Text: Romans 1:20 

Props: Bag of edible Sunflower seeds plus a large living Sunflower or pictures of Sunflowers. 

Can any of you tell me what I have here? (A bag of Sunflower seeds.) Do any of you like to eat them like I do? They’re very good to eat when they’re lightly salted.  

Besides being a tasty snack, Sunflower seeds are also used for medicine in treating things like bronchial infections and whooping cough, for cosmetics like moisturizing cream, and even lately for biodiesel to put into cars instead of gasoline so you can drive to work or to the store. 

Now, here’s an important question… Can you tell me where Sunflower seeds come from? Right! They come from Sunflowers! How many of you have seen a real Sunflower?  

I don’t have a real Sunflower here but let me share a few pictures of Sunflowers with you. Aren’t they pretty?  

For you adults here with us, take a look at the intricate spiral pattern in the middle of the Sunflower. Mathematicians tell us that the design of the Sunflower’s middle follows a complex pattern called the Fibonacci Series and that this eye pleasing mathematical pattern is shared by pinecones, snail shells, animal horns, leaf buds on a stem, and surprisingly, the mathematical formula that describes the way rabbits multiply  from a single breading pair.  Artists and architects are familiar with this same mathematical principle It is related to the so called the “Golden Ratio” which can be seen in historic architecture like the Parthenon of ancient Athens. Do you suppose that sunflowers, snails, pine trees, animals with horns, plants with leaves on their stems, rabbits, architects, and mathematicians all figured out that formula while "evolving" independently? We think not. We think that this intricate design is the product of a Wise and Masterful Creator.

But I’m talking to the kids this morning, so enough of that. So, kids, can anyone tell me why we call them Sunflowers? Why don’t we call them Moonflowers or Starflowers? The reason we call them Sunflowers is that from the time they form their first head (or flower) they move to follow the track of the Sun across the sky. In the morning they will face east – the direction from which the sun comes up. Then as the sun rises, they follow it with their “faces” until, as the sun goes down, they are facing west. Then in the morning they turn to the east again and do the same thing. So Sunflowers are pretty to look at, they’re fun to observe, their seeds are good eat, they are useful to our bodies and our skin, we can run our cars with them, and Sunflowers are intricately designed – so much so that they fascinate mathematicians, artists, and architects. That’s a lot of things for a simple flower to do.  

Romans 1:20 tells us that though God is invisible to our eyes, He can be seen by looking at the things He has made so that there really is no excuse for the person who says that there is no God.  

Some people today try to tell us that beautiful and complex things like Sunflowers with their amazing proportions and properties just came about by chance. In other words, no one designed them or made them. They just happened to come into existence through a series of random mistakes. But we know differently, don’t we? We know that the beautiful, intricate, useful, and amazing design of the Sunflower didn’t come about by chance. It was made by the Great Designer of the universe, the God of Heaven and Earth.  

You and I have the great privilege to know the Creator and Designer of Sunflowers – Who is also the Creator and Designer of everything else around us. We can learn all about Him in this book – the Bible. Take every opportunity you get to know and understand God. Maybe one day soon you can be as dedicated to following God as Sunflowers are to following the Sun.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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