Turning Point

Guest (Male): Welcome to Turning Point. It’s the question that has burned in the heart of humanity from the beginning of time: What is the meaning of life? Today, Dr. David Jeremiah begins the series, God, I Need Some Answers, in response to that age-old question with insights from God’s Word. If you sometimes struggle to find meaning in this life, listen as David shares his message, Who Am I and Why Am I Here?

Dr. David Jeremiah: And thanks for joining us for this Friday edition of Turning Point as we begin a new series. A series is called God, I Need Some Answers and it’s based upon some of the great Psalms. You know, you don't usually preach all the way through the Psalms, but periodically through your life as a pastor, you preach on this Psalm and that Psalm, and pretty soon as you look at them all, you realize they are so valuable and that many people read the Psalms when they don't read other parts of the Bible.

So today we're going to begin this series and we've called it God, I Need Some Answers. Our first Psalm today is the eighth Psalm, and it is a Psalm that answers this question: Who am I and why am I here? We'll get to that in just a moment, but first let me tell you that our resource for the month of May is a brand-new book from Turning Point called Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life. A 236-page hardback book that will help you practice daily the principles of the Word of God.

You will discover a deeper source of hope as you read these chapters and you'll be encouraged to invest more intentionally in relationships and activities that have an eternal value. It’s only available from Turning Point and only available during the month of May. Please ask for your copy of the book Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life when you send your gift to Turning Point during the month of May. And now here is the first of these messages called God, I Need Some Answers. Here’s the question: Who am I and why am I here?

The question is: Who am I and why am I here? And the psalmist asks the question this way in the fourth verse of Psalm 8. He says, "What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou dost care for him?" There’s an awful sense of frustration and meaninglessness, skyrocketing suicide, dark despair spreading like a blanket over the world because men have asked the question: Why am I here? And they haven't come up with any meaningful answers. And so they become existentialists, which means they just live for the moment and they squeeze every drop of meaning out of the moment they have because after that’s over, there is no more.

So when I read David’s question, I really want to know not only what the question is, but what the answer means. What is man that thou art mindful of him? And I’d like to suggest to you that from the eighth Psalm and from Hebrews chapter two, there are three important truths that we need to write down on the table of our heart if we're going to come to grips with that answer.

Number one: You cannot understand who you are and why you are here until you understand the Creator. The theme of Psalm 8 blazes across the first and last verse of this hymn. The writer says, "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!" And the psalmist wants us to understand that the meaning to man starts and ends with the glory of God and who He is.

Think about it with me for just a moment. What makes man different than every other being, every other creative work on the earth? You know the evolutionists tell us we're just a little better animal than the others. We're just a little higher form of all of the other animal beings. But you see, God has said something about man that is very special and this is what He said: He said God created man in His own image.

Now, I don't know if you understand what that means. I'm sure I don't understand it completely. But what it means more than anything else is that when God created man, He created man to respond back to God. He has created man with intellect, emotion, and will so that God could walk in the garden with the first man and talk with them and commune with them. And so that you and I today who know God through His Son Jesus Christ can in a moment of time know the fellowship that we have with our Creator.

There is no other animal, there is no other creature that knows that kind of an intimate personal fellowship relationship with God in heaven. And so it is true to say that man is only man in relationship to God. The only thing that sets us apart from the rest of the creatures on this earth, the only thing that makes us unique, the honor and glory which is crowned upon our head, the fact that we've been created a little bit lower than the angels—the only thing that’s involved in that, friends, is this: That when God created man, He created in man the capacity to respond to God and man is only man in his relationship with the Creator.

No wonder the world is in such a mess because people have determined to just totally deny the fundamental fact about who man is. And when they deny the fundamental fact about humanity, they have destroyed any kind of meaning and purpose in life itself. Now, the psalmist tells us that we can know our Creator certainly through His creative works.

It’s a beautiful thing that he writes when he speaks of the finger work of God, putting the stars in the sky and hanging the moon and the sun. And who of us have not looked up into the sky and thought thoughts of grandeur about our God, thoughts of majesty? He’s known to us in His transcendent creation. But I don't know if you noticed in the eighth Psalm, He’s also known to us in personal communication.

I'm overwhelmed. In fact, I couldn't figure out what this was all about when I first read it. And the more I studied it, the more excited I got about it because it is truly the magnificence of a God who cannot be fathomed by human thinking. For the second verse says this: "Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants, you have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger."

Now listen up, friends. We know God through His transcendent creation, but we also know God through His personal communication. What had impressed the psalmist was that this transcendent glory of God, this greatness which was far above all the heavens, could still be grasped and expressed by a child. Evidently, he had often struggled to put his words into thoughts and ideas, and he had found that his intelligence and his rationality as the psalmist was challenged by such an attempt. Yet here was a God who could reveal Himself in such a marvelous way and overwhelm us as we sit out in the star-studded heavens looking up into the glory of God. We're overwhelmed, and yet this great transcendent God can be known in the heart of a little child.

