June 28, 2026
A couple of months ago, I was looking at sermons and thought I would do a sermon series that was created by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) called Imagine a World with More…
I took this sermon series, put it together, and we started it on Pentecost.
I had no idea when Vacation Bible School was going to be. Nor did I know what the theme of Vacation Bible School was going to be.
And yet, here we are in this sanctuary, decorated as the heavens, as the firmament.
Firmament. That is not an easy word to say. Firmament.
Isn’t God good?
“All the time.”
It’s not much, but it’s just one of those little things. One of those little things that speaks to us and says, “God is with us.”
I walked in this morning and saw the decorations, and I knew what the theme was. I had already realized, “This is pretty cool.” But then I looked around and saw what Trina and Sally had done. We were going to be talking about the heavens declaring God’s glory, the firmament singing God’s praises, surrounded by reminders of that very firmament. Reminders of those very heavens.
If we just stop and pay attention. If we just stop and look around. If we just stop and listen.
I got to spend the last week down at Lake Gaston, and there wasn’t a whole lot of stopping to listen because there were 26 of us together in a house.
But sitting down at the dock and chatting while the boat was out and the kids were having fun with one or two other adults, one of us would look around and go, “Oh, look, a turtle.” And you would see that little turtle’s head popping up out of the water.
Or, “Look, a heron,” or, “An osprey flying by.”
Pay attention. There is wonder all around us.
The nice thing about a vacation, whether it is in the mountains, at the lake, or at the ocean, is that it invites us to stop.
Stop being in control all the time. Stop thinking things have to be the way we say or think they have to be. Instead, stop and observe things as they are.
Not the things that our phones will draw our attention to. Not the things that our television screens will draw our attention to, or our newspapers, or however it is you get your media. Instead, observe the actual ordering of things.
When we stop and pay attention, we look up.
There is a really cool thing I read recently: It is actually good for us to look up, to look around, to glance at the heavens, and to see the stars in the sky.
It is healthy. It gives us good chemicals in our bodies, and it makes us mentally healthier.
It is not just what we are seeing on our devices when we are looking down all the time. It is not just what we are seeing in newspaper headlines or on television that is making us less happy and less fulfilled.
It is the actual act of looking down, of taking a narrower view, that takes us away from the ability to see what it is that God is up to.
I know that when I talk about screens, we think about young people a lot. But y’all, I spend most of my time around people who are 50 and up, and we have the same kinds of problems with our phones.
So many of us struggle to find time to be outdoors. I hear so many people say, “Well, I’m too busy.” Then I look over in the mirror at myself and see myself looking at a phone screen.
I’m not too busy.
I filled up my time with things that don’t matter. With things that don’t draw me toward wonder and awe.
When was the last time you experienced awe, Susan?
“Last night, looking at the moon.”
I love that we’re doing this the day after. If we had the kids up here after they swam under the stars, I bet they would have no problem telling us about the last time they experienced awe.
I looked up at the sky last night, but it was in annoyance because I was getting ready to go to bed, and the golf course started its fireworks show at 10:30 at night.
I had just spent a week in a house with 26 people, so I hadn’t been sleeping much.
But then Oliver said, “What’s that?” And I had to get into dad mode and say, “It’s fireworks. We’re opening the blinds. We can see them from here, and we’re going to comment on them and talk about them.”
But that wasn’t how I planned on the evening going.
I didn’t intend to spend 10:30 to 11:00 or so looking up at the sky.
Maybe I should.
Maybe I should plan more time to go outside, to look around in wonder, to watch for a rainbow, and to see the stars twinkling.
Because it’s not just seeing it. This psalm invites us to let go and to listen.
Have you ever heard the stars sing? Have you ever heard them declare God’s glory?
It doesn’t sound like the kinds of sounds that we’re used to. But the psalmist tells us that the heavens declare God’s glory. They tell us something about God.
It’s not just taking time to stop and appreciate the beauty. It is taking time to stop and say:
The God who can hang those stars in the sky, who can craft the earth, who can make the rivers run and the trees grow, and who can fill our lungs with air and keep us alive—that same God is present with us now.
Kelly reminds us at the beginning of every service: Take a breath in and a breath out.
When we stop and allow creation to declare God’s glory to us, we remember that we don’t have to be in charge all the time. We don’t have to be in control all the time. We are free from having to think that we have to know everything.
I saw a video on my phone last night of this terrible thing that was happening halfway across the country, and I immediately thought, “We need to do something about that. What am I going to do about that?”
I’m not going to do anything about that.
I could spend a lot of energy and a lot of time trying to decide what should happen somewhere where I have no influence, and I would end up living my life not present.
There is actually power in stopping and seeing how small we really are.
It is a power that allows us to become our full selves because we don’t have to control things that we don’t have control over. We don’t have to command things over which we do not get to command.
Instead, we are invited to simply do what we have to do.
The appreciation of God’s beauty. The practice of awe and wonder.
These are spiritual practices, y’all.
These are things that we neglect at our own peril.
Because when we take time to appreciate, in awe and wonder, all that there is, whether it is watching the tides go in and come out or the rivers flow gently by, it is a spiritual practice that allows us to be ourselves. It allows us to do what we have to do.
When we imagine a world that is so much bigger than anything we can do, and we appreciate its beauty, we recognize something.
I’ve got to be honest: This comes as a shock to me every time I realize it, and it probably should stop.
Things can be okay if I’m not in charge.
Things can be okay if they don’t go the way I think they have to go.
I realize that I have actually been carrying this boulder around on my back that has made me miserable and that maybe has made some people around me miserable.
Instead, I am free to live, to love, and to express what God has given me to express.
And I can tell y’all, even as I say it right here and right now, I feel the weight come off of me.
The yoke of oppression that the world tries to convince me is mine to carry comes off so that the cosmos, so that God’s creation, can remind me that I have my own part to play, but it’s not the whole thing.
I have my place in this story, but it is only for a page or two. Yet, in that page or two, incredible things can happen because God is at work.
The same God who placed the stars in the sky, who provides us with supernovas and constellations, with rivers and oceans and mountains and sun—and I apologize that we don’t know that song, but it is too beautiful lyrically for us not to have done it this morning—that same God is at work in, through, and around me, and in, through, and around each of you.
Jesus was just one man, born in Bethlehem, walking the streets of Nazareth and meandering around the dirt roads of a small, conquered nation.
But we still tell his story because he took time.
Jesus went away to look, to see what God could do, and simply to be and do what was his to be and do. Not to be tempted by too much, but to know that the way we are called is to know what is ours and simply do that.
Awe and wonder. The beauty of God’s creation is all around us.
But we’ve got to stop.
We’ve got to pay attention.
We’ve got to listen to what creation is telling us.
What are the birds that are singing telling us?
What are the rivers babbling by telling us?
What is the sun, shining down and kind of baking us this week, I hear, telling us?
God is speaking to us.
God is speaking if we are not too busy trying to carry the weight of the world or trying to know more and more.
We have a great teacher showing us a different way and inviting us to know what it is that is ours and to appreciate all that is God’s.
May we all learn to love a world with more beauty, with more to offer us than we could ever need, and to serve knowing that God is with us.
Amen.