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Our text in Psalms 8 was written by King David. He must have been outside on a clear night looking at the sky, when the words of this song came to him:

I've felt like David felt before. I love to look at the stars on a clear night. When I was in High School, my best friend and I would go primitive camping in the mountains of Arkansas on the Cossatot River. There, away from city lights and higher in elevation, the stars were absolutely beautiful. We would lay in the river at night and look up and talk about the stars and how big God really is. There, you could see what looked like a milky cloud through the stars which was really the billions of the stars of our galaxy (known as the Milky Way) that are so far away that their light merges into a milky cloud. I would always leave those moments feeling extremely small and insignificant.

David expressed these feelings well when he said "when I consider all of this, I think who am I, God, that you would care about me?” "How insignificant am I!" David lived in the age before telescopes and there are only about 3,000 distinctive stars that are visible at one time to the naked eye, even on the clearest of nights. He didn’t know that there is actually only one star in our solar system, the sun, and that those other stars are in other systems! He didn’t know that our own solar system with the familiar planets and our sun is 3.65 billion miles long and has an area of 41.85 quantillion square miles! David didn’t know that despite that massive and impressive size that our solar system is just one of more than a hundred billion stars and systems in our galaxy and there are an estimated fifty billion galaxies in the universe! And the more advanced humanity becomes in our instruments, the larger we find that the universe actually is!

And yet despite the enormous size of the universe, God is much, much bigger! He created all that is with simply a spoken Word. I've often wondered why God bothered to create such a huge, massive, universe such as He has done. I think that He did it so that we could realize just how big and powerful He is! No matter which way man's learning and ability increase, whether going further into this huge universe or developing microscopes to magnify even smaller particles, man finds that this creation is much deeper and much bigger and much more complex than what we first imagined! They thought atoms were the smallest building blocks of the universe, and then they discovered atomic particles, and then they discovered quarks, and now quantam physics has discovered that those things are made up of even smaller things. And they'll never find the most basic element of creation, because the Bible says that:

Man is finding that compared to creation, we are very small! And if that is true about creation, then what about the CREATOR!?? All of this world and universe that we are blown away by, was created by something that is more powerful and bigger and mightier than it! And God did it all just as one more way to remind us of how big He is!

I'm here to tell you that you will respond to the revelation of the power of God in one of two ways: you will either feel very small and insignificant and unworthy and therefore fearful to approach this mighty God with your everyday problems, or you will realize how small our greatest crisis are compared to God's ability and you will then have faith that God can meet your need! He can heal every sickness! There is no situation that is too far gone for God to fix. God is able and He is truly greater than any circumstance!

But God is so great! That sometimes we respond by thinking "if He is so great, then who am I that He would care about me?" And so as the reality of our helplessness sets in, we sometimes doubt God, not because we do not believe that He lacks the power to perform the miracle, but rather because we wonder "who am I?" "Who am I, that a mighty and powerful God would be bothered by the smallest problems and issues of my existence?" It's a valid question, and one that I would like to answer scripturally today. Just who AM I?

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The answer to our question is found in the story of another man who asked the same query. He's a man that perhaps you aren't as familiar with. His name was Mephibosheth, and Mephibosheth, it would seem, was “the victim of victims.”

At first, it would seem that Mephibosheth had a lot going for him. Mephibosheth inherited royalty and thus was born into a rich family His grandfather was King Saul, king of Israel, not perhaps the most Godly man of scripture, but he was the anointed of God for his time. And so, despite King Saul’s horrible life, things still seemed that they would turn out well for Mephibosheth. To replace Saul, God chose the young man totally unrelated to him named David, and that might have seemed bad for Mephibosheth, but David had also become best friends with Saul’s son, Jonathan who would be Mephibosheth‘s father. Unlike his grandfather King Saul, Mephibosheth’s father, Jonathan was a righteous man. Realizing that God had chosen David rather than himself to sit on the throne after Saul, Jonathan befriended David and they became the closest of friends. There were many times that it was only the intervention of Jonathan that saved David’s life. And so when Mephibosheth was born, it would seem that he was destined to still have fruitful life because surely Jonathan would hold a high position in his best friend's, David’s, kingdom.

