I knew today would be a little different and I went ahead and prepared something but no surprise it doesn't seem right given the circumstances so we're going to shift gears a little bit. Turn with me to Psalms chapter 8. Psalms chapter 8. Scriptures record, this is written by David. Psalms chapter eight reads as follows. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, thou mightest still the enemies and the adventure. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou were mindful of him and the son of man that thou visited him? For thou has made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and with honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, and now has put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the parts of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. What a beautiful passage. What a passage that can be read in almost every circumstance, whether it's excitement, whether it's times that were low, whether it's times are going through trouble, whether it's times we're celebrating as we are today. This is a beautiful and wonderful passage that gives us so much instruction. And I want to take just a moment today. To try and highlight what I think is so important with this. In verse 3 it says, We'll just pause there and talk about that for just a minute. I believe what the scripture records that everything that we see, the world, the universe, all that is, was created by God. In the Genesis account in chapter 1 and a little bit into chapter 2, we see that God made everything and there is nothing that wasn't made that was not Him. It was through His power. In fact, I think the scripture says in the book of Genesis that God literally spoke and everything was made that is made. In fact, I'll just go there and read it for you. Let me give you one example. Verse six, Genesis one. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the water and divide the waters from the water. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above and called it so. And God called the firmament heavens and the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth. And he gathered the waters, he called them the sea, and God saw that it was good. And we go on and on through here. And what we see, again, just to establish what I believe, is that the entire world was created in six literal days, not over millions of years, not because of some big cosmic bang that happened, but instead God spoke and the very world was created. In this world, in all of its beauty, if you've ever stood and looked out over an amazing vista or looked up at night at the stars, they all sing and glorify and magnify the Creator, the one who made all of these things. And we are but to stand underneath all of them and to ask this very simple question, what is man that you are mindful of him? You can rephrase that question this way and say, God, why do you care about me? That's what the psalmist is singing and saying there. He is asking this question, no doubt, having just taken in the beautiful night sky and is reflecting upon God's power and his glory and his strength. And he's asking a very important question. God, why do you care about me? You ever thought that way? You ever felt that small? You ever looked at something so beautiful or had an experience in your life where you pause and go, God, why do you care about me? But the reality is, the psalmist David is correct. God does care about us. He cares about us individually. He knows you by name. The Scripture says He knows how many hairs you have on your head. That's a lot of hairs. Some more than others. but that's still a lot of hair. The point is that God loves us that much and He knows us that well. Now just think about this in context. The God who made everything, the God who made this world, the God who made the heavens and the stars, all the animals, all that ever has been, all that ever will be, the God that spoke all of it in an instant into existence over the course of six days, He actually cares about you. Not just Adam and Eve, but you. Everyone who's ever existed is a result of God. Everyone who ever will exist is the result of God making them. And He knows and cares about every single one of us. Now let me restate something I said multiple times here in the first few weeks I was here, but I feel like we should say it again today. This is exactly the opposite of what our world and our culture is teaching us today. It is teaching that the individual doesn't matter, that your life isn't worth living. It is teaching that you weren't created by a God who loves you. No, you're an accident because somehow all of a sudden something blew up and made something that somehow something climbed out of it and started breathing and then eventually you became a human. And it tells us there is no value in people and there is no reason to be here, but it is exactly the opposite. That is a lie of the enemy because God made us and he is mindful, as the King James says, or he thinks about us. What did I do to deserve that? You know the answer? Absolutely nothing. I am not a good person. By God's standards, save his sacrifice for me. I didn't earn any of this. I'm not saved because of how good I am. