Who Am I?

Who Am I?

Psalm 8:3-4

Intro: Several years ago, Time Magazine featured a story about Peter Sellers, a well-known English actor (prob. best known as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther movies). The article was about him appearing on the Muppet Show & being interviewed by Kermit The Frog. His interview began with Kermit telling Peter, "Now, just relax & be yourself."

-Peter Sellers responded, "I can’t be myself because I don’t know who I am. The real me doesn’t exist."

-He was probably trying to be funny, because he was a comedian by trade. But on this particular occasion his words were anything but funny. In fact, they were rather sad.

-One of his long time friends, commenting on those words, said, "Poor Peter! The real Peter disappeared a long time ago. What he is now is simply an amalgamation of all the stage & screen characters he has ever played, & now he is frantically trying to unsnarl that mess & find out who he really is."

-We don’t know if Peter Sellers was ever able to unsnarl the mess or not; just six months later he died of a heart attack. But, he certainly wasn’t alone in his feelings. Many people go through life wondering who they are, & what they’re supposed to be doing, & where they’re going.

-In the past few weeks we’ve talked about Who God is and Who Jesus is. Hopefully, you were able to at least think about some of the characteristics of God’s deity and get a better sense of who you’re dealing with. God is all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present. He is love, eternal, holy, just, merciful, patient, etc. Jesus is God’s Son who came in the flesh as a human. He is everything God the Father is, yet He laid aside the rights and privileges of deity and became fully human, yet without sin. He died a horrible death as a once and for all sacrifice for the sins of all who call on Him in faith. He is now at God the Father’s right hand praying for us, but may not be there long because soon and very soon the Father will say, “Son, it’s time! Go get em!”

-We could spend weeks and weeks talking about the nature of God and Jesus and the Trinity. However, this is intended to be somewhat of an introductory miniseries. Who is God? Who is Jesus? And today, Who am I?

-David was a man in the Bible who loved to worship God wholeheartedly. We don’t know the setting in which he wrote Psalm 8, but maybe one night he was sitting on a hillside somewhere outside of Bethlehem where only the sheep could hear him. As he was jamming on his harp, these words came to him and he began to sing them:

Psalm 8:1-9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

-As David looked up at the vastness of God’s universe, perhaps he felt his own smallness. So he asks God, “What is man that you are mindful of him?" – that You care about him?” Today I want to focus on the first part of that question: What is man? Who am I? Naturally, this entire message is informed by God’s word, the Bible. That is where we will get the most accurate picture of who God is and who we are (and a lot of other things as well). So, what is man? Who are we?

1. We are created beings fashioned in the image of our Maker

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. [not physical, but spiritual and in other ways]

Genesis 2:7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.