And so the story of Mephibosheth begins with a happy birth to Jonathan and his wife, and he was greeted with all the fanfare of the birth of royalty. But immediately after his birth, Mephibosheth’s life began to fall apart. The scriptures aren’t clear on the details, but somewhere between his birth and his 5th birthday, Mephibosheth’s mother died. And then came the fateful day at the age of five years when both King Saul and Jonathan were tragically killed in battle. When the news that Mephibosheth’s grandfather and father have been killed reached the home, the nurse grabbed Mephibosheth, slung him over her shoulder and ran from the home in fear that the enemy would find them there and kill all “heirs” to the throne. As she ran in terror, the nurse tripped and in falling slammed little Mephibosheth into the ground so hard that his feet and ankle bones were shattered beyond repair. She then picked up the injured little boy, carried him to one of the worst places to live in Israel, the town of “Lo-debar” and turned him over to a complete stranger to raise.

What a difference that day made! In less than twenty-four hours, Mephibosheth went from being the heir to the throne of Israel, rich, in perfect health, living in the finest of accommodations with his own personal nurse, to being the kid that nobody wanted, with nothing but the clothes on his back, lame to the point of not even being able to walk for the rest of his life, living in the “armpit” of Israel, being raised and depending upon total strangers to have mercy upon him. It is a riches to ruin story unlike any other. And Mephibosheth grew up haunted by the circumstances in his life that had shattered all of his dreams and yet were all circumstances far beyond his control. Instead of marrying a princess, Mephibosheth married a commoner and settled down in the house of the stranger who had raised him resigned to the fate that life would never be better and that he would die in faceless poverty like so many people do. A man who should have been king, who should have experienced only the finest things of life, found himself on the bottom of society, an outcast far from the palace.

But in our text, we read of the day that forever changed Mephibosheth’s life. One day, years later, King David was sitting on his throne thinking of his life. No doubt David had many “less than fond” memories of the King Saul that had tried to kill him. But as David remembered his best friend in the entire world, he remembered a promise that he had made to Jonathan, that he would show kindness to his family forever. And as David begins to think of everyone that he knew in the kingdom, he can’t think of anyone that is one of Jonathan’s offspring. So he issues a royal order and the only person with any connections to the house of Saul that is found is one of Saul’s old servants, a man named Ziba. It is Ziba that tells David about Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s lame son, that is living in poverty in Gilead. And so David sends for Mephibosheth to come to the palace.

I want you to put yourself in Mephibosheth’s shoes for a moment. The only message given to you is that "King David wants to see you." Everything in your life has always gone wrong, and it has always gone wrong because of circumstances that you cannot control. Mephibosheth was not the only survivor of the house of Saul that was living at this time, but none of the other descendants of Saul wanted to answer David’s invitation because they were afraid that King David wanted to kill them because of the evil that Saul had done unto him. Being lame, Mephibosheth is easy to track down, and as he cannot run, he has no choice but to come to the palace with the soldier sent to fetch him.

I want you to realize that when enough things go wrong in a person’s life, they get what is now known as “a victim mentality.” Where they approach every new thing or every change in life, or every unexpected occurrence with a negative faith that it will be something bad. Since you get out of life what you put into it, more often than not, their attitude sets them up to be taken advantage of again and again and so the “victim” mentality is just reinforced in a person’s life until they respond defensively at anything they do not understand.

If anyone had a “victim’s mentality,” it was Mephibosheth and I’m sure he expected the worse from his visit to the palace. In his mind he is thinking, “what good would a poor, lame man be to the king?” “The tramps and the homeless are not welcome around the royal palace because they are eyesores to the many distinguished guests and visitors that enter into those beautiful buildings.” Being the victim, Mephibosheth probably entered into that hall fearful for his life, afraid that he too would be a martyr just as his grandfather and father and mother had been.

