I believe that you normally stand for the
reading of God's word. So if you would
please stand with me in the honor of
the reading of God's word.
Again, this is Psalm 8. This is God's
holy word to us.
Oh, lord, our lord.
How majestic is your name in all the
earth.
You have set your glory above the heavens,
out of the mouths of babies and infants.
You have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at the heavens,
the work of your fingers, the moon, and
the stars which you have set in place,
what is man that you're mindful of him?
And the son of man that you care
for him.
Yet you have made him a little lower
than the heavenly beings and crowned him with
glory and honor.
You've given him dominion
over the works of your hands.
You have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heaven, and the fish
of the sea, whatever passes along the paths
of the sea. Oh, lord, our lord,
How majestic
is your name
in all the earth.
The word of the lord.
Thanks be to god. You may be seated.
Well, let me ask you a question that
Psalm 8 asked us this morning.
A very important question, and it simply is
this, what is man?
Just that generic word for human beings, not
males,
but mankind, humanity, however we want to understand
that. But what is
man? And we'll see that that comes right
in the middle of our Psalm, but verse
1 and verse 9 book in the Psalm
with the majestic name of God. So there's
a big clue
that whatever,
however we're gonna answer that question, what is
man, we need to look to God for
him to tell us what it means to
be a human
being.
And that's simply what I wanna do this
morning is walk through Psalm 8,
section by section, and try to fill in
an answer to that all important question.
Yes, in our day and age, but really
in every day and age.
What is man? What does it mean to
be created
in the image
of God?
And when you first hear that question, I
wonder how you answer it in your own
mind. What are you? What is
a human
being?
I think one of the ways, at least
in our culture that we tend to answer
that question is by thinking about the name
that we're gonna make from ourselves,
the things that we are going to accomplish.
And deep down, we all love that story,
don't we? The rags to riches story or
someone who has a goal and puts their
minds to it and accomplishes
that
goal.
They make it big.
And that's not always a bad thing.
This quest to make a name for ourselves,
to understand who we are, like I said,
it's not just a modern question. Because if
we go all the way back to Genesis
chapter 11,
and the famous story about the tower
of Babel. It is Babel. Right? It's Babel
in New Zealand. I always forget how to
say it. Babel. I think it's the tower
of Babel.
Either way, you know what I'm talking about.
And there we see that making a name
for themselves is not this God given pursuit
to use the gifts and the talents and
the opportunity he's given us, but it's actually
to make a name for ourselves is to
put ourselves in the place of God.
And so in Genesis 11 chapter Genesis 11
verse 4, excuse me, we read simply this,
the nations are talking, trying to metaphorically build
a temple up to the heavens. Let us
make a name
for ourselves.
See, they're seeking to answer that all important
question, what is man,
by putting themselves as the creator
instead of being the creature
that they are made
to be.
And so today, soulmate's gonna help us answer
this question.
What is man?
And and really what God is saying to
us
as we answer that question
is that you are a glorious
creature
created in his image, but you only find
that glory that your heart so desperately
craves
as you look to him,
and live in the safety and security
of his
majestic
name.
So Psalm 8 calls us back by faith
to God,
to live in that name
this morning.
This is how we begin to live the
truly human life.
So to answer that question, let's, let's take
it in 3 parts. We'll think first about
God's majestic name,
and then we'll think about humanity's
smallness,
but then we'll also think about humanity's
glory.
So let's jump in. God's glorious name.
This is verse
1, and also verse 9, that beautiful refrain
that we read from our Psalm. Oh Lord,
our Lord, how majestic is your name in
all the earth. So we start here with
a a name of God. David writing this
song is praising God using his name, and
notice what he's what he says, oh, Lord,
with the all capsulc up there,
and then our Lord.
We could translate that, oh, Yahweh, our sovereign,
or oh, Yahweh,
our creator, oh, Yahweh, our
lord.
