The Great Creator God

Do you know God? Do you know what He's like? Christ made the statement, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. What exactly did He mean by that? Well, one thing, they have the same personality, and they have the same character. But do you really know God? I'd like you to look at your hand. Nobody's got a hand, right? Put your hand up in front of your face. Ask you to. Just look at it. Look at your hand. Not a unique hand. No, I'm not talking about the opposable thumb that helps make us different.

But the proof of God is in your hands. Let me give you an example of that. Scientific fact that our blood vessels laid end to end in our entire body would go around this planet, get this, two and a half times, 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. That just happened? Just evolved? Did you know that all DNA in the human body, in one human body, the hair, the skin, everything that is you, the blood, everything in you, that they could trace you in your DNA? That all DNA in the human body laid in one fine strength would stretch 10 billion miles.

That's from planet Earth to Pluto. Isn't that amazing? You look at somebody and you're going, how big is it? Isn't that huge? That is huge to just happen, to evolve, you might say. And your brain consists of 100 billion neurons, or as people say, nerves, there's 100 billion nerves there, which can make over 100 trillion connections. There's not a computer made yet that can make that many connections as fast as your brain can. Now, they're working on it, and according to the latest science, by 2040 they will finally have, they believe, a computer made that can operate as fast as your brain.

Intelligent design? How about a great creator that made all this possible? I think one of the most descriptive titles for God in the entire Bible is Creator God. It so describes Him, but sometimes we don't think about it. As I was sitting in my chair today, I was going through this morning, thinking, I am a created being.

Created all of us. He took dirt and made it. But He made the dirt. He created the dirt. He created everything that comes out of it. That's a creator. That's a great creator God. One of the very first scriptures I was taught in Sunday school, I must have been about eight or nine, a short time in a church, Sunday school you were to learn every month a new verse. The very first verse in this class that we were to learn was Genesis 1.1.

In the beginning, God did what? Created heaven and earth. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. Why does that get so much blowback today? That even certain people don't even want to say creator. They want to say, well, I guess you might have to put it to intelligent design. Intelligent design. Instead of saying there was a creator. But God begins His book, the very first, and tells you who created heaven and earth. And then He tells you all through it, who did it.

But I find one interesting, even towards the end of His book, in Revelation 4 and verse 11. Revelation 4 and verse 11 is a picture of a throne of God, a vision of the throne of God. And you have all the heavenly hosts, the millions upon millions of angels, and 24 elders and living beings that surround the throne of God. In Revelation 4 and verse 11, those spirit beings, because they are spirit, they are beings, that heavenly hosts, they're saying this in unison. You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things and they exist because You created what You pleased.

Does that make sense? It does to God. They know the whole world is sometimes going to know who created everything. I could go Psalm 148 and verse 5. Psalm 148 and verse 5, I'll read from the New Living Translation. Psalm 148 and verse 5. It says, let every created thing. Didn't say person said thing. Give praise to the Lord, for He issued His command and they came into being. No doubt. Do we doubt? Like you turn over with me to Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. I like this verse. And it's amazing that God wanted to make sure that we had more than two or three witnesses to the fact that He did create everything so people wouldn't try to find some other way that everything was made.

Isaiah 45 and verse 18 from the New Living Translation. For the Lord is God. He created the heavens and the earth. And He put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. I am the Lord, He says, and there is no other. Like you'd turn with me. I'll go to New King James in the book of John. This very unique verse, very first chapter of John, the Gospel of John.

And we always bring in because we know this book was written 30, maybe even 40 years after the other New Testament books. So John is adding things to the Gospels that he thought we needed to know, that God inspired him, that we needed to know. And he started out with this very, very interesting. He could have written about anything, but what did he write? One of the most unique verses. In the beginning, if you want to say there was a beginning because with God, you know He's eternal.

In the Word, there was no beginning. He didn't have a beginning. He always existed. You could say in a beginning, but for what he's trying to say, in the beginning of what he's trying to tell us, was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. So that tells us there's two beings.

There's God and the Word. Two beings at that time. And that says in verse 2, He was in the beginning with God. Who was the Word? The Word became Jesus Christ. So it's something for us to wrap our minds around. In that there was God and there was a Word. But the Word was God, too. Now, that doesn't mean they were one. He says, oh, me and my Father are one. They were two distinct beings, but they thought like each other.