Oh, but what a surprise that awaited Mephibosheth! He was helped -- half carried -- into the grand throne room. He is so fearful that he lays out on the floor as a sign of helplessness before King David. And to his surprise -- to his astonishment -- he hears words that he never imagined in his wildest dreams that would be spoken to him. Not only does King David not kill him, but David says “fear not, Mephibosheth because I’m going to show you kindness because of Jonathan, your father’s sake. Everything that King Saul owned personally, is going to be yours, and you will no longer live in poverty. Not only that, if anyone messes with you, they are going to have to answer to me, because I’m going to personally make sure that you are taken care of and treated like the royalty that you were supposed to be. And not only that, Mephibosheth, but every day of your life from this day forward, I’m requesting that you be a guest at my royal table and every day you will eat with me and dine on the finest food that this kingdom has to offer.”

And there, crumpled on the floor of the throne room as the victim that he always thought he was, Mephibosheth is speechless! He is astonished! He is numb with disbelief and he looks wildly around to make sure that this is not some sort of cruel joke and then realizing that King David is for real, Mephibosheth is so overcome with emotion that all he can do is bow his head toward the king and ask:

In other words, Mephibosheth was left saying “who am I that I deserve such treatment and mercy?” I am as useless to the king as a dead dog, and yet you have chosen to bless me and turn my circumstances around!

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Now let me preach to you! Can we not all see ourselves somewhat in the life of Mephibosheth? Did not humanity start off created in the garden to rule this great planet and our lives with capable, God-given ability and anointing? Was not Adam the chosen creation in which God formed and breathed into and desired a relationship with? Was not Adam a chosen vessel just as King Saul was to lead others into a close fellowship with God?

But like Mephibosheth, one day of circumstances that were far beyond our control forever changed the course of our lives. One sin, and one bad decision. One fruit and one temptation yielded to, and Adam and Eve found themselves cursed, hurt, and thrust from the garden of paradise never to return again. And so every son and daughter that was born to them, from the earliest generations to even the latest babies birthed last night in the hospitals of America, were all born as victims to sin and to a curse which was brought on by the events and decisions of others so long ago!

And so we suffer! As people that were originally intended by God to rule this world in perfection and beauty yet we find ourselves living in a world that is far beyond the gates of Eden. Everyday we are faced with new hurts and new fears and new worries in this much less-than-perfect world. Rather than exist on the blessings of the kingdom as we were designed to live, we must work weekly and constantly are in worry and care of bills and financial considerations. Not only that, but if ever a man tries to get up on his own and walk uprightly under his own power, he will find that he is destined to fail, because our spiritual man is severely handicapped by sin. Adam’s fall, you see, severely damaged mankind’s ability to walk with joy and righteousness, the paths of God.

And so is it no wonder that so many people never frequent the house of God on a Sunday in America? Because they have learned all of their lives that they are victims to circumstances and because of their inherited handicap of a sinful nature, they have sinned themselves and had to reap the curse of sin in their lives. And so, like Mephibosheth, men and women are fearful of approaching the King of Kings, because they have come to expect the worse. In the common man, there is a bit of trepidation and fear of approaching a holy God and responding to his bid of “come” because we know how unworthy that we are and therefore expect the worse!

Let me tell you why more people do not embrace the truth of this Apostolic message. It is because our message sounds too good to be true. Most people, know that they are undeserving. They know the bad things that they have done. They know that if there is a God who is perfect and holy and all-powerful, then "who am I" that such a God would care about me and love me? And for someone to tell me that that God -- so perfect and without fault -- became flesh and died for me? That He provided a plan that through Repentance to Him, having our sins washed away by being baptized in His name, and through receiving heavenly power by the Holy Ghost, that we would not only be considered pure in His sight, but that we could overcome our sinful nature and live as He lived in this world? For a preacher to go further than that and say that this great God of the universe, I can call my friend!? That I can have a day to day relationship with Him and that this Holy God is the one who wants such a relationship?! It sounds too good to be true! Who am I that God would love me? What is man that thou are mindful of him, oh God!? Who am I to sit at the King's table and dine on heavenly food?

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But let me let you in on the secret of the one thing that you have going for you. It was not Mephibosheth’s worth that caused him to receive the king’s mercy. It was not his qualifications or his great abilities that caused David to place him at the royal table. What was it then? It was the fact that the king could see in Mephibosheth the features of the beloved Jonathan! When David looked at Mephibosheth, beyond the handicap, beyond the victim defenses, beyond the broken spirit, King David could see the features and the image of Jonathan, his friend, Mephibosheth’s father!

