What is Man That You Are Mindful of Him?

Well, thank you. Hanson's McNair et al.

Include Ed in that.

Well, brethren, we're coming up, as mentioned in the announcements very quickly, on the camp season here in the United States. One of the telltale signs for me is my allergies start to go just bonkers. And so you know that in a couple of weeks coming in, stuffed up nose, you know, sore throat, cough, the whole thing kind of comes along with it. It seems like I still don't know what I'm allergic to in this valley, but I was never allergic to anything until I moved here.

And then I moved down here, and all of a sudden, yeah, I don't know what it is. But whatever it is, right around this time, two weeks ago, three weeks ago or so, for about another six weeks. And I'm pumping allergy pills just the entire time to stay vertical and functional. But that's one of the things that, as mentioned in the announcements, Camp Icyara is a couple of short weeks away. Northwest Preteen Camp, for those of you going to that, six weeks away. Northwest Camp's about seven, eight weeks away, is coming up incredibly fast.

I have a love-hate relationship, and hate's probably a strong word. I have a love, somewhat dislike relationship with Camp Season. I absolutely love the Camp programs. I absolutely love what we do with our youth, the chance to work with our youth. I love the opportunity to teach them about God, to help them to build a relationship with Him. But I cannot tell you how much I dislike the lack of sleep that I get during the Camp program time frame.

We jokingly say in the Camp programs that there's no tired like Camp tired, and that is incredibly true. It is an exhausting, exhausting endeavor. You're just constantly, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and there's a moment at the end of every night, it's usually about 10 30, typically, the campers are sequestered to their dorms. The camp is mostly quiet, and for me, I'm usually on security details, so I'm out wandering around making sure nobody's out and about.

But it's that moment at the end of the day where you have time to kind of just breathe, and you have time to kind of just reflect back on the day and to think about you have some time to pray, you have some time to meditate, and kind of just retuperate as you're going through your week.

But one of my favorite things to do at the end of the day when Camp finally comes to a close and, you know, all is quiet on the Western Front, it is nice to be able to go outside and just enjoy the time and the quiet. One of the things that's unique about many of our camps is they are located out away from the city lights in most cases at High Sierra. We're at, you know, 5,000 or so feet. We're up in the middle of the Sierra Nevadas. There's no city for miles, and so it is dark as dark can be.

There's one light in the middle of the High Sierra camp as well, two lights. One at the bottom of Camper Hill, and then one over near the basketball courts, but that one doesn't always work. And so you've got the one light, and you can see the stars like you wouldn't believe.

You can see the stars like you wouldn't believe. At Magruder, it's close. It's kind of close. We're right there at Rockaway Beach, so there's a little more lights. We've got the lighthouse. It's not quite as clear, plus the cloud cover and the fog, typical of Oregon. So there's that. But at High Sierra, it's just us in the skies.

It's just us in the skies. And what's kind of fun to do at night sometimes, and you'll find a number of staff go and do this as well, is go lay out on the basketball courts and just look up and you can see the Milky Way like you used to be able to see the Milky Way before all the light pollution kicked in back in the 50s, 60s.

Many articles have talked about how that's kind of disappeared these days as a result of light pollution. But you can see constellations and planets and stars, and you can just meditate and consider the scope of it all. Think about the immensity of God's creation and ultimately our part in it.

There is something about the stars, there's something about the heavens that draws our attention and our focus. And it's not just those who believe. It gives us an opportunity to look up and to ponder our existence.

It gives us the chance to consider our purpose in life. I watched a documentary on the way down to Mexico City on the plane. It was a Spanish documentary on these massive planet-hunting observatories in the Atacama Desert. They had these huge observatories that looked for these distant planets all over the place. It was kind of an arthouse documentary film, and the narrator was very clearly not a believer.

Very clearly not a believer. In fact, made that clear in a couple of places throughout the documentary. But what was interesting to me was even though they were not a believer, they gushed on about the stars. They gushed on about the allure of the skies and the heavens and the grandeur of it all. And they kind of tried to, in many cases, they tried to get these individuals in the Atacama Desert to talk about their more primal connection to the stars.

And it was kind of funny because they just looked at her like she had two heads. Like, what are you talking about?

You know, it was this attempt at an arthouse documentary that kind of fell flat on its face.

But I think it's built into us to recognize the immensity and the wonder and the grandeur of some of these sorts of things. When you see the heavens, for example, you know, we can look up and we see, with just our naked eye, about 5,000 stars in a field of view, okay, with just the naked eye.

