Genesis, chapter one, verse one. Cause whenever you deal with the beginning, you're faced with the challenge which. When you're dealing with the beginning, the beginning of everything, you're faced with this challenge. Is it a big bang or is it a big God? Sign me up for Big gods. And so that's where I want to share with you and speak to you about the greatness of God. So let's start here. I want to give you four, but let me just run through three false facts. You'll understand it. They'll go really rapidly and quickly. False fact number one, books write themselves without an author. Facts number two, cars build themselves without a manufacturer. Fact number three, music composes itself without the need of a composer. When you think about that, those facts, any child would agree that all three are impossible. Books need authors, cars need manufacturers, and music needs composers. But we have universities and we have teachers and professors. We have science classes that are being paid big bucks to promote fact number four, which is this. The whole universe came into being through a process of random chance and beneficial mutations without any need of a designer. And this is what's so important that we understand this. There is such a fight to replace creation with evolution. In fact, evolution has replaced creation in the soul of America. Listen to me carefully. When you lose creation, we lose God. When you lose big God and go to big bang, you lose miracles, and you lose a powerful weapon to appeal when you're facing tough times. Because when you don't understand what's happening now in your life, I want to show you why going back to the beginning is so crucial. Let me just contend for a few moments. For in the beginning, for just a few moments, here's what it says. In the beginning, God created that the heavens and the earth. Those 10 words started not just the Bible, but they started everything. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You're going to see how important these 10 words are. These 10 words are the key not only to life, but your life, my life, to presently and the future. I love what Dr. Duane Gish said. He said this. It's incredible when. What an unbeliever must believe to be an unbeliever. Let me read that again. It's incredible what an unbeliever must believe to be an unbeliever. Reminds me of the scene in the wizard of Oz when the curtain is pulled back at the end by Toto, and Dorothy and her three friends are beholding the wizard working all the latches, and he's saying, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And that's almost what we're doing with S. We're going pay no attention to the God that's created everything that we're not here by chance. We're here by miracle and because of a big God. C.S. lewis said we may ignore, but we cannot escape the presence of God. The world is crowded with him and he walks everywhere incognito. There is a, there is something that we were studying when I was in school called intelligent design, or they call it the fine tuning theory. Allow me just to bore you a little bit this morning. This argument from design rests on this idea. If there is a design in our universe, then there must be a designer. Listen, you and your friends are say, walking and hiking through the Black Hills of South Dakota. And as you around come around these hills, you stop in your tracks, you look up into the mountains and you see four giant faces carved into the stone. Each head is as tall as a six story building. The faces are perfect likeness of four American presidents. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. After you're taking all of your photos and standing in awe of what you see on the side of this mountain, what conclusion do you come to? This must be wind and erosion over many years that has done this miracle. And nature and chance has chosen those four presidents to put them up there. It's a miracle. As we look at this, as chance decided to put up Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, it almost seems ridiculous. Mount Rushmore is the brainchild of John Borglum. 14 years of work. The four busts were completed and presented to the public in 1941. It wasn't time, it wasn't erosion, it wasn't rain, it wasn't rain. Nothing mutated the design, had a designer, somebody put it together. That's why one of my favorite quotes from G.K. chesterton says this. It is absurd for the evolutionist to complain that it's unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then pretend that it's more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything. Folks, if a watch proves the existence of a watchmaker, but the existence of the universe does not prove the existence of God's great architect, then I consent to be called a fool is what one person said. It's ridiculous. It doesn't even make sense. There's a reason why I need you to understand why I believe in a big God more than a big bang. Someone had this poem one time. It says, once I was a tadpole beginning to begin. Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey in a banana tree. Now I'm a professor with a PhD. Some of you didn't know what to expect at church. A daughter came home to her mom and said, where do we come from? The mother said, I told you God made us. The daughter said, I'm confused because dad said we came from apes. She said, he's right. It's just he's speaking about his side of the family is what he's speaking about. One of the most astonishing pieces of evidence is the existence of God in, in fine tuning the universe. That's the intelligent design. The design needs a designer. It's fine tuned where you live. You exist because God created this. You are breathing because God gave us all of this. That's why you're here today. Each knob, when the universe was created, each knob had to be precisely set for, for life to be permitted in the universe. Astrophysicists have found that there are over 60 different criteria that were necessary for life on earth for you to live. Life couldn't exist unless to the most minute particle was put in place. They said if Earth's rotation was either slower or faster, it was impossible for life to exist. It was fast. You'd be flying off the planet slow, you'd be freezing to death. If we were 2% closer or further from the sun, it would be all over. Earth had a 1% change in sunlight, this thing would burn up Earth. If Earth was smaller or larger, it