And the order here seems important
that we have Yahweh and then
lord. The all caps lord,
by the way, is just a transliteration of
the Hebrew word Yahweh, but that's important because
Yahweh is God's relational,
personal,
covenantal
name.
We don't know the exact details of Psalm
8, but if we back up to Psalm
7, there's injustice and enemies of Israel all
around, and the Psalm ends by saying that
I will praise the Lord. Jump ahead to
Psalm 9,
there's injustice all around. Yet again, we find
that even though there's injustice, I will praise
the Lord, and we have Psalm 8, this
doxological
hymn of thanksgiving tucked right into the middle.
So there's probably enemies, trial, and trouble all
around, and David orders this name of God
intentionally saying that this God who we're gonna
praise, even though life is hard, is Yahweh.
He's God who initiates relationship with his people.
He's the God who keeps that wonderful promise
that really summarizes all of the Bible, I
will be your God and you will be
my people.
Now why is this order important? Well that
context,
it's hard. Life is hard. We have this
idealistic picture in Psalm 8 of created,
created, the created world and humans created in
God's image, but it comes to us in
this fallen context.
And so he wants to assure us that
this God who we stand up to praise
when life is difficult
is Yahweh, the God who cares, the God
who is present to help
and to redeem.
And only then does he remind us that
this God Yahweh is also our lord, our
our our master, our sovereign, our our governor
as the older translation sometimes
puts it.
So there's this twofold
name of God, our lord, our lord.
And following, scripture at this point, because back
in Exodus chapter 3, when God first makes
his name known to Israel, and the burning
bush that doesn't burn up, when he speaks
to Moses, he says, I am.
I am the eternal God. The one who
simply
is. The one who has life from his
self, who has no beginning and no end.
I simply am,
but he's also the God who hears the
cries of his people.
He's Yahweh
who sends Moses
to deliver Israel in the Exodus, that great
salvation event
of the old testament.
So this is our Lord,
our Lord. This twofold name and David is
saying how majestic is this name? You're both
sovereign, creator of all things. The Lord in
charge of charge of us. We owe you
our allegiance and worship, but yet you're so
gracious to us. You're Yahweh, you're ever present
and ready to help your people.
So his name
is majestic because God is majestic. That's what
David wants us to know as we begin
looking into Psalm 8.
But again, I said there's injustice and enemies
all around, and that helps us understand verse
2 if you look with me.
This verse is a little bit strange, but
it's beautiful.
Out of the mouths of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes
to steal the enemy
in the avenger.
Now I'll I'll prove this to you in
a second, but what that is saying, or
I'll try to prove it to you in
a second, but what that verse is saying
is that our majestic God, what is man
remember we're answering that question. What does man,
well our majestic God thinks so highly of
us that he uses our prayers
to defeat his enemies.
He's so kind that he uses our prayers
to defeat his enemies. Why do I say
that? Well, well, notice that these children and
infants are speaking,
And that as they speak, a stronghold or
a bulwark is established.
Avengers
are overthrown, enemies
are silenced.
And this leads most commentators to the history
of reflection, and I think they're right to
conclude that this speaking,
the words that pour out of these infants
and children's mouths are the prayers of God's
people.
God's children who cry out to him
to right every wrong, to forgive sin, to
make enemies into friends as they are converted
by the gospel.
So God's name is majestic as it, comes
through the mouths of his children
in prayer, we might say.
And we have a big hint from the
life of Jesus that this is one way
we can understand this verse.
In Matthew chapter 21 verse 6,
in the triumphal entry, as Jesus rides into
Jerusalem,
there's a literal fulfillment of Psalm 8:2.
As Jesus rides in on a donkey, do
you remember what what happens?
The Hosannas cry out from whom?
The mouths of children.
So Jesus literally is carried along by the
prayers of children as he rides in to
do what? To cleanse the temple.
A sign of the coming judgment against the
religious leaders,
who instead of understanding that Christ is their
king, has have usurped his authority
and put himself as king.
