"How Majestic Is..."

Illus: Went by George for a year

My guess is for your kids you thought a lot about the names you would give them, that there's some significance, weight, meaning, hope, prayer behind those names.

You probably didn’t put your hand in a hat and just draw out, but even if you didn’t put a lot of thought behind it, the moment you held them the first time, the name took incredible form.

There are names, not just our kids' names, but certain names carry certain cultural weight and cultural meaning, for good and for ill.

For instance, in no particular order, let me give you some names of people who have shaped history. Here are some names we have likely heard.

I think of Aristotle, Galileo, Plato, Socrates, Lincoln, Gandhi, King, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Washington, Moses, Caesar, Marx, Gutenberg, Edison, Beethoven, Mandela, and Einstein.

Or maybe more from the mainstream, pop culture, celebrity world there is Elvis, Sinatra, Cher, Sting, Prince, Madonna, Usher, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Adele, and Zendaya.

All of those names carry some semblance, aspect, of weight and meaning, yet there is a name that is beyond all names.

There is a greater name. There is a name that is incomparable, indescribable, a name that is above all names.

Where we're going to be this morning in Psalm 8, David, the author of this psalm, is going to answer this question for us: Why is God's name so majestic in all the earth?

Why is this name the name above all names? Why is there no rival, no equal to this name? I'll just let you know the answer now.

Here's my point. Why is God's name so majestic in all the earth? It's because God is the compassionate Creator and God compassionately recreates.

As you're turning to Psalm 8, here are a few things I want you to keep in mind, because we're simply not going to have time to let these things sit.

The psalm begins and ends the same way. This is called an inclusion. What that means is the beginning of the psalm and the end of the psalm point to everything in the middle of the psalm.

I want you to see that God works through the weak things of the world to display his power. You're going to see that in verse 2 and in verse 4.

I want you to see the rhythm and structure of the psalm. It has this reverse order rhythm to it, where it kind of goes like this: wonder, glory, weakness, glory, weakness, wonder.

That's what Psalm 8 is doing. It doesn't call us to any specific action other than worship, astonishment, and awe.

The psalm just leaves us there, mouth open, staring up, and saying what David says at the beginning and the end: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"

What I also want you to see is that this psalm is going to point out that God is both transcendent and immanent, far and near, infinite and intricate, and God is mindful of you and cares for you.

So, let's read Psalm 8 together, keeping those things in mind. Read: Psalm 8

Psalm 8 ESV

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David. 1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Why is God's name majestic in all the earth? David begins in verse 1 talking about God's name, that there's something unique about God's name.

He starts, "O Lord, our Lord…" If I could translate it like this, it translates, "O Yahweh, our Adonai." "O God, our Master." David starts the psalm using first the covenantal name of God.

"O Yahweh, this is your name. You have established relationship with us, and our position to you, Yahweh, is you are our Lord, our Adonai, our Master." "O Lord, our Lord…"

Then David says that it's majestic. It's stately. It's kingly. It's glorious. It's above all. "…how majestic is your name in all the earth!"

His name is majestic. Where is it majestic? In all the earth. There is no place near or far, high or low, where his name does not rule and reign supreme. Every tongue, every tribe, every nation…

His name is the great name in all the earth. Then he goes on to contrast the earth at the end of verse 1. "You have set your glory above the heavens."

David just starts with wonder, with wow, with astonishment, with being taken aback by this good, gracious, loving God. God creates compassionately.

Verses 1 and 9 describe the wonder and wow of God's name, and then verses 2-8 describe why his name is majestic. In verse 2, David says, "Out of the mouth of babies and infants…"

Seems like a strange shift, right? But at a closer look you see David is contrasting here. He is highlighting weakness up against and in contrast to God’s power.

Notice what's happening in verse 2. God is saying, "I defeat the enemies of the world, the foes of this world, not with my might and strength and my overwhelming presence.

But I use the weakest and the most vulnerable, because that's how transcendent and powerful I am. Out of the mouth of babbling babies I bring down the strongholds of this world."

Then in verse 3 it says David looked. Where did David look? He looks up into the heavens, to the moon and the stars. David, in his looking, takes a step back.

I want us to get how important this is, how important perspective is for you and I to have. You and I get so caught up in the routinized realities of our days.

Just day after day, the pressures and the struggles and the worries and the temptations. They're here, they're in front of us, and there's this microscopic reality to what we do.

Have you looked? Have you stepped back, church? When was the last time you took in a sunset? Like, took it in, or maybe were met with the breaking of the dawn.

Illus: I do this with my kids. When driving. In the ocean.

And it doesn't stop there. It goes beyond. It goes higher. It goes more. This is what David is doing. He's gathering perspective as he looks up and he sees.

Read Psalm 8:3

Psalm 8:3 ESV

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

You can almost hear David. “This is nothing for you. This is no sweat for you. The expanse of the heavens you just knit together with your fingers."

So, where does this leave David, and where does this leave us? With the question he asks in verse 4…What is man? "Who am I? Why me?"

Read: Psalm 8:4

Psalm 8:4 ESV

4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Man means the fragility of man, or the feebleness of man. Son of man is an idiom talking about the commonality of humanity, that we are all feeble and weak and frail.

Have you felt this? When was the last time you felt weak, especially in a time of contrast when you thought you were strong?