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. God knew in His infinite plan at the very beginning, again, in the beginning in Genesis, that Adam and Eve would fall. They would be more concerned about themselves and trying to be equal with God than they would about being obedient and having a relationship with God. Does this sound familiar to any of us today? We still do this. We still try everything we can to be in charge. We still try everything we can to put ourselves forward. All we think about most of the time is ourselves and all God thinks about is taking care of us. What is man that you are mindful of him? And just so, we'll go back to Genesis for a minute. Let me try and illustrate this. So God, I said, spoke everything into creation, except for what? Do you know what it was? It was us. He formed us. Maybe you've never caught that before. As I told you, He speaks everything into existence. And then let's go over to chapter 2, verse 7. of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Now let's think about this for a minute. I don't want to torture the text. I don't want to take it out of context. But think about it this way for just a minute. God spoke everything into existence, all the animals, the ocean, the stars. And then when it came time to make us, God's a spirit, so he didn't really do this physically, but just picture with me for a minute. He got down in the dirt and he carefully formed us. And once we were formed, once physically we were made, he leaned over and he breathed into us and he gave us part of his spirit and we became alive. Not alive like the animals. He didn't do that to the animals. He did that to us. He gave enough of us, enough of him inside of us for us to become a spirit, to have a spirit and to have a soul that must be saved. God isn't far off somewhere, uninterested in what goes on here. He's very interested in you and in your life. He is here at all times through the Holy Spirit. He got down and breathed life into Adam's nostrils. And from Adam comes so-and-so and so-and-so all the way down to me. We all come from him. And he loves all of us. And so as we Go back over to Psalms. As the psalmist begins to look out and think about all the glorious things, and he is uplifted, no doubt, and says, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that thou has visited him? See, this is also vitally important because not only does God love us and know us and created us to be in a relationship with him, He knew even at the beginning that we would fail in this and choose our own selves, trying to be equal with God, and that someday there would have to be a bridge that can reunite Him with us. Now, why is that? That is because God is holy. That word means separate. It means perfect. It means above all. To have something that's holy means it's completely separate from something that is not holy, something that is profane and dirty. The reality is, when we fell and invited sin into our lives, for generation after generation, we are born into sin, and then we choose to continue sinning, doing the things that are not good for us, and living a life contrary to what God wants for us. And He knew that we would need somehow to bridge that gap. You see, the reality is, good can't be with evil. And we're evil. Don't fool yourselves. You're not good. None of us are. There is one good, Jesus Christ, who is the answer to the problem that we have. Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, He's not just a good teacher, because a good teacher wouldn't lie to you. And he proclaimed to be the Son of God. How do we know that? He was so serious, he proclaimed it so many times that people tried to kill him over it. There was no mistaking, well, he's just a good teacher or just another prophet. Jesus Christ is the Son of God sent here on earth to do a special work. And what is that work? To reunite us with God. You see, God can't have sin because He's holy in His presence. And we are sinners from the fall and we continue to do it by choice. So, how on earth can I be united with God if there is not a way forward for me to do that? Enter, as I said, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was sent to earth as part of God and He was both, the scripture says, fully God and fully man. Now, how does that work? I'll be honest with you, I have no idea. but the Bible says it and I believe it. So he came to earth. The Bible says he lived a perfect life. Now, he being not born of man, right? If you go back and you remember, Mary was a virgin. The Holy Spirit impregnated her in a way. And so he became man without the sin curse being passed, right? You follow me? He didn't have Adam's curse. And then once he was old enough, he never purposefully and never sinned. he remained holy and pure. And because he was both God and sinless, and man, and could send if he had wanted to, but chose not to by being obedient to his father, he was the perfect sacrifice. See, there had to be something that bridges that gap, and that is Jesus Christ. So the plan from the very beginning was this. God would make us so that He could have fellowship with us. He knew that we would break that fellowship and want to go our own way. But He would send Jesus Christ someday to be the sacrifice, to pay the penalty for what? For my sin. The penalty for when I am not doing what I should do. That is the answer, and that is Jesus Christ. And so we saw for thousands of years people in faith looking forward to the time when Christ would come just as we look back 2,000 years to the time that He did come. Knowing that He would do a work, knowing that He would come, live as a man, and knowing that He would take upon my sin and your sin and pay the price that I couldn't pay. And so when David says, thou has made him a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor. And when he says, what is man that thou are mindful of him and the son of man that thou visited him, we have been visited by God himself in the flesh to pay for our penalty. And what has happened? God has made us, he's given us a dominion over the works of the hands and has put all things under his feet, all the sheep, all the oxen, yea, the beast of the field, the foul of the air, the fish of the sea whatsoever passes through the parts of the seas. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. And so brothers and sisters, this is an account of a man who was after God's own heart. who stood in the grandeur and said, this isn't about me, it's about Him. And so as we think about all the blessings that God has given us today in the last few weeks, and most certainly He has, let us not lose sight of the fact that when we consider the heavens and the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what am I that He cares about me? You ever ask that question? I hope you do. For those of us who know what He is to us, who've been saved, who know that we have passed from death unto life, who know that God has spoken to us, who knows that we have been convicted and prayed to Him and asked for forgiveness and received that forgiveness and raised to walk in new life, for those of us, we can answer that question. What is God that He has thought of us? He's my Savior. He's everything to me. He's the only reason that I'm here. He's the only reason that I'm successful in whatever way you might want to measure success. He's the only way that I can be one with Him is through Jesus Christ, and He is interested in me as an individual. And for those who are here who may never have really heard this before or thought about this before or who just are not saved, listen to me. God cares about you, not the person sitting next to you, but the person next to you and you. God cares about you. He had a solution to our sin, which is Jesus Christ for you. Now, why would he do that? Because he wants to be in a relationship with you. He wants to know you and be known by you. He wants you to talk with him. God made all of this for His glory and to reveal His nature to us so that we can truly love Him. Now, what a peculiar thing. It's easy to go about our lives and think, well, listen, nothing matters. It's easy to go about our lives and take in what everybody else says in the world, that we're an accident, that you have no value, that you have no purpose. You have no direction. It's just whatever you can get through life, whatever you can grasp and grab a hold of, whatever you can claw your way, and hopefully you end your life with, you know, good living or something. It's not what God wants. God wants you to know Him. Now, let's not lose track of who that Him is, the one who made everything, the one who made it all, the moon and the stars and the earth. What do we have to give? to the one who knows us that way, who wants us to have a relationship with him, who has visited us, who was mindful of us, ourselves. See, that's what you do. You can think about this from a parent relationship or a marriage relationship, but that's what you do. You would sacrifice yourself to save your child or your loved one. And that's what God did for us. And so brothers and sisters, as we come today, I want us to think just for a few minutes. Listen to this verses, listen to this wisdom that God has given us through David. Listen one more time, and I want you to think, do you know that this is true in your life? If you do not know this is true in your life, what do you do about it? You pray. You ask Him to help you. You ask Him to make it clear. You ask Him to give you a burden. You must understand just how much you have betrayed the love of God. Just how much you have turned away. And you must seek Him for forgiveness as I told you my salvation experience earlier today. You must turn to Him and repent. And when He forgives you, well then, you have peace. And you have a restored relationship with the God who made the world. So no matter whether you know Him today or you do not know Him today, I pray that you listen to these verses as we come to a close. Let me read it one more time. And I want you to carefully listen. Ask the Lord would open your mind, open your spirit, open your soul to what it is that He is going to whisper into you right now. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. who has set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has thou ordained strength because of thine enemies. Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man? that thou were mindful of him, and the Son of man that thou visited him. For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and has crowned him with glory and with honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, and has put all things under his feet, all the sheep and oxen, yea, the beasts of the fields, the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the sea. O Lord our God, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Brothers and sisters, I hope that this is true in your life. I know that it's true that he knows you. I know that it's true that he wants you to know him. And I want to give you an opportunity to meet him. You do that through prayer. Many times we'll do that here at the front. I told you I left before I was saved. Some of you were saved on an altar, weren't you? Many of you were. Some of you were saved in your pews and your seats. The reality is it doesn't matter where you're at. It matters what's your heart like before God. Is it proud? Is it arrogant? Or is it broken and contrite as the scripture tells us before him? Is it bowing humbly before him? Are you begging for forgiveness? Are you trying to work your way there? Are you trying to bargain your way there? Brothers and sisters, we must come before him in such a way and allow the Lord to work in our lives. And as we have a hymn, I want you all to consider this. Keep reading the verses if you need to. Keep considering. Ask the Lord to demonstrate to your life and to your heart how powerful He is, how much He loves you. Ask Him what you are to do, and then be obedient to do those things in which He tells you to do. And as we have our song and our hymn, this is what we ask, that you be obedient. Whatever it is God has for your life, we ask that you would do that today. Oh, Lord, our God, how excellent is thy name and all the earth. One number.