When God created Adam in the beginning, the scriptures say that “he formed man in his image.” But wait a minute! God is a Spirit and an invisible one at that, so what image was it that fleshy man was created to match?

I want you to understand a principle in God’s Word. God is a Spirit and He has no body other than the body that was born of Mary, the body of Jesus Christ! This “Son” that was born of Mary was the only physical image of God that you will ever see. That’s why talking about the Son, Paul wrote:

Jesus is the “image of the invisible God!” When that baby was born, it was “God in Flesh” as 1 Timothy 3:16 puts it, it was God becoming visible flesh to come and die for you and I! But notice that the verse then says that the Son was “the firstborn of every creature!” And yet the scriptures do not teach that God had physical body until that baby was born of Mary in 4 B.C. There is no such thing as an “eternal Son” that has coexisted with God as a separate person for forever in scripture. That is just fanciful theories of the men who formed the basis of Catholic theology. In fact, it is written in scriptures where God said “this day have I begotten thee” (Acts 13:33). The Sonship of God had a beginning. The “Son of God” did not exist in bodily form until the Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary and she conceived and gave birth to that child, Jesus Christ.

If that is true, and it is. Then how can Colossians 1:15 say that Jesus is the “firstborn of every creature?” And then the verse goes on to say:

This is talking about the Son! He created all things! By Him all things consist! And notice that is says that “by Him everything was created” even the things visible and invisible. Scripture cannot contradict each other and so this proves to us several things. First of all it proves that Jesus Christ is not the second person of a triune God, because the Bible says in other places that God “created all things by Himself” (Isaiah 44:24). If God created the world by Himself and yet Jesus Christ is the creator of all things, then Jesus has to be God Almighty just as the rest of the scriptures declare Him to be! When you see the man Christ Jesus, you are looking at the one God of glory who has become flesh and thus become visible and you cannot separate them except to say that He was Spirit and flesh combined. And that’s why Jesus could look at Phillip and say “when you have seen me you have seen the Father!”

So if this is true, and yet the body of Jesus Christ was not in actual physical existence until it was begotten within Mary, then how can Colossians say that the Son was the “firstborn of every creature?” The answer to that question is also the answer to “what image was Adam made after if he was created in the image of an invisible God?” The answer is found clearly in one verse of scripture in Romans:

The word for “figure” here in the Greek is tupos which means “the image of, the likeness of, fashioned into a model of, or having the features of.” Adam was created in the image of “him that was to come.” That is, when God created Adam, he created him in the exact image of the body that was to be born of woman of Mary to die for you and I! And because Jesus Christ was God in flesh, the scriptures could rightfully say that the invisible Spirit of God made man in “His image!” Therefore the Son of God was the firstborn of every creature and by Him everything was made, because Adam was created to look like the one who would come after Him! Adam was created to look like Jesus and not Jesus to look like Adam! That is why the scriptures call Jesus Christ, the “last Adam” and also the "Word of God" or "thought, intent, and plan of God." Because on a timeline of humanity, He was created last, but in the mind of God, the image of the Son that was to be born was what Adam was formed to look like in the beginning!

What are you saying preacher? And what does this have to do with Mephibosheth? What I’m saying is that Mephibosheth found mercy at the King’s table not based upon his own merit, but because when King David looked at him, he saw the features of Jonathan, David’s friend!

And so despite your failures and despite your handicaps and despite all that you “don’t” have to offer God, yet He loves you. Why? Because when God looks at you and I, He sees beyond our faults and our handicaps and our victim mentalities and beyond our masks and defenses and He sees the features and the resemblance and the countenance of the flesh of Jesus Christ! And God is reminded of the awful price that He paid for our sins! And He is reminded of the suffering of Calvary! And He is reminded of His own flesh through gazing at us, and so despite our failures and unholiness, He is reaching for us and He cares for us and He loves us! God couldn’t let humanity just go down the tubes and forget that they existed because every time He looks at us He sees the features of Jesus Christ within us! And so it has moved God to not only provide for our redemption but to reach for our soul and to invited us despite our handicaps and status as sinners to eat at His table! And we are partakers of the best spiritual food: His Word and His Spirit! And as long as we sit at His table, others cannot see that our legs don’t work right. And as long as we sit in His presence, others cannot see our infirmities! And as long as we sit at His table, we have mercy and everything that we need! It’s better than a dream, Mephibosheth, because you have been invited to a close relationship with the King, and it’s not because of your own merit, but because of who you represent to God!