But when you look at something just incredible like El Capitan or Half Dome or Denali, you know, some of these just amazing mountains or the heavens, or you look at Zion National Park, you know, you look at some of the just immense beauty that is in some of those parks in the southwestern United States, there's a sense of awe and a sense of wonder that comes along with experiencing those things. But for us, as believers, we recognize that the heavens, the stars, the planets, the expanse of space, the grandeur of space and creation, we recognize those things declare the glory of God. It talks about that in Psalm 19, that the heavens, God's glory do declare. You know, recognize the stars and the planets and the systems that are out there.

Those things declare the handiwork and the power of God. You know, sometimes I think when we look up, we can see, you know, like we said, about 5,000 stars with our, with our, you know, unaided eye.

And I think sometimes it's hard for us to recognize the true scope of it. I think sometimes I actually blame the planet maps that hang in classrooms around the country, because it looks like on all those, they're trying to fit it all in a poster that's this wide, and it looks like you could just jump from one planet to the next, and they're all kind of within each other's real estate, and they're all about the same size, and they're all, you know, not many of the of the maps out there have really done a great job of showing the scope and the scale of the, of space and of our solar system at large. But I think it can be really hard for us sometimes to fathom the scope. One of the lessons that I had when I was in teaching eighth grade science, one of the last units that we went through was astronomy, and it was one of my favorites to teach. Absolutely love teaching it, because the very first lesson that we would go through is the scope and scale of the universe.

And our young people, by and large, really don't recognize what the scope and scale of the universe looks like. I mean, it's just not that we can look at it, we can think about it, we can say, well, it's big, we could say it's bigger than big, but unless you have some way to connect it, unless you have some way to scale it or to see it, it's just beyond our ability to fathom it.

It's really beyond our ability to fathom it. So we're going to spend just a little bit of time today at the beginning of this to establish that sense of scale. Now, we've done this in this area, but it has been over a decade ago. I was going back and looking at the time when I gave this in the form of a sermonette, and it was like 2009, 2008, somewhere in there. So it's been almost 11 years ago now that this was done, and I got to thinking about that, thinking about the number of littles that we have in our congregation, means they've never seen it. They've never had opportunity to look at it. I think one of the kids, I think it actually may have been Mackenzie that helped me out last time, and I think she was all of about six. So if I can do my math right, nope. I'm a little younger than that. So we're going to spend just a little bit of time here to establish this, because I think this helps a lot. When we talk about the universe, when we talk about the creation, and when we talk about God, and the grandeur and the scale of these things, again, our human minds don't really enable us to be able to even fathom how immense some of these things really are, how grand that scale truly is. And so, you know, again, we don't have something to compare it to. It's very difficult for us to establish its size. So what we're going to do today is we're going to start with a scale. And before I came up here today, some of you may have noticed me pacing off stuff in the front of the room, going, what's he doing exactly? I was marking out spots on the floor so that people can hit them a little bit quicker and help to kind of expedite things for a little bit today. So to begin with, we have to establish our scale. We have to get ourselves a certain scale that's going to help. And the only way that we can do that, the beginning way to do that, is to establish the size of the stun and to put the stun in scale. And so I put out a request on Facebook last night for a bowling ball. Cody Kinsella came through, thankfully. And so here we are.

Oops, I'm sorry, podium.

Just in case you needed proof positive that the universe revolves around America, here you are.

There you go. So this is our stun, okay? This is our stun. In this particular scale model, this is going to represent our sun. It's about eight and a half inches across, so it's just a smidge bigger than what we need it to be, but it is pretty close. And I unfortunately can't really let it go or it's going to slide down the thing here. Let me see. Nope, okay. Maybe I can... nope.

All right. That's all right. I don't need my other hand. So establishing our scale, the sun itself is about 800,000 miles in diameter based on our best calculations. So based on what we can calculate, we say it's about 800,000 miles in diameter. In this case, it's about eight inches in diameter. So we're going to set a scale for this particular demonstration of one inch is equal to 100,000 miles. Okay? So every inch that we travel, 100,000 miles. 100,000 miles. 100,000 miles. 100,000 miles.