And Jesus, oh, He nailed this truth for us in the New Testament. Do you remember the story? The chief priests and the scribes, Matthew tells us, were just really upset one day because the blind and the lame came to Jesus in the temple and He healed them. And when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and they saw the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were so indignant.

This wasn't a trained temple children’s choir. These were the ragamuffins of the street. These were the little children who had come in, and when they saw what Jesus did, they just began to say, "Hosanna to the Son of God." And the chief priests and the scribes thought that Jesus should be offended by the fact that these street urchins were crying out "Hosanna to the Son of David" and they told Jesus about it.

And Jesus reminded them of this particular passage of Scripture and He asked them if they had not heard that in the Psalms it said, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings will His truth be known." Wow. He is so wonderful that He’s created the world and hung the stars and so transcendent and magnificent, and yet the simplest child can comprehend Him. In fact, simple children understand Him better than we do once we get our minds messed up with the intricacies of life.

Notice in the eighth Psalm it says, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him?" And all throughout that passage of Scripture you will find that the "you" referring to God is prominent. He is the one who is central in all of this. In fact, verse one and verse nine set the score straight: "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth! O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!"

But I want you to notice secondly, and here we come to the book of Hebrews and it’s so very helpful to us, that you cannot know who you are and why you are here until you understand creation. For you see, in the book of Hebrews, one of the questions that seems unanswered in the eighth Psalm is illuminated for us. For in the second chapter of Hebrews, as the writer repeats the eighth Psalm, here is what he says at the end of his quotation of the Psalm in verse eight. He says, "You have put all things in subjection under his feet."

Remember the question is: Who am I and why am I here? If you read Psalm 8, the answer to the second part of that question is: You are here to subdue the earth. For the eighth Psalm says God has put us in charge of all creation. But the writer of Hebrews says, "For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him, but now we do not yet see all things put under man."

Psalm 8 is a commentary on Genesis 1 and 2, but it is not a commentary on Genesis 3. Because Genesis 3 is the record of the Fall. And the interesting thing about Psalm 8 is that it tells us what God intended man to be, and Hebrews 2 tells us what happened to God’s original intention. God wanted man to live in the Garden of Eden in control over all of the animal kingdom as he was king of the earth—God’s sovereign creation, ruling in sovereign control over all creation.

But then man decided that that wasn't enough. He wanted more. The only thing God withheld from him was withheld from him in order that man might remember who God was and that he was not God. But man was not satisfied, and who of us cannot comprehend it? It’s the one piece of candy that you're told not to eat that becomes so attractive to you.

And Adam and Eve became attracted to the one forbidden thing, and you know the story. It’s the darkest day in the history of mankind. They decided that they would take to themselves the prerogative that belonged to God alone, and we call it the Fall. And man was divested of all of his opportunity to rule over the animal kingdom. He lost his sovereignty.

And unless you think he still has it, let’s just remember that our relationship to the creation in these days has really turned sour, hasn't it? Think of how much worse things are today since we in our fallen condition have been trying to rule and reign over the universe. We build factories to provide jobs for our people and goods for our nation, but the factories pollute the waters of our streams and our lakes.

We take the money that we make at the factories and buy automobiles to make it easier to get to work, and the automobiles fill the air with poisonous gases and our eyes burn and our lungs are clogged with smog and trying to do right we do wrong because we have lost our sovereignty in creation. And you will never understand who you are and why you were here until you understand that.

Why is this world the mess that it is? It goes back to an event that happened as recorded in Genesis 3, when man took the one thing God said he shouldn't have and in his federal head Adam rebelled against Almighty God. And that’s why if you love God and you want to serve Him with all of your heart, you want to give yourself with all that you have to make a difference in this world, you discover along the way there are bumps in the road.

That’s why the Scripture says the whole creation groans until the day of redemption. What does that mean? It means we live in a fallen world. You will never understand who you are and why you were here until you accept that truth: That man who was created to be sovereign over all creation has now been placed in a parenthesis where he lives in a fallen world.

And I'll tell you what, I'm sure glad the Hebrews writer doesn't stop there because it would be very discouraging. He takes us one step further. He helps us understand that we will never know who we are and why we are here until we know who the Creator is. And we will never know who we are and why we are here until we understand the process of creation and the Fall. But then he tells us that we will never know who we are and why we are here until we understand Christ.

Notice what he says in the ninth verse: "But," he says, "we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God might taste death for everyone." And if you take the ninth verse and lay it down alongside of the eighth Psalm, you will discover that what the writer of Hebrews has done is describe Jesus Christ in the exact same terms that he describes man. And he says to us that what was lost through the first man Adam has now been recovered through the last man Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ walked back into this world and took back the control that was lost when Adam sinned.