It's amazing that God wanted to make the apex of His creation a husband and a wife, and He said they will become what? One. Just like Christ was saying, even when He was on earth, that me and my Father are one. Why? They think alike. Same character, same personality. And they, you can understand this, because this is what we're going to talk about.

They both created. They both created. Let's go down to verse 3. All things were made through Him. Who? The Word became Christ. And without Him, nothing was made that was made. And it goes on to say, and Him was life. Life was the light of man. Let's go over to collagions. As Paul talks about this and touches on this in the book of collagions, chapter 1. One to make sure we understood in verse 16. Verse 15, it talks about, as He's talking about the preeminence of Christ, but in verse 15, He says, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For by Him all things were created that are in the heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or power. All things were created through Him and for Him.

Hmm. So we should have no doubt that things that we see are proof of things unseen. There is a God. If you go to Genesis 1, I mean Genesis 2, let's go to Genesis 2. Now, we know that the creation of all the things that we see around us are in, and He tells us the history in chapter 1. But chapter 2, verse 1, New King James said, Thus the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished. Okay. Creation done. And on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Very redundant statement, but He wanted to make sure He was done. But was He really done? Was God done or finished creating? Well, by resting and setting aside the seventh day, He created what? The Sabbath. He wasn't done creating. And I think we'll see by the end of the message, He keeps creating. He loves to create. And He is continuing that creation even now. But it says in verse 3, Then God blessed the seventh day, and He sanctified it, set it apart, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

So, was God done? It says He rested from all that He had done. Well, not exactly. Not exactly. Because as you can see in chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, God isn't done with His creation. He landed physical things around, but His greatest creation He's still working with, still creating something. Because His greatest creation had to be finished. Because we can see from Adam and Eve and the story and the fall of man, you think God was done then? Okay. Here's two people. We made them. They goofed up. They failed. I quit. I'm tired of doing this. No, He didn't. Did He? He began to work with specific people. God is still creating today, and He's creating with you, and He's creating with me. He's creating superior spiritual human beings. That's it. But it's a job. It is when it comes to working with me. And I know some of you, and you've expressed the same thing too. He's still got some work to do, some rough edges, some things to work on with us so that we become like Jesus Christ. There is knowledge He would love for us to have, but we can't handle it yet. There's things He would like for us to be able to show the world. He would like to have us personify Jesus Christ in our walk every single day. He would love for people to see Jesus Christ in us that meet and greet people and answer the big questions of life, answer even the small questions of life that people may have as Jesus Christ answered them. Anybody there yet? I can't raise my hand. I can have a really good day, and I can have a really bad one. I can have a great week, but then the next week doesn't seem to go as well because I tend to, instead of somebody seeing Christ in me, they see Chuck Smith in me. And that's when I know God's still creating. But He wants us to be that amazing masterpiece because that's what He's creating in each and every one of us. We don't see it sometimes. Sometimes we just kind of go, God, are you creating a mess here? But He knows what He's doing, and He knows why He's doing it. Look at your hand again. That proves there's a great Creator God. And eventually, all of this will be Spirit like Him. That's His plan. But right now, He gives us this so we can just go, wow, there is a Creator. There is a Creator. One that is working with me. Because it's amazing, after millions and billions of years, God keeps creating. A mastered builder, if I could use the term, there was this credentialing. I don't know if you knew it back in the late 70s, early 80s in the South, where I was working for this company. And they had this huge corporation would bring builders in, and they would see their work, and they would certify them as they went through their work as a master builder, which means they were superior to all the other builders. So their idea was to create this master builder logo for us so that people then, they would go across the nation and they would just look for this master builder. Anybody ever see that? No, it never happened. They pitched it one night, and they pitched it all across the Southeast. And I was in the room one night with 25 of the top builders in Middle Tennessee. And the presenter of this, the salesman for this big corporation, made this great pitch. He was eloquent in everything he said.

And then he made the mistake of not understanding builders.