100,000 miles. Okay? So one is to 100,000. That's the scale that we're going to ultimately operate in. So everything forward going going forward on this is going to operate inside of that scale. And so we can start to get approximate sizes. We can start to get approximate distances based on some of these various plants and their distances from one another in space. So every pace that we would make on this would be about 3,600,000 miles. So every about every three feet. So if you take a big old step, that's 3,600,000 miles. Okay? All right. So I got to get my comparisons out here.

This is going to be interesting to see if I can do this with a couple of pairs of hands. All right. So first planet in the list. Mercury, right? People are kind of hesitantly like, Mercury? Yeah, Mercury. Okay. First planet in the list. Here's Mercury in this scale. I promise you, those of you in the back and even somewhat for those of you in the front, there is something on the end of this. There's a very small, very small brass bead on the end of this. That's about .03 or so wide. Now, in this particular analogy, I'm going to put these things next. Are you going to help me? Oh, what is that? We have some technical assistance here. That helps. I'm going to put Mercury right up next to it so you can get an idea of the planet itself. Yeah, what's that?

Yeah, it's pretty precarious.

That's a little better. Hey, look at that. Ingenuity at its finest.

I was a little scared to take my hand off of it, actually, but thank you, B.J., I appreciate that. So you can take a look at Mercury in comparison to the sun, just to give you an idea of the scale of it. I'm going to ask my volunteer to come up now. That's Mallory. So come on up here real quick and grab this. She's going to come out and find the spot on the floor from a distance from the sun where Mercury would be. So for your reference, I'm going to take this sun for our scale and put it at that wall. Okay, so this sun is now at that wall, and then she's going to walk down and she's going to stand out as far as Mercury is from the sun itself. It's about 36 million miles from the sun, okay, best estimate, about 36 million miles from the sun, so roughly 10 paces. So Mallory has hit her spot, okay, that's Mercury right out there. Remember, again, the sun is at that wall. In between Mercury and that sun, there's next to nothing. Okay, there's next to nothing. Open space. The vacuum, so to speak, of space. There's particles, there's atoms, there's things here and there, there's a few little bits and pieces of stuff, but mostly it's empty space between that little pin and this bowling ball of a sun that's located over here at the wall. Next planet is Venus. Can I have my Venus person come on up here real quick? Next planet is Venus. Venus is this. You can kind of see that a little bit better, probably, but Venus, in comparison to the sun, is this.

Venus itself is right around 7,500 miles. Go ahead and find your spot. In diameter, it's about a tenth of an inch in our scale and it's represented by that brass bead that Desmond has there.

67 million miles from the sun, total, so about another nine paces past Mercury. So about another nine paces past Mercury. Okay, so there is Venus, there's Mercury, and again our sun is over here at the wall. We've gone two planets in, and that's the distance and the sizes that we're talking about. Okay, now for Earth. Okay, Earth. Earth is about the same size as Venus. It's just about another 500 miles wide, about 8,000 miles. Now my volunteer come up, it's this little silver bead, about the same size as the one that Desmond's holding on to there. The difference is, Earth is another 14 paces. I'm sorry, not 14 paces. I apologize. In this case, seven paces from Venus. And so if you'd like to go put that out there, Earth sits at about 93 million miles from the sun. Okay, so he's going to go out and hit his spot, and then you're going to see that really quickly we ran out of room.

Even in this scale we ran out of room. So Aiden's sitting now where Earth would be in relative size. Again, scope, scale, size of the entirety of just the first three planets of our solar system. Beyond that is Mars. Mars is about the same size as Mercury. Again, there's no room for us to be able to put that one up there. But it's sitting out another 14 paces past Earth, which is in the middle of the ladies room or at the back of the ladies room wall, or just beyond that wall just a little bit, ultimately sitting out there at about 146 million miles from the sun. So if I can have my volunteers go ahead and sit down, we'll just line the rest of them out. Thank you for your help. I really appreciate that. Going beyond Mars, we come to Jupiter, which is about the size of a walnut, which is 95 more paces from Mars, 484 million miles. Saturn is about the size of an acorn, which is about 112 paces from Jupiter, 890 million miles. There's Uranus, there's Neptune. And then finally Pluto, which is a planet that's about the equivalent of a grain of salt in this scale, and it's located a half million mile or a half a mile away. Okay, so we would walk a half a mile with a little grain of salt to be Pluto. Now keep in mind this is just our solar system. This is our local neighborhood, so to speak. It goes the exact same distance in the other direction, right, because these things orbit. So it goes the exact same distance in the other direction. But that's only talking about just our local, just our local system. Now I'm going to move this sun before it ends up falling out here. Sorry. Ding, the resale value just a tidge.

