David Attenborough ironically describes our DNA as the Book of Life, just like in the Psalm;
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:14-16
Your genetic makeup is a combination of your parents DNA. You have 46 chromosomes in each cell, 23 pairs made up of 1 from Mum and 1 from Dad.
DNA is supercoiled using enzymes so that it takes up less space. Try holding a piece of string at one end, and twisting the other. As you add twist, the string creates coils of coils; and eventually, coils of coils of coils. Your DNA is arranged as a coil of coils of coils of coils of coils! This allows the 3 billion base pairs in each cell to fit into a space just 6 microns across. If you stretched the DNA in one cell all the way out, it would be about 2m long and all the DNA in all your cells put together would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System.
And in that DNA, are all the instructions that told your body how to form, whether you are a boy or girl, even down to making the very tools at the right time in your mother’s womb to make each part of your body. I remember seeing a video which described incisors cutting open the eyelids. There is no one like you!
Once upon a time, your parents gave you your name. Your name was given in love. Do you know the meaning of your name? Look it up on the internet. Do you agree with it?
- Heather - variety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas Wendy - white, fair, blessed
- Diane - heavenly, divine
- John/Ian/Sean - YAHWEH is gracious (beloved of God)
- Liam - helmet, protection (Wil is short for will, desire)
- Bob/Robert - fame, bright
Sometimes in the Bible God renamed someone;
Abram became Abraham
“What’s more,” God told him, “I am changing your name. It is no longer ‘Abram’ (‘Exalted Father’), but ‘Abraham’ (‘Father of Nations’)—for that is what you will be. I have declared it.
Genesis 17:5
Simon became Peter
Andrew then went to find his brother Peter and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” And he brought Peter to meet Jesus. Jesus looked intently at Peter for a moment and then said, “You are Simon, John’s son—but you shall be called Peter, the rock!”
John 1:41-42
In Hebrew, Simon means “Listen”. In Greek it meant “snub-nosed’. If someone says that person is a rock, they mean a solid character.
In both cases, God gives an extension to the meaning, he doesn’t change the context of the original name but identifies the person with greater meaning.
Abram was exalted father - applicable to his own family. But Abraham is “Father of Nations” !!! This became true physically through Isaac and Ishmael, also true religiously of Jews, Muslims and Christians and ultimately spiritually true since he is the father of all people born again by faith.
However Satan doesn’t call us by name - he is known as the accuser.
Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has happened at last! God’s salvation and the power and the rule, and the authority of his Christ are finally here; for the Accuser of our brothers has been thrown down from heaven onto earth—he accused them day and night before our God. Revelation 12:10
Satan instead labels us - ugly, fat, stupid, dumb etc and loves it when he has something to accuse us of - liar, thief, murderer, adulterer, gay...
Where did the term “nickname” come from? The meaning is “also-name”. But be careful with nicknames as they are often negative in meaning e.g. Shorty. Another name for Satan is “Old Nick”.
But God calls us by our name, the one our parents gave us. Each one of us here today has been called by God by our name. That is why we are here today.
And God has something for each one of us to do which is beyond what we see in ourselves. Our DNA stretched out would reach the sun and back many times over. Just think what your true potential is that God has written into your DNA!
While reading Genesis 2, I saw something I hadn’t seen before.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
What the Bible is saying is true not just for the couple but also for their children. It is not possible for any other type of couple to become one flesh. The biology does not allow it. Everyone has one Mum and one Dad, our genetic makeup coming from our 2 parents.
Think of the life of Moses.
Moses’s life is divided into 3 parts of 40 years, like his life is following a DNA script;
There were at this time a Hebrew fellow and girl of the tribe of Levi who married and had a family, and a baby son was born to them. When the baby’s mother saw that he was an unusually beautiful baby, she hid him at home for three months. Then, when she could no longer hide him, she made a little boat from papyrus reeds, waterproofed it with tar, put the baby in it, and laid it among the reeds along the river’s edge. The baby’s sister watched from a distance to see what would happen to him. Exodus 2:1-4
Moses was born to slaves living in the ghetto, he didn’t get the greatest start in life, with the Pharaoh’s men hunting all new born Israelite babies to kill them.
Have you a copy of your birth certificate? On mine there is written the occupation of the Father but not Mother - Cost Office Supervisor, Mum was an office assistant. They met at work, it was an office romance....
Moses was rescued from the bullrushes by the princess and adopted into the Pharoah’s family and was even named Moses by the Pharoah’s daughter. Moses means drawn out of the water. The Pharoah is evil, he murders babies, yet here is Moses a baby in the Lion’s Den and he is completely safe even being raised by the Antichrist himself. I am constantly having to reset to God’s Agenda. This looked like a disaster. See God’s Agenda was that Moses would be drawn out of the water, he was chosen by God to set the people free.