couldn't sustain life. If the moon was smaller or larger than it is, it couldn't sustain life. Earth's crust, if it was thinner or thicker, if oxygen and nitrogen ratio is greater or less, or the ozone later was greater or less, this couldn't even happen. In fact, the lesson you can almost draw from this is this. Someone must have gone through a lot of effort to make things just right so that you and I could be here and be alive. Someone had to go through and say, I want these people to exist and live and I want to work miracles in their life. I believe in a big God. I believe that God can work miracles. One of our doctors in the church were asking for a book that dealt with creation and evolution and this book just came back to my mind. I read it some years ago. It was one of the leading atheists that just before he died, he came to faith. His name was Antony Flew, who even lectured in front of C.S. lewis on atheism at Oxford, one of the leading atheists that said God doesn't exist. And when he came down to the end of his life, all of a sudden through this, through fine tuning and realizing that this couldn't be by chance, he wrote his final book before he died and it was called this. I love the title. There is a God. How the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind. We believe in God when we need him sometimes. We believe in God when we're desperate. We believe in God when things are crashing and burning. If you don't believe me, just look at the airline industry. They become believers in God occasionally. It happens every time there is a weather delay. And when you walk up to the counter and ask for a food voucher or a voucher for a hotel because there's rain, wind, or a storm, and they will say to you these words, we are not responsible. This is an act of God. I go, your airline is born again. They must all live for God. This is amazing when you don't understand what's happening now in your life. I want to show you why going back to the beginning is so important. Why this is incredible. Go with me to Isaiah 45. Because Isaiah is speaking to a people whose lives are in chaos. And in this whole chapter, he doesn't simply give them answers to their problems. Follow with me now. He points them to the beginning. He points them to creation and tells them these words. Basically, if he created it all, he can take care of you all. He's gonna bring you back. He's gonna remind us. The reason why I wanted to build on a big God in creation is because when the people of Israel, when the children of God and the people of God were going through the hardest times of their life, the prophet Isaiah takes them in Isaiah 45, all the way back to the beginning. And basically he's telling them this. If God can put all this together, he can put lives together. If God can do all of this. So I want to read to you from Isaiah 45 these verses that Isaiah begins to speak to a people that are literally in chaos. They're frustrated. They don't even know what to do. There's a lot that's happening, and you're going to see even how it mirrors what you may be facing today and even us as a nation. Listen to these words. God's message to his anointed, he calls it to Cyrus. This was a popular name during the election. And I want to read. I'll give you a little background. To Cyrus, whom he took by the hand to give the task of taming the nations, of terrifying their kings. He gave him free reign, no restrictions. I'll go ahead of you, clearing and paving the road. I'll break down bronze city gates, smash padlocks, kick down barred entrances. I'll lead you to the buried treasures, secret caches of valuables, confirmations that it is in fact I, God, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name. It's a ghost of my dear servant Jacob, Israel, my chosen. That I've singled you out, called you by name and given you the privilege. And you don't even know me, is what he says. You're not even a believer in God. But yet, Cyrus, I can use you. I am the God. I am God, the God only God there is besides me. There are no real gods. I'm the one who armed you for this work, though you don't even know me. So that everyone from east to west will know that I have no rivals. I am God, the only God that there is. I form light, create darkness. I make harmonies, create discords. I, God, do all these things. I open up the heavens and it rains clouds. Pour out buckets of my goodness. Loosen up earth and bloom, salvation sprouts. Right living. I, God, generate all this. But doomed to you who fight your maker. You're a pot at odds with the potter this clay. Talk back to the potter. What are you doing? What clumsy fingers. Thus God, the holy of Israel, Israel's maker, says, do you question who or what I'm making? Are you telling me what I can or cannot do? I made the earth. I created man and woman to live on it. I handcrafted the skies. I directed all the constellations in their turnings. God, creator of heavens. He is remember. God, maker of earth. He put it on its foundations, built it from scratch. I love that phrase. He didn't go to all that, all that trouble just to leave it empty. Nothing in it. He made it to be lived. In this God says, I am God, the one and only. I don't just talk to myself or mumble under my breath. I never told Jacob, seek me in emptiness and dark nothingness. I am God. I work out in the open, saying what's right, setting things right. Gather around. Come on in, all you refugees and cast offs. They don't seem to know much, do they? Those who carry around their no good, no God. Blocks of wood, praying for help to a dead stick. Folks, this is powerful stuff. Let me walk you through this for just a second. I'll finish it at the end. Why is this passage important? 3 times in Isaiah 45, Isaiah refers back to creation to help them deal with their struggles. Three times Isaiah pointed to them to creation to deal with their three things. Frustration, their confusion, and when they. When they're out of options. Being out of options. You're gonna see here the frustration, the confusion and when there's no more options even for them. This is the part that I just, as I was reading on Saturday, that I just started to. Just started to see through this. Verses 1 through 7. He says, when you're frustrated, remember the God who's made heaven and earth. They were frustrated. Listen to this. Now. They were frustrated who God had put in office as their leader.