When you start to look beyond our local system, if it moves out from here the nearest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri, that's the nearest star, that's 4.3 light years away. Okay, now light year in this scale is equivalent to about a thousand real-life miles. Okay, so 4.3 light years is 4,300 miles. I looked and looked and looked for a reference city that was 4,300 miles south of here. It's the open middle of the Pacific Ocean, so that doesn't help us any. But if I went over a little bit, it's Bogota, Colombia. In this scale of one inch is a hundred thousand miles, it's Bogota for the next closest star. That is two total stars, ours and Proxima Centauri, of approximately 200 billion in the Milky Way galaxy, all with this sort of scale and grandeur and scope.

Now our Milky Way is just one galaxy that is one of a hundred billion estimated galaxies. The next closest is Andromeda, which is 2,500 million miles away in this scale. That's the nearest, next nearest galaxy. So you can kind of begin to see the scale and the scope of our solar system. You can begin to see the scale and the scope of our universe and then begin to keep in mind that sitting on this planet are 7.5 billion years in the planet are 7.5 billion people. 7.5 billion specs, frankly, when you consider the scope and the size of creation. Do you feel a little small? Do you feel a little insignificant? Brethren, that's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. Let's go to Psalm 8. Let's begin in Psalm 8.

One of the Psalms of David.

Psalm 8. It's a reflective and meditative Psalm on the works of heaven. You know, if you've read through the Psalms, David speaks frequently of the heavens. He speaks frequently of God's creation. I personally suspect he was a stargazer. I just kind of get that feel when I read David's Psalms. My own personal suspicion is that might have been what brought him out on the roof that night that he spied Bathsheba was that he was out to look at the stars. He was out to meditate and to consider the heavens. But he was also, in his young man's life, he was a shepherd.

Down the fields with the sheep, sleeping under the stars. You can't help but look up. You can't help but look up and notice a variety of things as you look up into the skies. Psalm 8.

Catch myself monologuing here and turn right past it. Psalm 8. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1 of Psalm 8. It says, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth who has set your glory above the heavens. We can look up. We can see this incredible creation, this beautiful scale, this glory that is in that creation.

And God's glory is set above that. God's glory is set above that. 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. When I consider verse 3 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? He asked that age-old question. Why? What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and with honor. You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You've put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all of the earth! David pondered many of the same things that we ponder.

We look up and we think, why? What is man, really? This insignificant speck of chemicals on this tiny rock in the midst of nothing. Why? Floating around this little spiral galaxy, one of 200 billion, one of 100 billion of these different galaxies in this cosmic ballet. And here we are.

Why? Why does God care? What is man that God is mindful of him? For those that like titles, that's the title of the message today. What is man that you are mindful of him? You know, David considered these concepts in his own life. It's difficult to know at times what stage of life he was in when he wrote certain psalms. Some of them are very clear. They tell you during this time when this was happening, but others of them are not. We don't know whether this was a time when he was a younger man or he was king of Israel or whether it was later in life, but he was contemplative and reflective on this concept. So with the time that we have left today, I'd like to explore this concept more fully and also take some time to consider humanity as a whole, consider this purpose for which man was created and the incredible potential that lies within mankind as a result of God's plan. And a plan, again, that takes very special meaning when we near these holy-day season times. We just finished the day of Pentecost and reflective of the aspects of the day of Pentecost in that plan. Let's go over to Genesis 1 and verse 1. Because in the Bible, we know that there are clues as to the potential of man throughout. Cover to cover, there are clues for the potential of man, what God has planned for mankind. And from beginning to end, it details God's plan for mankind and what is and what was or what was and what is, I should say, to come. Genesis 1 and verse 1, in fact, looking at Scripture, again, from cover to cover, the Bible is largely a story about God's plan for mankind and the aspects of what has gone on in that plan as time has gone on. In Genesis 1 and verse 26, we see God says, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And so God created man, verse 27, in his own image, in the image of God he created, in male and female he created them. And then God blessed them and he said, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth. We know that we've done that as humans. We've filled this earth. We have, you know, multiplied. We have been fruitful. We have put things under our feet, so to speak, dominion-wise, not always in the best manner. We haven't done the best job that we could to conserve the resources that we utilized, but much of what was said here has occurred. There are two big things that are takeaways from this particular passage. Number one, man was created by God. Man was created by God. It states it right here in passage, and there are many in this world who believe that man is just simply a creature that's evolved, so to speak, from the primordial ooze that everything else has come from. And as time has gone on, life has formed and things have split off and things have, you know, maneuvered and whatever else, they'll argue, man is not special. They're not set apart in any way as different from the rest of creation. They just happen to be this intermediary species which is here right now, and in the future it'll be something else. It may not be us, maybe we'll change, whatever, but it won't be us in the future. The idea and the overall scope of things is that for now we're just these insignificant bags of chemicals that exist at this time on this rock hurtling through space. Scripture makes it clear that man is special. Man is special.