Moses was a pastors kid. His father and mother were both Levites - the tribe of priests.
“One day as he was nearing his fortieth birthday, it came into his mind to visit his brothers, the people of Israel. During this visit he saw an Egyptian mistreating a man of Israel. So Moses killed the Egyptian.
Acts 7:23-24
So Moses did a terrible thing. He murdered a man and he ran into the Wilderness and he lived there for 40 years with Jethro, married Zipporah, had a couple of kids. Probably thought I’ll never amount to much now, wondering what life was about. Imagine 40 years as a Prince in Egypt only to become a Shepherd out in the sticks with only a few family, sheep and cattle for company. But that experience had helped make Moses the humblest man on the planet, ready for God to use. The humble are ready to be exalted remember!
Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7
Don’t tell the Lord you’re too old!
One day as Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, out at the edge of the desert near Horeb, the mountain of God, suddenly the Angel of Jehovah appeared to him as a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw that the bush was on fire and that it didn’t burn up, he went over to investigate. Then God called out to him, “Moses! Moses!” “Who is it?” Moses asked. “Don’t come any closer,” God told him. “Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Moses covered his face with his hands, for he was afraid to look at God.)
Exodus 3:1-6
See how God loves the whole of Moses’s family going back many generations! He is our Father, he knows us and he calls us by name.
When God calls Moses, Moses gives many reasons why he shouldn’t be the one to do the job. He was the humblest man on the Earth after all.
- I’m just a pleb! But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Exodus 3:11
- I am not trained for this! I didn’t go to Baptist College. Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” Exodus 3:13
- They won’t believe me! Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” Exodus 4:1
- I’m not talented! But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Exodus 4:10
- I’m scared! But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” Exodus 4:13
The Lord is very patient but he does get angry.
Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.
Exodus 4:14
All the knocks Moses had taken had made him the humblest man on the Earth but now was the time for a change in his thinking. God’s preparation had taken 80 years and now he had Moses exactly how He wanted him.
God had chosen Moses from the beginning to be the one to lead the people out of Egypt. It was all in his design. There was no-one else. If Moses has walked away from the burning bush, it is guaranteed that within 24 hours Satan would have convinced him it was all in his head and the people would have remained in slavery for at least one generation probably hundreds of years more.
We can make excuses if we want. We can stay in Egypt. But there is a Promised Land to get to and we have to be brave and believe God wiil get us there. We are the ones who have to step out.
Always there is faith required. Only the one who will take the risk to step outside the boat can walk on water.
I asked my friends Dad how he can run 160km without stopping and he tapped his head and said “it’s all in the mind”. What he was telling me is that just about any able bodied person can do it, the human body is much more capable than we think. But he was speaking humanly. God know what’s on the design of our DNA and what we are capable of in him is much more.
Ok that’s fine for Moses - he had the burning bush. Jonah survived 3 days in the belly of the whale. Peter, James and John saw Moses and Elijah on the mountain with Jesus.
How do we know if it’s him who’s calling you? I can’t give you a formula because there is always faith required. But you will know based on your life experience, the wisdom of godly friends, how God speaks to you from the Bible, an unusual number of signs or God-incidences.
If the Lord has called you to do something, you need to stop looking at your weaknesses and start focusing on Him.
For I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power. Philippians 4:13
Notice how just like Abram and Simon, Moses name meant much more than what his parents had in mind. This is true for you too. Moses’s name was true physically at birth but beyond that it was also true when he led the people of Israel out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Seat. And in a greater way the Exodus story is true for all generations. If we are in bondage, God sends his servant to tell the Pharoah to let his people go! You can be free today in Christ. You can cross the Red Sea and never go back. That is a picture of Baptism. You may face trials in the desert of the World but if you persevere, in the end you will reach the Promised Land.
God gives us a new identity The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.
Isaiah 62:2
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’
Revelation 2:17
If someone says they were born that way, we are all born that way. We are all born sinners. We must all be born again to enter the Kingdom of God.
Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. Deuteronomy 34:7
But you won’t find a tombstone for Moses with his birth and death dates.
So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.
Deuteronomy 34:5-6
And you won’t find a body in Jesus’ tomb. God is the God of the Living not the dead.
Our names are recorded in the Book of Life. We have a new eternal DNA from God our Father.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17
So pay attention to your thoughts and the way others speak to you. Your name is precious, listen carefully for it.
You can receive your new DNA today and a new story will be written. They won’t find your story on your tombstone. But they’ll be talking about you many years from now. It will be the same you but greater!