Illus: When I had covid. Or, As we age and the new aches of our bodies.

These are lighthearted, easy examples, but what about the moments when you thought you were strong until life began to crumble? You felt weak. You felt small.

I want you to see, and I want you to feel what's happening here, because when David asks the question, "Who am I?" God's response is not "That's right! Who are you?"

It's "Who am I that you are mindful of me and that you care for me?" Another translation of mindful is the idea that "You have visited me."

The verb here for care doesn't mean "I cared back then," but it has this continual aspect of "I cared and I care and I will care for you." God has demonstrated his care for you.

So, why is His name so majestic in all the earth? Because He, God, compassionately creates. He didn't just go, “Boom” and there is creation.

He created by rolling up his sleeves, and then got involved and has stayed. He is with you! Are you or have you ever been tempted to believe otherwise?

Have you felt that in your guts when you've asked the question, “Do you hear me, God? I've asked this time and time and time again. Are you listening? Do you care?”

“Do you even know what it's like down here in this situation where I find myself in the pressures and the weight and the suffering? Are you there?"

David says God compassionately is mindful of you and is with you, that he has created you, he sees you, and he loves you.

How good of a word is that? Just to be reminded no matter what I am tempted to believe otherwise.

I know this word to be true, and God's Word is saying to me, "Now I see you. I care about you. I'm mindful of you." God's compassion in his creation doesn't just stop at the fact though.

As if that's not enough that he created and then is mindful and caring, his compassion continues. In verses 6-8, we see that God has given us a representative responsibility.

Read: Psalm 8:6-8

Psalm 8:6–8 ESV

6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

God has given you a responsibility on this earth. Yes, this God who is other, this God who is transcendent.

This God who is holy and righteous and distant and altogether different than you and me is intricately involved and near and has come close.

He notices you with care, and he says to you, "I have something for you. Represent me. Be my vice-regents and representatives across this globe.”

“Work dominion out. Reign and rule. When people interact with you, they should get a sense of who I am."

I think this is amazing, because God has written me into the story. He's writing the screenplay, and I have a role, yet I feel like an inadequate actor.

I feel like my times when I've been called to represent him I've not represented him well. If I think about this God who's being described in Psalm 8, I come nowhere close to him.

So, then I think about, "I'm supposed to represent him? Me?" I go right back up to verse 4. "What is man? Who am I?"

Blaise Pascal who was a French philosopher and mathematician wrote some harsh words describing the paradox of humanity.

He says, "What a figment of the imagination human beings are! What a novelty, what monsters! Chaotic, contradictory, prodigious, judging everything, mindless worm of the earth, storehouse of truth, cesspool of uncertainty and error, glory and [garbage] of the universe. Who will unravel this tangle?"

If you and I are to be representatives of God on this earth, who am I to represent him? Who will unravel this tangle? And then Psalm 8:6-8 shows up in Hebrews 2:6-9.

Read: Hebrews 2:6-9

Hebrews 2:6–9 ESV

6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

The writer of Hebrews highlights the failure of humanity to fulfill Psalm 8 but celebrates the one man, the God-man, the last Adam, who fulfills it perfectly; namely, Jesus.

Why is God's name so majestic in all the earth? Because God creates compassionately and recreates all things through Christ. What you and I could not fulfill, Jesus fulfills perfectly.

What is man? Who am I? Jesus steps in and says, "You are mine. You." What is happening here in Psalm 8, fulfilled in Hebrews 6, only points to the reality of Colossians 1.

Read: Colossians 1:15-23

Colossians 1:15–23 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

So, why is His name so majestic in all the earth? How are we to react and live towards such a majestic name? Because He is creator God. He is Messiah. He is Holy Spirit.

So how are we to respond to such a majestic name? How do we practically put this into practice today? I have three steps I want you to consider doing in reaction to the majestic name of God.

1. _Look heavenward_

Take that step back and look up. See. Be reminded of his transcendence, his immanence, his glory, his worth, his might, his strength, his care, his consideration.

He goes from infinite to intricate just like that. He sees you, he knows you, he loves you, but you and I have to stop.

We have to step back to gain the perspective, to soak in the grace, to let the truth decant and become full-bodied in our hearts. Look up.

2. _Live thoroughly_

What I mean by living thoroughly is a life found in him, and he has called you and me to a representative responsibility to represent him in the world.

The greatest thing I can bring to the world is not what I do, but the message I have: there is grace available. I needed it. I couldn't live up, or measure up.

I wasn't good enough, strong enough, fast enough, tall enough, quick enough, smart enough, rich enough, [fill in the blank], and neither are you.

But there is one who is, and his name is the name above all names, and he's mindful of you. He cares about you. So, look up. Live thoroughly in the grace and the wonder of Jesus.

3. _Worship his name_

Rejoice in Christ. Lift him up. "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" David only knew in part what you and I know in full.

"O Lord, our Lord, our triune God, O Sovereign Ruler, King of the universe, how majestic is your name in all the earth. May you be praised.

May you be lifted up. May you be on high. Not my name, not our name, but your name. There is no name greater than this name.

I pray that our church would proclaim, worship, lift up, celebrate, and rejoice in the powerful, saving, compassionate, gracious name of Christ. Let's pray.