We're not an evolutionary accident. God didn't start the process and walk away. God didn't just, you know, mix all the ingredients in a bowl and go, poof, all right, I'm out.

Okay, the concept of deism. Okay. God created mankind specifically for a purpose and for a grand purpose, as we'll see in just a minute. The second big point from this passage is that God made mankind in His image according to His likeness. The Hebrew word here for image is the word salem, not quite Salem, but close, salem. And it's translated as statue, it's translated as statue in many cases in Scripture, but it comes from a root word that has connotations for like chopping off, hewing, or carving. Okay, and so man was formed in God's image. You can kind of picture that in your head. Those of you that did the O.Y.E.S. lessons, you know, and the one that talked about the creation of man, there was always God forming man out of the ground and, you know, hewing off and shaping and conforming this creation out of the dust and the dirt, so to speak. And so when we ask the question, I don't know, your kids have probably asked this before, what does God look like? God probably looks a lot like us. General form, two arms, two legs, head, eyes, ears, hair, that were made after his image and after his likeness.

So why would God take such time on us? Why would he provide such a special start for man? Some of those clues can actually be found in the book of Hebrews. You'll turn over there. The book of Hebrews. Why was man given a special opportunity? The book of Hebrews talks about this. If you go ahead and turn to Hebrews 2, we'll pick up a commentary by the writer of the book of Hebrews that takes what David wrote in Psalm 8 and expounds on it a little bit. Kind of reflects back on this same thing that David had written and David had discussed. Hebrews 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in in verse 5. Hebrews 2 and verse 5. Hebrews 2 and verse 5 says, For to which of the angels did he ever say, You are my son, today I have begotten you, and again I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son? Verse 6. But when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, Let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels, he says, who makes his angel spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. But, verse 8, to the Son, he says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. I'm in one.

It fits. Fits just fine, but I'm in one. Let's go to 5. Sorry. Verse 2, verse 5. Or, chapter 2, verse 5. For he has not put the world to come, of which we speak in subjection to angels. But one, this is what I'm looking for, but that worked. One testified in a certain place, saying, What is man that you are mindful of him, or the Son of man that you take care of him? You've made him a little lower than the angels. You've crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands. You've put all things in subjection under his feet. 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 him. But 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.

So we can see additional context of this book gives us a better understanding of the plan of God, which was in part described by King David in Psalms. The world to come will not be in subjection to angels. It will not be in subjection to angels. It will not be in subjection to the angelic realm. Instead, it was made to be subject to Christ. He was made a little lower than the angels. He became a man for the suffering of death to be crowned with glory and with honor, that by the grace of God he might taste death for all. He goes on in verse 10, for it was fitting for him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. It was fitting for him, speaking here of God the Father, to make the captain of the salvation of his sons perfect through suffering. That he, Jesus Christ, through his suffering would die for all, that he would remit their sins and reconcile them to God, and that he would become the firstborn of many brethren. That terminology is used in a different place. If you begin to turn over to Romans 8, we'll see where that's at. Firstborn of many brethren is in Romans 8, verse 29, and that gives additional clues as to the purpose and opportunity of mankind.

The family of God was never intended to be a closed system. It was never intended to be a closed system. It was never intended to be God and Jesus Christ, and that's it. It was intended to be opened and to grow and to develop. The firstborn of many brethren in Romans 8 and verse 29, the plan from the beginning was always to have man become a part of God's family, to be sons of God, to be partakers of that divine nature. Romans 8 and verse 29 reads as follows, says, For whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

Keep that phrase right there in mind, to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called, whom he called, these he also justified, whom he justified, these he also glorified, conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn of many brethren. We've already read we were created in the image of God. Genesis 1 verse 26. We're created in the image of God. How do we need to conform, then, to the image of God? Brethren, we were created physically in the image of God.