And so he asked one gentleman there, and building him for years, and he said, sir, do you consider yourself a master builder? He was a rough old guy. He said, blankety, no. And he goes, sir, you don't consider yourself a master builder? He said, there's not a master builder in this entire room, to which the guy kind of had to go back into his notes and stick to his notes. It never worked out. There were not many master builders. Well, brethren, there is one true master builder. And it is God. And he's building his character in us. He is building us up. He is letting us become what no one's ever seen before. Perfection. Perfection. You know, you and I can create various products. Many of you have probably created recipes, right? Where you'll take this and it'll be just something, and wow, this is good. This is great. This is a great way to do it, and you kind of create that. People have created companies. I created a company about 30 years ago called the Plantation Room Company and went from nothing to a successful construction company that's still going strong today, 30 years later. I created it. It didn't exist before me. I designed it. I titled it. I registered it. It was mine. Or was mine. But did I create it from nothing? No. No. I created it from the designs I had seen before, the 15 years I had spent with another company. I had traveled across the country. I created it from structures, materials that were already there. So, no. I didn't create it from nothing.

But God created us from nothing. He just took the dirt that He had already made and made us. Isn't that amazing? But even more amazing is what He's trying to do now. He's taking just human beings, and there's 7.338 billion people that have a hand just like you do today, that have all the blood vessels, have all the DNA, and so forth like this. So He's taking what's there, but He's creating something so unique, so special, that those that He can create this character in, He calls His children.

His children. Your special children. He says you're going to inherit everything because of this creating perfection in you.

Now, some of us have perfect days that we don't make any mistakes. They're just few and far between, usually. But God says there's going to come a time when that perfection happens every single day. And every day that we become more like Christ is another almost perfect day. That's something He's creating from really nothing because the carnal man is an enmity towards God, means He's hostile towards God. The average person out here doesn't really care about God. But He's saying, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to take that hostility and I'm going to move it out and I'm going to move in.

And He says, to make this work, I'm going to give you the very essence of me, called the Holy Spirit. Now, it's just a small amount. But He said, I'm going to give you just a very small amount. And it's up to you to let it grow and to grow and to grow to where it begins to take over you, take over your character.

Now, we understand that. I think most of us have. I don't think I'm teaching anything new that you haven't heard in the past, putting it in a different way, perhaps.

But that takes a Creator to think He can do that. Especially when everything, the forces around us, the elements, the environment around us is contrary to that. But God says, I don't care. I'm going to do it. And I'm going to give you a book to help you do that.

And I'm going to give you examples of men and women who have done it to show it can be done. He gives us examples in here of His creative ability, of His power to create in people just like us. After 20 years of owning my business, I'd had enough. I did enjoy. I love the thrill of building things. I still do occasionally. There's just something of, yeah, you could see what you've done after a week or a month, and you saw just nothing, you know, just saw the ground there, and then you would see the structure come up.

I loved it. But after a while, it was like kind of not that important to me anymore. And I quit. I quit. And you know what I found so great? God has a different mindset. He won't quit. He's not going to quit on us. I've had enough. Isaiah 40, verse 28 says that He never wearies. Another translation said He never tires. Boy, wouldn't you like to have that? The older I get, the tireder I get, and the more days I'm tired.

Now, people as young as Neil and David and Olivia, they don't see that yet. They still got their vigor and youth, right? David's shaking his head, yes. Olivia's like, depends. Yes. But God never tires. He doesn't get tired of doing this work, of trying to perfect us, trying to still create His masterpiece. Because God loves creating. He loves to create, especially. He loves creating a bigger family. Big, big family. He doesn't tire and go, that's enough. Hanson's got six. That's enough. Stop here. He doesn't do that. He doesn't look at us and go, oh, well, no, that's enough. But He wants, He desires that all come to the knowledge of Christ, that all come to salvation.

That's His whole plan. He just had to space it out time-wise, and put His plan together because He is a master planner. See, God is thrilled to have children, and a lot of them. And He's thrilled to have grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, and great-great, I could go on and on, over the last 6,000 years.

He loves creation. Where did creation get His name? From the Creator. He created us. We're His greatest creation because we are Him. We are part of Him. He made us in His image, but now He's making us in His character. And, you know, God loves us, His children, even when we goof up. Even when we goof up. And we goof up. Remember David? David goofed up, didn't he? And God loved him, but he goofed up. But he was an incredible example in many ways, but he goofed up. But you know what he did when he goofed up?