I don't know if you know what that means, but that’s an incredible thought. That means that Jesus Christ has started, listen to me now, a new humanity. He started a whole new race of men. Men called redeemed men who have been caught up out of the brokenness of this broken world and set up on a new level that makes the world make sense and makes life make sense and puts meaning into every day and gives you a sense of adventure about your here and God has a plan for your life. He has recovered everything that was lost in the Garden for those who put their trust in Him.

What was lost in the Garden, friends? What was lost was man’s innocence and his eternal life. And Jesus came back as a baby, was born as a man in this world, and he came back to recover the things that were lost in the sin of the Garden. He went to the cross, hanging there between two thieves, He let all of the sin of the world come down on Him and the wrath of God was poured out on Him as the sinless Son of God and He took away all the penalty of our sin when we put our trust in Him so that we can recover the sense of purity and at least relative innocence in Jesus Christ.

And the Scripture says that when He died, He took the sting out of death. He took all the poison away. He emptied death of its sting. In fact, the Scripture says it this way: If you have the Son, you have life. What Jesus did when He re-entered the human race, when He came into the human race as a baby and grew up on this earth, He demonstrated everything that man could be in Christ. In fact, even in the physical realm, think about this for a moment. Do you know the first thing Jesus did that we would call miraculous? He turned water into wine.

One day he was in a boat with his disciples and the wind came up and the storm began to roll across the lake and Jesus just reached out and said, "Peace, be still." The wind stopped, the storm was gone. Follow the miracles of the Lord Jesus on this earth and please hear me correctly: He did those as a man. He was the Son of Man doing the miracles that showed His control over nature. Now listen to me: He was demonstrating again for us everything that God had originally wanted us to have that was lost in the Garden through man’s sin.

And reminding us that while not in the physical realm in this life, but someday in the kingdom we know as the Millennium, the lion will lay down with the lamb and there will be peace between man and the animal kingdom and man will once again be king of the earth. But what God wants us to know is that through Jesus Christ we can recover the sense of who we are and why we are here like we could never understand or recover it in any other way.

So that when we put our faith in Jesus Christ and we trust Him and we allow Him to be our representative even as Adam was in the Old Testament, He has gone to the cross and paid the penalty for our sin and set us free from the prison house of our own human desires and offers to us the opportunity to really understand what life is all about.

I've been a Christian for a lot of years. I have once again been overwhelmed at how incredible it is to know God and to get the insight from Him about who I am and why I'm here. That’s not available anyplace else, friends. That’s only found in the Creator because you were created for Him. The missing piece in your life is not more education, better therapy. The missing piece in your life if you don't know Christ is to put Him at the center where He belongs.

God created you uniquely for Himself. He put a vacuum within you that cannot be filled with anything else except Him. And when you stuff all of the pleasure and all of the madness of this age trying to find meaning to life, you will never discover it. But something happens and there are a hundred thousand testimonies. Something happens in that moment of time when you say that simple prayer and you give in to God and you say, "Lord, I do understand who you are and I do receive you into my life. Lord, I've been incomplete without you. Now I want to know God through Christ."

And Jesus comes to live within you and all of a sudden you don't dispel all your problems but you have a new understanding, a new perspective, a new sense of purpose, a new sense of meaning. And life starts to make sense and the rest of your life as a believer is the gradual awareness day in and day out of who you are in Christ and what God intends for your life. Some of you today have tried everything there is to try to make meaning out of life. Why don't you try the directions?

Why don't you read the handbook? Why don't you come back to square one and start over with God? He loves you, He knows you, He has a plan for your life. He wants you to know who you are and why you are here and if you will put your trust in Him, He will give to you that perspective in your life. And He is no respecter of people. Has nothing to do with age or sex, has nothing to do with race or previous creed. You are man only in relationship to God and when you let God take control of your life through His Son, life begins to have some meaning.

Well, that’s the first of our questions and answers from the Psalms, and when we meet together on Monday, we'll talk about what is my self-worth? A very prominent question in today’s discussion. I hope you have had a good week and that you're looking forward to a good weekend. It’s my important responsibility to tell you to get to church. Most important thing you can do on the weekend is make sure you don't miss out on what happens at church. You be there and you be a part of it and be an encouragement to others.

You can listen to us on the radio many places on the weekend. You can watch us almost everywhere on the weekend. Mostly not when you would be in church, but don't let that get in the way of going to church. You go to church first and make sure that you honor the Lord with your presence. I hope you'll have a good weekend. We'll look forward to seeing you back here on Monday as we continue our study of God, I Need Some Answers. I'm David Jeremiah.

Guest (Male): The message you just heard came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. Turning Point is also on radio and television this weekend. To learn where you can find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org/radio. That’s davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David’s new book, Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life. It’ll help you abide with God, and it’s yours for a gift of any amount.

You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, available in your choice of attractive cover options. Let us know how this ministry blesses you by writing to Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue God, I Need Some Answers on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.