We are to be conformed spiritually to the image of his son. Romans 8 and 29 is not talking about physical conforming. It's talking about a spiritual confirmation, a change within us. We see those whom God chose, he called, those he called, he justified through the blood of his son, through faith in that sacrifice and obedience to his ways. We know that that's made possible through the down payment of his Holy Spirit in our life, which has been poured out upon mankind, we saw on the day of Pentecost.

But it's only through this gift of God's Holy Spirit that man can be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Without God's Spirit, without that transformative power in our lives, we are at enmity with God. Our nature is that of enmity, not conformity. Our nature is that of rebellion, not submission. God requires us to conform. He requires us to change our attitudes, to change our characteristics, and to conform ourselves to him and to his teachings. We were created lower than the angels, given an opportunity to have subjection over the coming world with our elder brother, Jesus Christ. But not as some lesser beings, but as sons in the family of God.

The expectation, however, is that we will conform to his image, that we will become like him, that we will become God's very children. You know, there's a time in our children's lives when Dad is superhuman. You know, we talk about Father's Day. It's coming up here this weekend, and there's a time in our child's lives before our children begin to realize that we're just people, too, that Dad is superhuman. And there's always, though, I want to be like Dad when I grow up. I want to grow up and be like Dad. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to be like Dad. Brethren, we need to grow up and be like Dad with our attitudes and our characteristics and with our actions. A few passages earlier in Romans 8—we were here on Pentecost. We're going to go here again. Romans 8 and verse 14. We see that there is a condition that is placed on sonship in the kingdom of God. There is a condition. And so if you go to Romans 8 and verse 14, we're going to get to that section. We're actually going to pick it up in 9. We're going to start in verse 9. So Romans 8 and verse 9 to begin says, But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8 and verse 12 says, Therefore brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Okay, now we get to verse 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage you get to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

You know, because of God's Spirit dwelling in us, we're not debtors to the flesh. We're debtors to the Spirit. And we're working on putting to death the deeds of the body. If we're led by the Spirit of God, then we're sons of God. Clearly stated right here in Scripture. But brethren, the implication of that, as we also mentioned, is that the contrary of that is true. If we are not allowing ourselves to be led by God's Spirit, if we're rebelling against the things which we know to be true, if we're not conforming ourselves to the image of his Son, then the opposite is also true.

That at that point we are sons of rebellion. We're not conforming ourselves as we should.

And we can witness, brethren, a world around us that is not led by God's Spirit. We see what it looks like. All you got to do is turn on the news or, frankly, go outside. That's all you have to do. And you can see a world that is by and large not led by God's Spirit. Humanity is lost without God.

We're lost. And we will look to whatever we can look to to guide ourselves. And so we look at gurus of wisdom out there. We look at the, you know, the self-help gurus. We look at, you know, whatever we follow our own truth, as the big word, the big buzzword is now. We will follow our own truth. And we look around all over the place as humans without a north on our compass. And the compass just spins and spins and spins and spins and spins. Without God, humanity is lost.

Without the Spirit of God, chaos and confusion reigns. People lean on their own understanding. They consider the ways which we see in Scripture that seem right to a man, but their end is death.

And we can understand, according to the Spirit, a man that dwells in us to a certain extent, but only those things that are of man. We need God's Holy Spirit to understand fully the things of God. We can get inklings. As God's Spirit works with us, we can get inklings.

But until God's Spirit dwells in us, we're incomplete. We are incomplete. Man was created by God. He was shaped. He was formed. Life was breathed into him. And from the very beginning, man was intended to have a relationship with his Creator.

We know the rest of the story. As your Bible turns page after page after page after page, we see example after example of man's struggles to connect with God, to obey God, to conform themselves to that spiritual image which was created. And over and over and over again, we see examples where people struggle. Even the faithful struggled.

You look at Abraham's story arc. He's considered a faithful, very faithful man. Hebrews 11. But look at some of the things that happened in his early life.

Some of the times where he was afraid and where he kind of half-truth it to get through.

Throughout the Bible, there's a struggle to go the right way because mankind is incomplete without God. It isn't until the receipt of God's Spirit at baptism when man becomes complete that it has that opportunity to become what God intended him to be. At that point in time, the Spirit in man and the Spirit of God, they kind of interface with one another.