He went back to the Creator, and he knew what was wrong. And he knew he couldn't fix it. And he said, create in me a what? A clean heart. Create in me a clean heart. He knew he couldn't create that clean heart. It was going to have to be done by God. How about us? See, we need to. We need to go sometimes and say, create in me a clean heart. Because mine's gotten a little polluted.

Mine's gotten a little filthy, nasty. It's become more like a garbage pail. That's what happened to David. He got off. But he could have it all cleaned up by the Creator. Because God can create. Because his whole project is you. You're as great as project. He can fix you like no one else can fix you. David knew who the great Creator was. And we should know, too. Because, just like David, we're going to need him to clean up our messes sometimes.

Maybe a mess you make next week, next year, next month, or five years. But God loves to create, so he doesn't mind cleaning up messes. He put the whole project together so that Jesus Christ could take all our sins upon himself and pay the penalty so we didn't have to. So we can just be cleansed very quickly.

He's a great Creator. Like you go with me to Philippians 1 and verse 6. Philippians 1 and verse 6. Paul tells that incredible church in Philippi, being confident of this very thing. What? What very thing? It's an important thing that Paul is telling this church, and it's so important that you hear it today. That he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. This creation, he's finishing it in you.

He wants to. It's his desire. It's everything to him. See, he's unlike humans. He can work on many projects at the time. He's a great multitasker. He can work over here on David. Same time he can work on Caesar. Not a problem. He enjoys it. He doesn't mind when you cry out. Caesar cries out. Sometimes he must think, why aren't more people crying out? I guess they don't need me. That can't be us. We are his children.

We need help. We cry out. It's what he wants to hear. Because he likes to fix things. He likes to create things. He wants to create in us a cleaner. He wants to create in us a pure mind. He wants to create in us things that we can not only for ourselves, but help the world.

Help somebody. Because sometimes if we get too bogged up and bogged down in our own problems, we can't help others, can we? Or it causes people to go, I'm not going to him. I'm not going to her. Look at the mess they got in their own life. And see, you'll see when we become more like Christ, people will be coming to us because what did they do there? Jesus Christ walked this earth and he couldn't even hardly eat because people were just like coming to him. I need this. I need this. I need it. Well, yeah, he was God. Yeah, he could heal. Yeah, he could do this. Yeah, he had all the answers. Yes. But even a fraction of it. Think that God doesn't want us to be that way? Especially in this little world or cocoon we live in.

Hmm. Amazing. Let's go to our last scripture. Last scripture. If you will, join me in Ecclesiastes.

Great Book of Wisdom by Solomon, preacher. I could go to Ecclesiastes 12. What books are you reading? And what translation? David?

Revised Standard Version. Mary, what are you reading? N-L-T? Living? Okay. Different versions. I'll read from the New King James Version.

Here. Ecclesiastes 12, verse 2, said, Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. I needed that 40 years ago, 50 years ago, to read that a little more. Remember now the Creator in the days of your youth. Before the difficult days come and the years draw near, when you say, I have no pleasure in them.

While the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are not darkened and the clouds do not return after the rain. In the day when keepers of the house tremble and when the strong men bow down, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows grow dim, when the doors are shut.

Are you like me? And going, What are you talking about? Because I read that in New King James and going, I don't get it. I know it's poetic language and it's flower and there's metaphors in it and so forth like this, but what's in it for me?

And so I had to go to the New Living Translation. Okay? Because this is talking to us and the New Living Translation made it so much clearer for me that it made me realize I should have been reading these few verses every week for the last 50 years.

Let me go there. You can just sit and listen in the New Living Translation.

Chapter 12, verse 1. Don't let the excitement of your youth cause you to forget the Creator.

Honor Him in your youth before you grow old. Anybody got gray hair? See a few besides me.

Honor Him in your youth before you grow old and say, life's not pleasant anymore. I found that out from my father-in-law. Ninety-six, be ninety-seven in another couple months. He doesn't really taste food that much. He doesn't see that well and he can't hear. Part of the reason my voice is gone. I had spent five days with him and I kept saying, did you hear what I said? He said, what?

