The God I know

Psalm 8

Introduction: The great heavyweight champion boxer Muhammed Ali was once on a flight when the stewardess told him that he needed to buckle his seatbelt. Ali responded to the stewardess, Superman don’t need no seatbelt, and without missing a beat, the stewardess replied, superman don’t need no plane.

CHECK SLIDES SENT TO MATCH UP

As we continue our series on peaks and valleys I want to share this observation with you that I had in preparation for this sermon. In our peaks we often forget OUR place, and in our valleys we forget HIS.

In our greatest moments we are still not god, but our Great God can still reach us in the lowest valleys.

READ TEXT

Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, You who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! From the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have established strength Because of Your enemies, To do away with the enemy and the revengeful. 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 think of him, And a son of man that You are concerned about him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the animals of the field, The birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas. Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!”

ALL GOD HAS TO MANAGE BUT THEN US

PRAY

I. The Way We See God – Three questions total (don’t say this)

A. Question #1. The first question we want to present today is, “How are you looking at God?”

1. How did David look at God? (vs. 1-3)

O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! 2 From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength, Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease. 3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

2. How do we look at God?

I really do not believe today that if we took a survey in this church and asked people Who they thought God to be, or what He is capable of that we would be very disappointed. I think that all of you most likely have a very good perspective of a God. The problem lies more in the amount of time that we take to think about Him. David was asking God the question who is man that you think about him and care for him? I would present the question today, Who is God that we DON’T think about him and spend time with Him. REPEAT Satan today is not turning the masses today with Hard drugs and vile abominations. Satan is turning the masses by getting people away from their quiet time with God. The word of God and prayer to the Heavenly Father challenges us, and we find it too difficult a task. It has been said that the people must either be challenged or they must be entertained. And the majority of people today have fallen back on entertainment and amusement. Faster internet, email on your phone, more tv channels, new songs on the radio, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise. People want to know why God allows pain to occur today? C.S. Lewis said that God uses pain as His megaphone to communicate to us. We now have the volume in culture turned up so high, I’m scared to think what type of megaphone He might need to use to get our attention today. People talk about Jesus’ healing, His teaching, His death, burial, and resurrection, but if we look at the Jesus’ earthly ministry as recorded in the New Testament the most significantly recorded amount of time that He spent in any one area was getting away from everything to spend time with the father.

The question today then isn’t how are we looking at God, but rather how often do we even look to him at all?

Transition

II. The Way God Sees Us (don’t say this)

A. Question #2. Once we get a proper perspective of who God is, “Do we understand How God thinks of us?” (vs. 4-8)

4 What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? 5 Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! 6 You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, 7 All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, 8 The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

OF WHAT IS GOD MINDFUL?

1. Our needs. Lu. 12:30

2. Our lost condition. Lu. 19:10

3. Our weaknesses. Psalms 103:13

4. Our sorrows. Isa. 53:4

5. Our labor of love. Heb. 6:10

6. Our temptations. Heb. 2:18;1 Cor. 10:13

7. His own promises. Psalms 111:5;2 Pet. 3:9

Personal Ideas

Biggest fan in the stands

Birthday Calendar (think Grandma, or betty noble, run whole life from wall calendar)

He sits up at night and waits for your text message

God doesn’t just love all of us. He loves each of us.

He Thinks and Cares for Us

How does God think and care for us?

He brings peace amidst the chaos.

He brings relief amidst the pain.

He brings joy amidst the sorrow.

He brings rest to the weary.

He brings hope to those in despair.

He brings grace to the sinner.

He brings healing to the sick.

And He brings salvation to a lost in dying world.

Jesus came down from heaven on High humbling himself and visited us, a king being born in a manager, he lived a perfect and sinless life, and then according to the will of the father laid down his life for us while we were living in sin and doing things our way. What is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?

III. The Way We Live Our Lives (don’t say)

A. Question #3. When we think of God to be as big as He is, and think of ourselves to be as small as we are, “How are we allowing this perspective to affect the way that we live our lives?” Plenty of ways we could consider let’s just look at 3 today…

Change wording, How should we then live. Francis Schaffer 1970’s

· Worry- Matthew 6, Romans 8, If He is big enough to create and operate the universe, then He’s big enough for a flat tire, electric bill, or that boss we don’t like at work. We love to quote Matthew 19:26 with God all things are possible but we apply it to cancer and not the everyday issues of life.

· Attitude- Short story- In a certain family a father opened in prayer at every mealtime, thanking God for all His blessings. Immediately after prayer, as was his habit, he began to complain: about the poor quality of the meat on his plate, the size of the eggs, the high interest rates, the soft potatoes, the poor wage he was making, the bitterness of the coffee, the outrageous prices one had to pay. One day his little daughter set him straight. "Daddy," she said, "does God hear you when you thank Him for all His blessings?" With confidence he replied, "Yes dear, He does." "Daddy," she continued, "does God also hear you when you complain about the meat and potatoes?" A little hesitantly he replied, "Yes, He hears that too." "Daddy," she said again, "which does God believe?" Which does God believe: when we pray and worship and say thank-you, or when we live ungrateful lives?

· Purpose- How does your view of God and men affect your purpose for living? God has created us in His image and He has given it to us to take care of His creation. He has given us the responsibility to declare the truth of His word to all of those whom we come in contact with. Perhaps it has been a while since you have even considered your purpose for living. YOUR PURPOSE FOR LIVING TODAY IS JESUS CHRIST. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: One does not reason from human experience to Christ, but the other way. Christ interprets our being. We discover our humanity in him. He judges us from the border of our existence and he brings us new life. Let me explain to you why people struggle with this idea. It is simply because they have never sold out to Jesus. They’ve never invested in Him enough to understand the joy that exists in fully surrendering to His ways. We might believe in God rather than Allah, we might come to church on Sunday because our parents did, we might even pray before meals because that’s how we were brought up. But we are a people that cannot get over ourselves. Many of us are even selfish in the way we try to serve God. Somehow we expect God to operate and answer on our terms rather than His. We don’t give of ourselves sacrificially, we only give as much as we can and still keep control of our situation. God wants all of us. And until we give Him all of us, we will never find the joy of His salvation. Beyond intelligence, beyond reason, beyond ethics, and beyond morality, stand the one true missing piece to the puzzle of life and that is fully surrendering to the work of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

· There are those of you today that God is calling, He’s called you to a life of ministry, a life of surrender, but you have put Him off. Don’t delay any longer. Maybe some of us have become lazy in our commitment to our ministries. How can we give anything less than our best for God? We are working for the king of kings and Lord of Lords.

· Some of you today are being called in this very moment. You are being called to repent of your anxious attitude, or perhaps your ungrateful attitude towards life and towards God. And all of us have been called to Jesus.

· God cares about you so much. He thinks about you, He comes to you where you are and He wants to have a deeper relationship with you. But He has made us creatures of free will and He will not force His way in. But He is standing at the door knocking. He wants to come in if you’ll invite him. Is He knocking on the door of your heart today?

Many of us have said that we will make these changes or commitments when things get a little bit slower.

Choosing God won’t become easier after your married, after you buy a house, after you finish school, after you retire. Choose God today. PRAYER – As we head back to the church building in a few weeks, what better time to fully surrender to the work that God has for you, to get a fresh start, and be filled with the joy of your salvation.

If you don’t know the God I know, different version, unfamiliar, hasn’t been presented to you this way, or felt this way, come today and meet the God I know

MEET HIM TODAY

PARKING LOT: Worry and attitude absolved corrected etc in a life-giving purpose. Look at house of miracles lyrics