And they begin to work together a little bit to make a more complete person. And then God's Spirit can reveal the things of God more fully. Let's go ahead and turn over to 1 Corinthians 2.

1 Corinthians 2. The Apostle Paul discusses this concept of how things are revealed to us. 1 Corinthians 2, and we'll pick it up in verse 9.

1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 9 reads, But as it is written, I has not seen nor ear heard, nor had entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit.

For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him? The Spirit of man can help us to understand the things of man. But even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

Verse 12. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things which have been freely given to us by God. And God's Spirit reveals these things to us more fully, the things that have been freely given by God, that without his Spirit we cannot know them in their entirety, completely and fully. He goes on in verse 13. Verse 13 of 1 Corinthians 2 says, These things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Verse 14, But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolish. They are foolish to him. Nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Rather than without God, there are some things that we simply cannot fully understand.

We can't fully understand them. They are foolishness when we are looking at them. They don't make sense. You've all had the experience talking to somebody about the things that you believe, explaining something to them from Scripture that is clear as day in Scripture. And you are trying every angle, every possible angle to explain this concept to somebody, and you get the German Shepherd treatment, which is, hmm? You kind of get that wrinkled brow, the head to the side, like, what? No, that's not a thing. And you are trying, okay, well, that didn't work. Let me come at it from this direction. Well, what about this and that and this thing and it, hmm? And you kind of get the same response. Why do we get the same response?

Because there are some things that cannot be understood without God's Spirit working with someone, not necessarily in someone, working with someone to reveal those things.

They cannot understand them unless God opens up to them through His Spirit working with them. It doesn't matter how bad we want them to understand it. It doesn't matter how many different directions we try to explain it. God is either working with them or He is not.

John 6, 44. God calls people. We may want them called. We may desperately desire to have them called. And we, frankly brethren, we might plant a seed. We may plant a seed that will germinate as time goes on, but it is ultimately going to be up to God whether that seed that we have planted germinates and provides growth. Without God's Spirit working with someone and in someone, these things that we understand are impossible to fully grasp without God's Spirit.

God uses His Spirit to empower people. He uses that Spirit to convict them. He uses that Spirit to teach. Through that Spirit, our Father interfaces with us as His children. That is how we connect with our Dad, is through that Spirit. Let's go to Deuteronomy 6.

Deuteronomy 6. We like to take this passage, and rightly so, we like to take this passage and say, hey parents, this is the method. This is how you teach your children of God. Deuteronomy 6. In fact, we have a whole biblical model of instruction in the church that we've called the Deuteronomy 6 model, which instead of focusing entirely on the church's responsibility to teach the children scriptural things, some of that has been passed back to the parents. And said, really, the biblical model is that the parents teach their children these things.

Now, the church supports that. The church does everything that they can to help out with that, but the ultimate responsibility lies on me as a parent for my children. If I mess that up, that's on me. That's my call. So, Deuteronomy 6 comes in here, and we see the biblical model of education, this type of education that God provided to parents and the responsibility for the children. Deuteronomy 6, we'll pick it up in verse 6. It says, And these words, coming right after the Shema here, the hero Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one, shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your strength. Verse 6, And these words which I command you to-days shall be in your heart.

I lost track. There we go. Sorry. Shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And there's a lot of different times that you'll be teaching, right? There's a lot of teachable moments. You shall bind them as a sign on your hands, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the door post of your house and on your gates. This was the style of teaching and instruction that God instructed the families of Israel to teach their children, that they should teach God's ways diligently to their children, talking to them while you sit in the house when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. Are there any times that are not covered in those three or four? That's pretty much the entirety of it, right? It's pretty much the entirety of it.

But, brethren, I know if you've thought it in this way or not, you may have, and this could be complete review, but isn't this how God teaches us as well? Isn't this how God uses His Holy Spirit in our life to teach us as we walk down the road, as we lie down, as we rise up, as God reminds us of something and then smacks us in the face with a two-by-four of knowledge that we didn't have prior, and we go, whoa, how did I miss that? I don't know about you, but this is how God works in my life.

