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WHO AM I?
Scott R. Bayles, preacher
First Christian Church, Rosiclare, IL
A few years ago, one of my favorite Christian music groups, Casting Crowns, had a hit song titled Who Am I? In the opening verse the lead singer, Mark Hall, asks:
“Who am I that the Lord of all the Earth would care to know my name, would care to feel my hurt? Who am I that the Bright and Morning Star would choose to light the way for my ever-wondering heart? Not because of who I am, but because of what You’ve done. Not because of what I’ve done, but because of who You are! I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind. Still You hear when I’m calling, You catch me when I’m falling and You tell me who I am—I am Yours. I am Yours!”
The message of that song—plainly and powerfully conveyed—is that no matter how small or insignificant you may feel, the Lord of all the Earth not only knows your name, but has made you special and calls you His own.
A long time ago, in land far, far away, another great song writer wrote a similar hymn with the same message. When David considered the majesty and greatness of God, he felt insignificant by comparison. In Psalm 8, David stands in awe of the majesty of the Lord. And when he realizes just how vast and magnificent God truly is, he’s even more amazed that God would take the time to notice him—a mere mortal man. Rather than simply reading this Scripture, let me invite you to watch and listen. I think this video clip does a wonderful job of visualizing this inspired hymn:
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1-9 NIV)
“This psalm,” some once noted, “is an unsurpassed example of what a hymn should be, celebrating as it does the glory and grace of God, rehearsing who He is and what He has done, and relating us and our world to Him... in a spirit of mingled joy and awe.”
In this beautiful expression of praise to God, David stands amazed that the God of creation, the great and glorious Yahweh, would pay attention to the frail people of earth. That God should focus attention and lavish His love on us is proof of our dignity as creatures made in the image of God. We discover our true value and worth only when we make God the reference point of our lives. In other words, you matter because you matter to God. Apart from knowing God, we have no understanding of who we really are or what role we’re supposed to play in this great universe. But, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, David reveals three wonderful truths that declare both the intrinsic value of humanity and the awesome majesty of God. The first truth is that you are created by God.
• CREATED BY GOD
David was mesmerized by the majesty of God, writing, “I look at your heavens, which you made with your fingers. I see the moon and stars, which you created.” (vs. 3 NCV). Scientist and philosophers have long debated and discussed the origin of the universe, but Bible-believing Christians have known all along that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
Sir Isaac Newton was a very famous mathematician and scientist who strongly believed in God. However, he had a very close friend who did not believe in God, so Sir Isaac devised a plan to try to convince his friend that God did exist and had created the Universe. One day, he went to a carpentry shop and asked the owner to make a model of our solar system. This model was to be made to scale, intricately painted, and designed to resemble, as closely as possible, the actual solar system.
After several weeks, Isaac picked up the model, paid for it, and placed it in the center of a table in his house. Sometime later, his atheist friend came over for a visit. When the friend arrived at Dr. Newton’s house, the model of the solar system caught his eye, and he asked Sir Isaac if he could inspect the model more closely. As the atheist inspected that model, he was impressed by the fine craftsmanship and beauty of the pieces. After a while, the atheistic friend asked Isaac who had crafted this wonderful model. Sir Isaac promptly replied that no one had made the model; it just appeared on his table by accident. Confused, the friend repeated the question, and yet Newton stubbornly clung to his answer that the model had just appeared out of thin air. Finally, the friend became upset, and Isaac explained the purpose of his answer. If he could not convince his friend that this crude replica of the solar system had just happened by accident, how could the friend believe that the real solar system, with all its complexity and design, appeared just by time and chance?
The point is—design always demands a designer. Creation always requires a creator. The Bible says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvelous display of his craftsmanship.” (Psalm 19:1). The fingerprints of God are everywhere. David specifically mentions, for example, “the moon and the stars.” The moon may seem to be only a lifeless dust ball in the sky, but it serves some very important functions. The moon provides us with light at night. The Bible says, “God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16). The moon also causes our oceans to rise and fall. Its gravitational pull on the Earth is just right to cause the oceans to circulate. This movement helps the seas to clean themselves and absorb oxygen. The tides are needed for the oceans to support life. The work of God’s fingers is evidenced by our perfect moon. If it were too big, it would cause dangerous tidal waves and earthquakes. If it were too small, the oceans would become stagnant and unable to support life.
Concerning the stars, Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that we seem to take them for granted. If constellations were visible only once in a century everyone on Earth would stay up all night to gaze at them. The heavens really are telling the glory of God. But, God is not only the Creator of the Universe, He is the Creator of you and me. David said, “You have made [us] a little lower than yourself” (vs. 5 TEV). Human beings, you and I, are God’s most marvelous creation. That the God of the Universe bothered to create you, proves just how important you are and how valuable you can become when you live your life for Him. You are not an accident. You’re not fluke of nature or a bi-product of irresponsible parents. You were handmade by God Himself. God prescribed every single detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, the color of your skin, your hair, and every other feature. He custom-made you the way He wanted you. We are wonderfully made! But your value and God’s majesty don’t stop at creation. David also tells us that we are cared for by God.
• CARED FOR BY GOD
David expressed his wonder by saying, “What are people that you should think about them, mere mortals that you should care for them?” (vs. 4 NLT).
What we know today about the size of the Universe makes the Earth and its inhabitants look even more insignificant than they appeared in David’s day. Our knowledge of light years and the reaches of outer space give us even more reason to ask, “What is man that You are mindful of him?” (NKJV). Yet, in His great love, the Lord chose the Earth for Himself and created us in His image. God is mindful of us and He does care for us!