I know. But I'm going to be that way if I keep growing old. Right? He's not enjoying life.

But it's saying here, remember your Creator because this is going to happen to you.

Remember Him before the lights of the sun, the moon, and the stars is dim to your old eyes.

We're working on a project now for next year for Haiti, putting together a drive to get sunglasses.

Cheap sunglasses because that's something they don't have. And yet they're out in the sun so much that by the time they're forty, their eyes are in bad shape.

They're like sixty-year-olds.

But He's telling us, continually darken, before they continually darken the sky. Why? You lose that light.

Remember Him before your legs, the guards of the house start to tremble. Wow! Ever had that done?

No, younger didn't, but occasionally you're pretty tired. I had to take some of the stuff from the warehouse up and down the steps to our warehouse for the church that I got seven, eight years ago, and it's on second story.

Well, I wish it wasn't on second story because there's no elevator, no steps. I'm making all these checks up and down. Well, after about eight or nine trips this week, one day or one afternoon, I felt it.

And I had to tell God, God, I'm old.

Because I didn't think I was old eight years ago. I thought so many of you were old, but I wasn't old. Now I'm beginning to act old.

Because the guards of your house, my legs are beginning to show it.

Before they start to tremble and before your shoulders. You know, are they back? Are they still strong? The strong men start to what? Stoop. Stoop.

Remember Him before your teeth. Your few remaining servants stop grinding.

We're all going to get old, but remember your Creator all through it, all through this time. And before your eyes, the women looking through the windows seem dimly. Can't see as far.

Remember Him before the door of life's opportunity is closed and the sound of work fades. You're too old. Nobody wants to hire you.

Not so in Florida. You can't find people who are younger, people who want to work. So they go to Home Depot.

I'm young when I walk in there, when it comes to some of the people working.

But He said, now you rise at the first chirping of the birds. That's how you know you're old when you're going to need an alarm clock.

But then all their sounds will grow faint.

But He said, you're not going to be able to hear those birds. Remember Him before you become fearful of falling and worrying about dangers in the street. Wow! We're not all built like Caesar. Okay?

Thirty years on you, we'll see how Caesar is if we make it that long.

Before your hair turns white like an almond tree in the bloom. Wow! And you drag along without energy like a dying grasshopper.

You ever seen a dying grasshopper? They just move. They're not really moving anyway, they're just moving.

And the caperberry no longer inspires sexual desire.

I guess that was their little purple pill back then, I guess.

Remember Him before you near the grave, your everlasting home, when your mourners will weep at your funeral.

Yes, remember your Creator now while you were young, before the silver cord of life snaps, and the golden bowl is broken. Hear that so much. Remember your Creator.

We think, and there's so much language, you can see the interpretations of that if you go to commentaries, they go from here to here, but I like to think, you know, when you talk about silver, it's your what? 25th anniversary, right? They're milestones.

And we look at silver as a milestone of 25 years, either job or wedding or whatever you do. And then there's gold. What? It means what? 50 years. Not many people made it. It's a milestone. So He said, remember your Creator before they're all gone. Before 25 years is gone. Before 50 years is gone. Because it's going to jump on you.

In my mind, I still think I can go out and dunk a basketball.

Ain't going to happen.

It ain't happening anymore.

Don't wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well. Real language, I knew, because that's how you got water up. Don't wait till everything is gone. Till you're so old, you're laying in bed and all you're doing is taking your last breath. And then you think, maybe I need to remember my Creator.

That's not the time. It's a time all through your life.

For then the dust will return to the earth and the Spirit will return to God who gave it.

God's greatest creation will last forever.

That's a blessing from God. In this physical life, we're not going to last. But this is where we build the relationship with God and where He creates in us. His character, His life.

Let us not forget that.

A cynic wrote not long ago, magazine, that people only recall God, and He puts us in His unique way. Most people only recall God when they are hatched, matched, and dispatched.

Hatched when you're born, matched when you're married, and when you're dispatched at your death.

That can't be us. He didn't call us to be that way.

He called us to remember your Creator now. All the days of our lives, every single day.

Intelligent design, absolutely.

But there's a big, big Creator God.

We know it. Do we show it by how we live? Simply put, there is a Creator God, and the proof is as close as the palm of your hand.