And then what does he do? He goes
to the cross,
dies in our place to forgive our sins.
But Colossians 2 tells us as important as
that is, as he dies to forgive our
sins, he also defeats the rulers and authorities,
the powers
of the heavenly
places.
See Christ
in his life, death, and resurrection defeats our
enemies, but amazingly at least in part, he's
carried along by the prayers
of children. He accomplishes his purposes
through
his
people.
This God who is I am, this God
who is Yahweh, our sovereign
creator.
So what is man as we consider this
first point? Well, a weak creature,
yet one through whom God ordains prayers accomplishes
his purposes,
especially the purpose of making enemies
into friends.
And of course this is true of all
of our prayer life, but I think it's
especially true as we gather week by week
in corporate
worship.
What do we do lord's day by lord's
day? We remember and celebrate the resurrection.
We proclaim the lord's victory over sin and
death
and evil.
And something of that pours out from us,
and though we don't
see it through the ordinariness of what we're
doing this morning, God uses our praises to
do what? To build his church, to defeat
foes,
to
win the victory, you might say.
And it's kind of like, in sports, you'll
know that, oftentimes, a team wins a championship
and there's a victory
parade.
The Boston Celtics just won the NBA championship.
I'm not really an NBA fan. It's just
the most recent one I could find,
example I could find. And what do they
do? They go through the streets of Boston
with the fans gathering, and and cheering, and
adoring them because they just won the championship,
remembering the great victory that they have won
for their city.
Now that's a pales in comparison to what
we're doing here this morning,
but it is a small picture that week
by week as we come,
remember the Lord's victory over sin and death.
Remember the glorious resurrection
of Christ. Ephesians chapter 3 says that we're
actually proclaiming to that heavenly host, to Satan
himself, that Jesus wins.
And as we do that, as ordinary as
it sounds, as much as your kids might
have not put their shoes on this morning,
you're frustrated when you got in the car,
God's using all of that to accomplish his
his purposes.
What is man? A weak vessel,
but mighty when our faith is in the
majestic
name of God. And as we take those
praises upon our lips and make his victory,
the hope of the gospel
known.
So what is man?
That's the first part, but we can go
on from god's majestic name to the smallness
of human beings.
Excuse me. I'm not I'm deacclimated to the
humidity.
At one point in my life, I was
acclimated, but no longer.
So let's go on and and continue answering
this question, the smallness of human beings, verse
3.
Fills out our answer just a little bit
more. Now as as we look there, what's
going on? When I look at the heavens
or really, I think the best way to
take that is when I contemplate, when I
consider
the heavens.
We get the idea that David, perhaps wrote
this Psalm
on a clear night as he set up
perhaps on a rock looking up at the
sky.
The end of verse 2 has already told
us that God has set his glory above
the heavens. It's on display
in his creation.
And so David looks up or he contemplates,
he considers as he looks at the moon
and and the stars, all the works of
God's fingers
as verse 3 describes it.
And he he knows that to see God's
work on displaying creation is to reflect upon
God to make him think about just how
big and how great, how powerful
God is. And he asked verse 4 this
all important question, our guiding question this morning.
What is man that you are mindful of
him?
The universe is vast.
The night sky when it's clear is filled
with
stars.
David is recognizing just how small he is,
but also recognizing in the midst of enemies
that this is Yahweh our Lord, he's taking
care of us. Lord, why? Why are you
mindful of us? We're small and insignificant compared
to you in this vast creation, yet you
care for us
greatly.
And so he asked this question, what is
man? Thinking of humanity generally speaking.
And then what is the son of man?
A reference that not only do you care
for mankind, you care for me.
You care for individuals.
You care about the people
that you have
made. But he's overwhelmed as he looks at
the vastness of the night
sky. Well, Juan Carlos, mentioned that our family
lived for a time in New Zealand.
