Rocks on the Beach

Hebrews 4:3, Psalm 139:13-14a

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A few months ago I was sharing a story with some of the students at our local Christian day school. The story was about a trip that my wife and I had taken for our 15th anniversary. We headed out to California and one day we decided to drive up and down the coast. We’d stop at each beach and ohh and ahh over the amazing scenery before our eyes.

There was one beach in particular that was different from all of the rest. When we stepped out of the car, we couldn’t believe our eyes. There was a whole bunch of stacks of rock, probably hundreds of them, covering the beach. We just had to get a picture.

After I shared that story with the kids I asked them the question ‘how do you think those rocks got stack that way on the beach?’ And one of the kids in the audience his hand shot up and he says ‘people made them.’ And I said ‘well, wait a minute. How do you know that people made them? Are you sure that maybe the water didn’t sweep over the beach and cause all the rocks to get stacked up that way? Are you sure that maybe the wind and blow really strong and caused the same thing?’

Well all of the kids started laughing in church. Seems almost funny to think that maybe wind or water could cause rocks to get stacked up that way on a beach. Why in the world would we think that human life or animal life or even plant life and so much more that we see on this Earth would come into being really simply by chance, by itself, with the right amount of energy and things that it puts those things into place. In some ways it seems completely foolish and laughable.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 4

For every house is built by someone, and God is the one who built everything. (Hebrews 4:3)

The passage reminds us that everything that we see in this world was made by someone. It was made by God. Really how incredible everything is, isn’t it? Just take an example your own body. Think about the incredible systems in your body and think about just your eye that you have an organ on your body that’s able to perceive the world around you and somehow send a signal to the back of your brain to show you that world. You have also ears that can hear a, mouth that can speak, a tongue that can taste, you’re able to talk, you’re able to touch and grab things, and run around and jump. We have incredibly complex and amazing bodies. Let alone the whole system an order that has been created by God that he has set plants on this Earth. Plants that receive sunlight and rainwater and they grow and they produce fruit and we can eat that food and the animals can as well and our bodies are able to digest it and get nourishment from it. It’s an incredible system. Way more complex than a bunch of stacks of rocks.

And if we know simply by seeing them that those stacks of rocks were put there by someone, how much greater is the evidence that we were created by God. In Psalm 139 the Psalmist writes this

For you created my inner organs.
You wove me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13-14a)

You know we don’t always think of our bodies that way that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. There’s probably some things about your body that you wish you could change. Maybe your height, maybe your weight, maybe your look, but no matter how we look or how big or small our bodies are, maybe what deficiencies we see in them, our bodies are all incredible. They are all amazing because they were made by God.

Because they are made by God. We know that we too have a purpose the purpose that God has for us is to know him and to serve Him. God ultimately wants us to know who he is he wants us to know that he is the one who made all things even us. But he also wants us to know that he is a God of love. A God who has come to forgive our sins, to wash away all the bad things that we have done against him, and against his commandments, to make things right between us and God. Things that we have wrecked in his beautiful and wonderful world that he has created.

But he also calls us to serve him. To use our incredible bodies that he has given us to serve the one who not only made us, but loved us, and has made us his very own dear children through sending His Son Jesus Christ to pay for our sins washing away all of our guilt. Bringing us to God.

Yes our bodies certainly are fearfully and wonderfully made. They give evidence for our incredible creator. A Creator who loves us the one we serve, amen.