I had a moment the other day I wrote about it in my pastor's corner a couple of weeks ago, but I had a moment I came out of my office to get another cup of coffee. It was one of those three cup days, and the second cup wasn't working, so I came to get my third, and it's been busy with Ithira. But I came out and I started the cup of coffee on the machine, whatever, I got to talk to Shannon, and I turned and I looked. We had these two decorations in our kitchen that are up on this little space between the refrigerator and the wall, and there are these little square flower pattern little plastic-y things, and they're hung by a single nail, and when you know how that works, sometimes things get skewed, right, when they're hung by a single nail. Well, I roll in there, and I notice the bottom one's like, meh. And the top one seemed fine, but the bottom one wasn't right, so I'm like, argh. So my OCD took control, and I had to go over there and fiddle with it until I could get it set. I finally got it set. I was so excited. I got the things set. I'm like, perfect! And I took a step back, and I looked, and they were both, ehh. But they were right to each other. They were perfect to each other. The difference was they were off compared to the wall.

And so what I got hit in the face with was this idea that, you know, you can compare yourself to all kinds of people. If they're not on, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because the standard is the standard. The wall is the plum. And if they're both off, they're both off. And so that was one of those moments where there was a lesson that came through just regular go through your day kind of thing. That's how God works with us. That's how God teaches us. God helps us to recognize how He operates. He teaches us through His Spirit. It's like He's just walking alongside us throughout our daily lives as well, taking these opportunities and taking these experiences that come up using these teachable moments and the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

That Spirit reminds us of a biblical principle in that case or of a scriptural concept. And it teaches us. It strengthens us. It empowers us. And at times, it convicts us. There are times where we're doing something or we're living our life in a certain way and God's Spirit says, uh-uh, that isn't right. It's those times, just like you're walking alongside your kid who goes and decides to jump up on somebody's rocks in their front yard and walk along their stuff. You go, get down! What are you doing? No, that's not okay. That's not our house. Oh, okay.

You know, it's that same kind of thing. God does that with us in our lives through His Spirit.

So why is God mindful of man? Why is God mindful of man? Why does He care about these little insignificant specks, so to speak, on a small rock 93 million miles from a star in a solar system that's one of 200 billion in the galaxy, one of 100 billion in the overall universe worth of galaxies? Because He specifically created mankind for a purpose. He gave mankind an incredible opportunity. We read it earlier, which is why it was sounding fine to me at the time. Hebrews 1, verse 5. Let's go ahead and turn over there. I remember going into it. It just got myself in the wrong spot. Hebrews 1, verse 5. We'll see. Again, it's kind of written as a rhetorical question, but it's an important rhetorical question to ask ourselves. Hebrews 1, verse 5. For to which of the angels did He ever say, You are my son, today I've begotten you, and again I will be to Him a father, and He shall be to me a son?

Yeah, it's a rhetorical question, but what's the answer to that rhetorical question? None.

None. God never said to the angels that they would be His sons.

God created man for that purpose. God gave that opportunity to us. And that's pretty incredible. When you go back and think about it, that is pretty incredible. That was never part of the plan that the angels would be part of the family of God. Man was created to be the sons of God, to be brethren of his son Jesus Christ, to be a part of his family. That's our purpose. That's our destiny. That's why we're here. And brethren, that's why we haven't found signs of life in this galaxy. That's why every search that we make only finds the building blocks of life, but no life. Earth is the only place where this occurs. This is why man seems to be so much more advanced than the rest of God's creation. Yes, there are animals out there that can do incredible things, but none with the creative power, the creative process, the design capabilities, the literature, the written language, the multiple languages. Brethren, it's because we're special. It is because God has created us in that way. We're special because God created us in his image after his likeness, and he did that for a reason. He created us to be his children, to ultimately be a part of his family, to put on his mind and to become like him, to agree in covenant, to take on that Holy Spirit in our life and to become a part of that family forever.

And to that end, God has called each and every one of you. Out of the seven and a half billion people on this rock, you have been given an opportunity to be a part of that family, to understand the things of God, to understand his truths, to have a chance in this life to be a first fruit. That's the opportunity that's been given to you. And with that opportunity comes a great responsibility. It's not enough to know what's true. It's not enough to understand what God expects of us. It's not enough to say, yeah, I get it. God says, I want you to sign on the dotted line. I want you to commit. I want you to understand these things. I want you to agree with these things. And I want you to be willing to enter into a covenant with me where I will give you my Holy Spirit as part of the down payment. God has given us a chance in this life to be a first fruit. So when you have a chance next and there's a clear night, look up. Feel that vastness of space. Consider the purpose for which you've been called. Consider that in all of that expanse, in all of what we just saw, the scope and the scale and the grandeur of the universe, that in that there's only one you and that God desires a relationship with you, just like that of a father.