And most of New Zealand is quite rural,
and there's dark zones in certain areas of
New Zealand
where you're not allowed to actually build lights
and what and whatnot, and people come from
all over the world to do what David
is doing, to look at the stars.
And even in our small town that wasn't
in a dark zone, the night sky compared
to Houston is just full of stars.
But there's a place that we used to
go to called Lake Tekapo that was a
dark zone, and you would just look up
and even on a cloudy night, you're just
amazed for the things that you can see
in the sky. And you're overwhelmed, and you
and you have a feeling, some of you
will know this feeling in a night when
you see a starry sky, or you see
a grand mountain, or something like that. And
those moments where you just say, oh God,
I'm small compared to what's on display here.
Your world is so big, you are so
big and you're just overwhelmed.
And it's no surprise that David has that
feeling. It's no surprise that many of us,
or I think all of us at times
have that feeling because created in the image
of God we're supposed to look at his
world where he makes himself known in part,
and cry out with the psalmist, what is
man that you are mindful of him.
So one of the perennial questions
throughout history is this very question, what are
we? Who are we? Why are we here?
Alister McGrath says, few questions have so intrigued
humanity
as that of the meaning of the universe
and our place in it.
The sight of the star studded night can
make us feel quite
overwhelmed.
And as you think about the the beauty
on display in the sky and how big
it is, just consider,
the spacecraft Voyager. I know that's going back
a bit now, but it took Voyager 26
years
and 8,400,000,000
miles to leave our solar system.
And it would have to travel for another
40000
years
before it reached another star. That's
quite big.
So the universe is huge, but each detail
was put in place by the finger of
God.
And as big as the universe is compared
to God, it's tiny.
And we're tiny compared to the universe
in
God.
Okay. So what's the point of this section?
Well, the point is not to say you're
worthless or you're insignificant.
The next point will make that abundantly clear.
But it is to say this,
only God is infinite.
We are finite creatures.
Even apart from the fall, we were not
created to be God.
We have limits,
and that's not always a bad thing. And
I'll I'll stop there. I'll go on forever.
But, I mean, just for instance, I was
never gonna play in the NBA.
You can laugh. It's okay. It's a joke.
We have our limits. We're finite.
But so much,
gets out of whack, and what's playing out
in our culture is the tower of babble
all over again. What happens is we think
that we're the creator instead of the created
creature.
And so the point about the vast of
the universe and the smallness of man is
not to say that you're awful or worthless,
but it is to say, God is the
creator,
you are the creature.
And that's actually good news.
That's a good thing.
Because what it says is as the creator,
he names us.
He tells us who we are. He helps
us answer this all important question,
what is
man?
Okay. So God's majestic name, the smallness of
men, but now the glory of man.
Verses 5 through 8.
We are finite. Yes. Only God is infinite.
But we're glorious creatures created in his image.
You see there in verse 5. You've made
him a little lower than the heavenly being
or the angels and crowned him with glory
and honor.
And these verses here echo the creation account
in Genesis chapter 1 as the days of
creation unfold, and we get to the pinnacle
of creation day 6, and God creates man
and woman in his own image as the
pinnacle of creation. Not just as the highest
evolved
animal,
but as humans
alone in the image
of God.
And then he gives them a job to
do. Sometimes we call this the cultural mandate
to have dominion
over the earth, not to dominate the earth,
but to care for the earth, to rule
the world as my representatives
in the ways that I ask you to.
That spread the love and goodness and glory
of God. And and that's a kingly calling
in the ancient context.
So what is man? Well, we're creating the
image of God with this kingly
calling.
And we read this in Genesis 126.
Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness,
and let them have dominion over the fish
of the sea and the birds of the
heavens
and over the livestock and over all the
earth and over every creeping thing that creeps
on
earth.
Now stick with me just for a minute
because what we have here is is a
is 2 parts in Genesis 126
that's really important to help us answer the
question,
what is man?
