We live in a huge universe. It’s estimated that there are at least 125 billion galaxies in the universe, and each galaxy has billions of stars. We’re in the Milky Way galaxy. Try to picture finding yourself in one of the farthest galaxies from us, billion of light years away. Among the billions of galaxies there’s one called the Milky Way, hidden in the darkness of the distance. Hidden among its billions of stars is one that’s called the Sun. A little blue dot spinning around it is called Earth — our home. Finding the Earth from the fringes of the galaxy would be much harder than finding a needle in a haystack.
All this makes you feel insignificant, doesn’t it? Long ago we gave up on the idea that the sun was the physical center of the universe. Only nine little planets — no, make that eight — spin around the sun, making a little solar system that would be hard to find from most places in the universe.
Last week we began a six-part series with the title “God Gets Creative.” We discussed that it’s logical and intellectually defensible to affirm that everything is here by intelligent design: God made it all. The universe is a huge creation, and we seem to be just a tiny part of it. This is exactly what the psalmist declared: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. . . . When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:1, 3-4)
People have asked for ages, “Who is man?” “Who are we?” “Who am I?” If a person didn’t believe that everything is here by design — created by God — including us, the question would be left unanswered. Life would happen by chance, and we’d be left to ponder the meaning and purpose of our lives in a universe with no inherent meaning or purpose because it wasn’t created intentionally.
However, if you believe that everything is here by design, including ourselves, the universe has meaning and purpose, and so do we! King David, the psalmist, answered his own question. Referring to people, he wrote, “You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:5) (The heavenly beings referred to here could be either the angels or God Himself because the name “God” is plural. At any rate, King David was affirming our unique place in all of creation.) He went on to affirm our unique responsibilities: “You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:” (Psalm 8:6).
It’s one thing to affirm that everything is here by intelligent design, made by God, but can we really know anything more about God than this? Yes, we can — if God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. In today’s message we’ll discuss the fact that God has indeed revealed Himself to us, in more ways than by leaving His fingerprint all over creation as its intelligent designer.

God’s Personal Words and Actions
The Old Testament of our Bibles contains what two of the major religions of the world believe to be God’s Word. It’s considered to be that by Jews and by Christians. Even the other great religion of the world, the Muslim faith, considers it to be a special document.
The Old Testament is a unique blend of history, records of prophets speaking on God’s behalf, and psalmists inspired to write poetry about God. The discovery of ancient scrolls in the last 60 years, including those at Qumran, shows that the texts we have in our modern translations are very, very close to the ancient ones that were discovered.
The history part of the Old Testament contains historical records of God’s acting in human history. The words spoken by the prophets seemed to come from God Himself — and this was in a large measure validated when many of their prophecies about specific upcoming historical events, such as invasions by other nations, actually happened.
A cursory look at the Old Testament (a quick review of the many events that unfold in its pages) shows God to be a God who wants to get personal: He wants to have personal relationships with people! God reveals Himself through human history in words and actions, and He’s often seen as taking the initiative. Isaiah the prophet reported God as saying, “I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people.” (Isaiah 65:19) Often people were just minding their own business when suddenly God, through a heavenly messenger or some other way, interrupted life as they knew it. That happened to good number of people whose stories are told in the Old Testament.

Personal with People
There are stories throughout the Bible about God’s getting personal with people. That obviously was God’s intention when He created us: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) We aren’t sure exactly what’s meant by creating people in God’s image, but one thing is certain: He did it so that He could relate to us in a personal way! God wants a personal relationship with people like us!
It was said of Noah, one of the better-known people in the Bible, that he “walked with God.” (Genesis 6:9) Abraham “was called God’s friend.” (James 2:23) Job complained in the middle of his trials, “Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house.” (Job 29:4) God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
Although those are “famous” people of the Bible, it’s clear that God wishes to have a personal relationship with anyone who wants it. He doesn’t force it on us, but it’s clear that He deeply wants such a relationship. God uses some powerful imagery in the Old Testament to show this.

Imagery of Intimacy
The Shepherd and Sheep: The image of God as a shepherd and us as His sheep is often used in the Bible, most powerfully in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1) King David, the author of this psalm, spent his growing-up years tending his father’s sheep. He cared lovingly for them, taking them to green pastures, leading them beside still waters, and putting his own life at risk defending them from bears and lions.
David used this imagery with himself in the role of the sheep and God as the shepherd, the role David had always played. God was even more to David than David had been to his sheep, and so it is with us: God is our shepherd, too.
The Parent and Child: The prophet Isaiah spoke on behalf of God, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15) Our daughter Julie has two small children: Ruth, who was born to her just a year ago, and Anna, whom Julie and her husband Victor adopted three months ago when she was just a day old. Julie is breast-feeding both of the little girls, sometimes both of them at the same time! She’s never far from either one of them — never more than a mealtime away! There’s no way she could ever go somewhere and forget to take the two little girls along! God is saying in this passage from Isaiah that it would be easier to imagine a nursing mother forgetting her baby than to imagine God forgetting about us! We’re always on His mind and near His heart. There’s also a wonderful passage in Hosea the prophet: “It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; . . .” (Hosea 11:3)
The Husband and Wife: Probably the most powerful imagery God employs in the Old Testament regarding His relationship to His people is that of husband and wife, with God the husband and people the wife: “For your Maker is your husband — the Lord Almighty is his name — . . .” (Isaiah 54:5) When God’s people turned from Him, God described it as marital unfaithfulness: “‘But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me; O house of Israel,’ . . .” (Jeremiah 3:20)
In the New Testament the imagery is carried even further, referring to the church of believers as the bride of Christ. The most intimate of human relationships is used as an analogy for the kind of closeness God wants with us!

A Personal Response
This isn’t a lonely, cold universe with no ultimate meaning or purpose. As vast and awesome as it is, from the greatest star becoming a super nova to the tiniest sub-atomic particle, it has all been designed for us by our God! We are the reason for it all! We’re meant to live in this universe and enjoy it — and even gain control over some of it. We’re the best part of it, because we’re made in the image of God Himself! We’ve been given more glory by Him than the greatest nebulae!
What will be our response? How, then, should we live?
We can rejoice in who we are in the eyes of God — and turn to Him. Dr. Terry Wardle wrote, “I am convinced that we all have a desire to be special and unique. I believe it is one of the core longings present within us from the moment we are born. God has provided that such deep needs be met in and through Him.”
We can decide to make God the center of our own little universes — instead of ourselves — and to find our greatest satisfaction in Him. He tells us in the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This means that we must recognize Him as the ultimate source of all we need. When we try to find comfort, escape, or meaning in addictive behaviors — sexual addiction, alcoholism, gambling, shopping addictions, avoidance mechanisms, drug abuse, eating disorders, excessive television or internet use, or oversleeping — we’re acting stupidly, sinfully, and wrongly. We must turn to God for satisfaction of our deepest needs.
When He is the only God in our lives, nothing — not money, sex, power, pleasure, success, or anything else — will distract us from making Him the center of our little universes. We’ll enjoy Him — the Creator — more than the creation. We’ll delight in God’s creation because we find our greatest delight in Him!
The fact that God made everything for us and wants to have a personal relationship with us should make all the difference in the world. He wants to be our God and He wants us to be His people. Let’s make it so!