If you are scared of God’s presence because you suffer from the victim mentality of Mephibosheth and you say “who am I?” that such a mighty God would love me? Or if you say "preacher, I’ve done so much wrong in my life that God is not interested in me." And so you convince yourself that based upon your own self worth, you are not able to partake of the Holy Ghost and the blessings of God, I’m here to tell you that God is not looking at your actions and your past as qualifications. He is not even looking at your present conditions. He wants to give you the Holy Ghost; He wants to give you blessings beyond measure not because of who you are, but because when He sees you He sees Jesus and He is reminded of the great price that He paid and the great love that He has shown this world! You can come dine at the Master’s table because when God gazes at you, He sees the countenance of the Son of God! It's still all about Jesus Christ, no matter how you look at life! He is our answer, our savior, our best friend!

When God looks at you, He sees the features of the Holy One! When Satan looks at you, He sees the features of the Holy One! That's why Satan brings sin and temptation because he knows that such things will destroy you and hurt you, and if Satan can get you to live in such a way that you bring hurt to yourself, then you are effectively hurting Christ in whose image you were created. That is why the scriptures refer to the born-again believers in the church as the "body of Christ." Somebody needs to get a revelation today, that God takes a hard stand against sin because sin is a trick of Satan to try to destroy you. This world is not your friend, because it wants to disguise from you it's true intentions. Satan wants you dead and destroyed because of who you remind him of!

Our worth is based upon the One of whose image we bear! And if that is true, then never forget when you look at another human being -- whether you like them or not, remember that they were created in the image of Jesus Christ. That's why James wrote in writing to the church about their tongue:

All men, whether we approve of their actions or not, whether or not they are holy or not were nevertheless made after the similitude of God. And so there is not one person in the world that is not worth saving! There is not one soul that has done so much evil that Jesus did not die for them! Even the mass-murders, and the Hitlers and the blaphemous Voltaires, God loves because He is not looking at their deeds as qualifications of their worth, but rather their image in which they were created! That doesn’t mean that they are saved, but it means that if they are lost, then they are lost despite a good, good God that loves them beyond measure and who had invited them to His table to dine and feast! And so somebody ought to remember the next time you want to criticize others "who am I, to attack them?" And the next time you feel insignificant in this world and the doubt of "why would God care for a person such as me?" "Why would He forgive me?" "Who am I that this God would love me?", go back to when David asked the original question:

David, unknowingly hit the key of why we are significant to God: because David referred to himself as “the son of man.” Fast forward to the book of Luke and you will find that phrase over and over again applying to the body of Jesus Christ! David didn’t even realize it, but he answered his own question! Who am I? Well, I am created in the image of Jesus Christ, therefore I a am a constant reminder to God of Himself! And so despite my failures and my shortcomings, I am still worth something to God and He is very interested in my life and my eternal destination because of who I represent! He sees Jesus in my life!

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I close with this:

Psalms 8 is quoted in the New Testament. It is found in Hebrews. And perhaps after this sermon, you will be able to understand what it means:

Ask yourself: "Who am I?" You are a sinner and a failure. You are a victim of Adam’s sin and the sinfulness of this world. You are unholy and within yourself do not have the ability to be anything good. But the King of Kings and Lord of Lords has invited you to become a part of His kingdom and to dine at His fellowship. He has invited you to partake of the living water that He serves and to receive His Spirit to quench your spiritual thirsts. He has invited you to become a part of a heavenly royalty and to partake of “bread from heaven.” So “who am I?” I am a sinner and a failure who has an invitation from the King of Kings to leave all of that behind! God is not ashamed of you, and in fact loves you and has a plan for your life! But, Mephibosheth, you must accept the invitation. You must leave Lo-debar and move into the palace. You must separate yourself from strangers and sit at the king’s table every day! You have the opportunity of a lifetime today, so come and bow yourself in the presence of the King! Partake of His Spirit and His mercy and “taste and see that the Lord is good!”