In theology and philosophy, sometimes there's a distinction
that we don't have to make today, and
it's a distinction between this.
What is man
and who is man
are not the same question.
So what is man is asking, what is
the nature? What is the reality of this
thing called a human being?
And who is man
begins to fill in, what are we to
do? How are we
to live? And we find this actually in
the cultural mandate. Notice the first phrase, before
we're told of our royal task, we're told
of our nature
that we're made in the image of God,
and after his likeness. That's what you are,
most basically, that's what you are as a
human being. A creature
created
in the image
of God,
the pinnacle
of God's
creation.
And then that who question, the cultural mandate
goes on to say that you are God's
representative
with a task
to subdue the earth. How so? Through all
the various callings God has placed upon your
life,
through work, through being a parent, through being
a faithful church member. By pursuing those callings
in a way that honors the Lord, that
lines up with scripture, that promotes the love
and goodness of God, and the goodness and
love of of one another, we begin to
fulfill that
task.
We'll come back to the what question, but
consider the the coronation, I don't know if
you watched King Charles' coronation, or have seen
videos of it in the past.
There's a moment near the end where they
put the crown on the head of the
king or the queen.
And back when Queen Elizabeth
the second was,
coronated,
CS Lewis remarked this,
the pressing of that huge heavy crown on
that small young head
is a symbol of the situation of man.
God has called humanity to be his vice
regent on earth.
CS Lewis knows that the honor
that God has placed upon humanity in this
royal task to what we are called.
So who are we? Remember our what and
who distinction. Who are we? We'll revise regions
with a royal calling.
But now let's go back and think a
little bit about that question, what is
man? I wanna do that from using
by using the idea of identity, which is
all over age these days.
And this is so important because that question,
what is man? It's right here in Psalm
8, but on our theological and philosophical reflection,
what we've really done is we've erased that
question.
We haven't first thought about the nature of
what it means to be human, we've jumped
straight to the who question,
which is one reason identity
is all
of the rage.
Alright. Now I'm not convinced the question is
a totally bad question, it's been asked our
history in some ways, but as we find
it now, it is a quite
modern
question.
And if I can even say this especially
to the young people this morning,
it's actually a first world question.
And why do I say that? We live
in a very safe world. Maybe it doesn't
feel so safe this morning after what happened
yesterday, but by and large, we don't have
tanks outside in the street.
We live in a very safe place,
historically speaking.
Most of us in the room this morning
have plenty of food in the pantry when
we go home at night.
We might complain about inflation, but we're not
poor.
What does that mean? We have time to
sit around and think about identity.
When there's tanks in the streets, and you're
working day to day just to feed your
family, you don't have time to sit down
and ask this question.
You're just worried about making it through the
day. So I think we need to recognize
that the affluence of our postmodern Western world
has created a situation
where identity can be the dominating question that
it is, and when it wasn't even 25
years ago.
Alright.
And what what happens is our culture says,
remember we're asking this question right in the
middle of the song bookend by God's name.
So what happens when we go straight to
the question and we don't let it bookend
with God's name? We jump straight to the
who, or we just remove God out of
it. What happens was our culture tells us
that you find your identity not by looking
to God, and not by looking outside of
yourself, not by embracing the royal calling that
he's given you, but by looking within.
Now, if you're over about the age of
35 or 40,
you might look within and think you're going
to find that identity by work,
or pleasure,
or your bank account.
If you're younger,
now what you're being told is not to
chase it through these cultural idols, but to
look inside your heart and express any and
every desire that you might have.
What does it mean to be a human
being?
To be true to your own
desires.
That's what the world tells us today. But
the Bible says the heart is deceitful
and wicked above all things, if it hasn't
been made new by the grace
of God.
And if you think about for all the
emphasis on identity
that our culture presses upon us today,
mental health is horrible.
Social media is killing our young people. Because
why? It's an effort of self creation. It's
an attempt to make ourselves, but remember we're
not created.