In his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, pastor Rick Warren writes, “Why did God do all this? Why did he bother to go to all the trouble of creating a universe for us? Because he is a God of love. This kind of love is difficult to fathom, but it’s fundamentally reliable. You were created as a special object of God’s love! God made you so he could love you. This is a truth to build your life on.” (p.24)
The Bible says, “I have carried you since you were born; I have taken care of you from your birth. Even when you are old, I will be the same. Even when your hair has turned gray, I will take care of you. I made you and will take care of you. I will carry you and save you” (Isaiah 46:3-4 NCV).
God is constantly demonstrating His love for us. The Bible says that God can “open the windows of heaven, and pour out a great a blessing” that there is not “room enough to receive it” (Mal. 3:10). Just as He once gave fishermen enough fish to sink their boat, so He can give us more blessings than we have capacity to enjoy. The Almighty can “bless you with blessings of heaven above and of the earth beneath… blessings of the grain and flowers, blessings reaching to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills” (Gen. 49:25-26 TLB).
When, in the general course of life, God’s children enter upon new paths, God’s love and care goes before them. That is, He anticipates the blessings we will require and puts them in our path. He knows what things we have need of before we ask Him. Expectant parents enjoy fixing up the baby’s room during the forty weeks it takes the child to arrive. We know that our little girl will need diapers, so we get some. We know she’ll need to eat, so we buy formula and baby food. We know she’ll sleep a lot, so we put together a complex crib. God goes before us like that.
Before we came into the world, He made it inhabitable.
Before we needed salvation, He made it possible.
Before we needed instruction and guidance, He wrote the Bible.
Before we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He offers eternal life.
Before we enter into eternity, He opened the gate to heaven.
God’s loving care for humankind was ultimately demonstrated by Jesus, who went to the cross. When the mob came to take Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, He could have called “twelve legions of angels” (72,000) to protect Himself, but He didn’t. He had the power to run away from the interrogations of the Jewish council, Pilate, and Herod, but Jesus chose not to do so. Instead, He chose to endure ridicule, physical and mental torture. He chose the nails.
As our mind’s eye catches a glimpse of Calvary we see the great cost at which our salvation came, and we see the vast love of God manifested on an old rugged cross.
As insignificant as humanity may seem in relation to the whole of the created Universe, it was still for humankind that Jesus went to the cross. Jesus didn’t die to save the rainforest. He didn’t die to save the humpbacked whale. He didn’t die to protect the spotted owl. The God of the Universe has but one Son, and that Son died to save you and me. If that does not tell how much you are worth to God, then nothing ever will. Yet, there is still one more marvelous truth revealed here concerning God’s majesty and man’s dignity. Finally, David tells us that we are crowned by God.
• CROWNED BY GOD
David announced, “You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him rule what your hands created. You have put everything under his control: all the sheep and cattle, the wild animals, the birds, the fish, whatever swims in the currents of the seas” (vs. 5-8 GWT).
This part of the David’s psalm is unique and interesting, I think, because it has a dual meaning to it. (A lot of Hebrew poetry had duel meanings, actually.) On one level, David is referring all the way back to Genesis, when God crowned Adam and Eve and, by extension, all of humanity—placing them over all creation. In Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth” (MSG).
You see, God gave human beings a level of power and authority that He chose not to give to anything else in all creation. He’s given us authority and responsibility for the world we live in, our environment and all of the creatures—large and small—with which we share our world. As Stan Lee is so fond of saying, “With great power comes great responsibility.” As Christians we have a responsibility to take care of the Earth and everything in it—to “go green” as they say.
But beyond that, this verse also speaks to our intrinsic worth as human beings. In all of creation, from the microscopic amebas to the mega-ton Apatosaurus, only human beings were created in God’s image. While all of creation declares God’s glory, only humanity can reflect God’s glory. Walt Whitman once wrote, “I think that I would like to live with the animals, because they are so tranquil.” Of course, neither do they write beautiful poetry like Whitman did. And they never will. Only people are capable of painting a portrait or composing a masterpiece, because only people are made in God’s image.
On a whole other lever though, this psalm is Messianic in nature. That is, David is not only speaking about man’s authority over creation in general, but specifically about the Son of Man’s authority over all the Earth. The author of Hebrews tells us that even though God gave us dominion and authority over the Earth, because of the fall, we don’t see people being responsible and actually ruling over the Earth as God intended. “What we do see is Jesus, who was given a position ‘a little lower than the angels’; and because he suffered death for us, he is now ‘crowned with glory and honor.’ Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9 NLT).
This psalm not only looks backward toward creation, but forward toward the coming of Christ—Jesus was “made a little lower than the angels” and Jesus has been “crowned with glory and honor” and Jesus has “everything under his control.” And it is in Jesus, that we truly discover who we are and what we’re worth. In Christ, we recover majesty; in Him, we become the people that God wants us to be.
Conclusion:
So as David sat back, with his quill in one hand and parchment in the other, to reflect on God’s glory and majesty he struggled with many deep questions that we still face today: Who am I? What is man that you would take thought of him? Who am I that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name? Whenever we feel worthless, the words of this psalm should encourage us. We and all other human beings are valuable because God Himself created us in His own glorious image, cares for us with unrelenting love, and crowns us with glory and honor.
Invitation:
If you ever feel small or insignificant, remember that you matter to God. The Lord of all the Earth knows your name and feels your hurt. The Bright and Morning Star wants to light the way for your ever-wandering heart. He hears you when you call and catches you when you fall. He alone can tell you who you are.