We are created, we're not meant to be
the creator.
And so for all the emphasis on on
culture, I'm convinced
that our our world doesn't give us an
identity that really proves meaningful.
It's because when you take God out of
the equation,
you're really just a cosmic accident.
And then you're full of angst and anxiety
trying
to create an image for yourself, trying to
convince yourself and everyone else who's watching on
Instagram and TikTok,
or sometimes even at church
that you're really doing okay.
When the scripture says, no, look
to God. What is man? You're glorious. You're
crowned with glory and honor but you only
find that glory and honor as you relate
rightly to God and live in the safety
and security
of his
majestic
name.
Well, finally, we come to verse 9.
And in some ways, I've I've already said
this, but in some ways we have this
idealistic picture,
but we already have hints in Psalm 8
that the world is fallen. There's enemies all
around.
We know that this Psalm was written after
Genesis chapter 3.
We know in our own hearts that all
is not
well.
We are glorious creatures, we're still in the
image of God, but
sin that was let loose in the garden
frustrates God's created
purposes. It frustrates our calling. It frustrates how
we even answer that question, what is man?
See at the end of the day, for
all the other answers we could give, it's
sin that leads us to seek an identity
apart
from God.
But it's right here that the gospel gives
us great
hope.
God's created purposes is frustrated by sin, but
it's restored in Christ, and we know that
because in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 5,
Psalm 8 is quoted and applied to the
incarnate Lord Jesus Christ.
And what we're supposed to see by that
is that really Psalm 8 is about the
Lord Jesus Christ before it is about us,
that he is the truly human one.
The eternal Son of God who in the
fullness of time took on flesh and was
a true human being, lived a true human
life, experienced the things that we experience
living in a fallen world, except
one huge difference.
He never gave in to the temptation
of sin.
And because of that, he has defeated
death,
sin. He has defeated the enemies
of God.
See Psalm 8 prophetically looks forward to that
great day when the Lord Jesus
Christ will return.
Because even now not all things are in
subjection to him as we read in
Hebrews chapter 2. So it looks forward to
the first coming and the second coming of
Christ, the one who's truly human, who invites
us by faith into his life, death, and
resurrection to live in that
glorious
name. See what is man? The answer really
is Jesus Christ.
And we can say that because Philippians 2
says that the Lord has, that God the
father has given him the name that is
above every name.
And that his name everyday one knee will
bow and every tongue confess
that Jesus
is
Lord.
And see it's when we come to Christ
in faith, repenting of our sins, looking to
him for identity, meaning, purpose, for making a
name, whatever
phrase we wanna use to fill it in.
That's when we find that we begin to
truly live as we are created.
And if God is the creator, and we
are his created image bearers,
then even when it doesn't feel right living
in the ways that he asked us to,
we have to trust
and know that that's what's right and that
is what is good
for us.
And this has led theologians throughout Christian tradition
to say things like this, Saint Irenaeus,
the glory of God is man fully alive.
And the reformed theologian,
Amandas Paulinus,
the glory of man
is the living
God.
See we are glorious creatures,
that we only find that true lasting saving
glory
in the majestic name of God revealed in
Jesus
Christ.
And today Psalm 8 is quite simply calling
us by faith back to him.
What is man? Come to the Lord Jesus
Christ and he will show you. A weak
clay jar, but yet God will use your
prayers to accomplish his purposes.
Small
compared to God, because you're not the creator,
but that's good news, because the creator has
made you glorious,
and even though we've walked away and frustrated
his purposes and sin, by his grace he
comes to us in the person of Christ,
the truly human one, who through his life,
death, and resurrection
invites us back into that majestic
name of God.
What is man?
That's the answer.
Proverbs 18,
and we'll close with this, calls us to
Christ with these beautiful words.
The name of the Lord is a strong
tower.
The righteous man runs into it
and is safe.
In the name of the father,
son, and holy spirit.
Amen.