Belonging in Worship

Psalm 8 NASB95

For the choir director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David. O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule 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 heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!

INTRO: You ever feel like you don’t belong?

ILL: There have been a few times that I’ve walked into a restaurant or certain clothing stores and think, “I don’t belong here. It’s all too fancy or too highfalutin for me. I know it, and I am just waiting for the people who work there to ask me to leave. Have you ever felt like that?

Well, the truth is that I sometimes feel like that when it comes to my walk with God. You see, I don’t feel like I belong as a co-heir of Christ. Let me explain: He is God- perfect and holy in every way, infinitely good and I’m… well, me!

We have actually spent the past few weeks looking at our worship. In particular, we’ve looked at God’s worthiness to be worshiped and our response to Him. We’ve noted the invitation to worship Him as a body and through the varying seasons of our life.

Still, perhaps you can relate here: the more I reflect upon the majesty and glory of our Lord, the more out of place I feel. I take walks in the forest and am blown away at the intricacy of God’s design- the different ecosystems, hundreds of different types of plants and critters all harmonized in such a way that life is perpetuated and beauty is displayed.

Where do I fit in all of this? Who am I that this God knows me intimately; Scripture tells me that He knows the number of hairs on my head! (Luke 12:7) … that He thinks of me… that He loves me... and that He invites me to know Him?

There is no logical explanation why a Holy, perfect God would even consider a wretch like me. But His Word says that He does! And not only does He consider me and you, but He desires us so much that He would step from His throne in glory, put on humanity, and pay our way so that we might stand where we otherwise do not belong…

Through Christ, He gives us the invitation to approach boldly the throne of grace!!! (Hebrews 4:16) IOW, As Christians, we can be confident in our relationship and communion with the eternal God of creation!!

This is truly a wonder. And you and I are not the first to ever discuss such. In Psalm 8:4, David asks a similar question. Let me just read that again. (READ 8:4)

Now, you and I need to acknowledge that when we ask a question like this, we often expect to receive a satisfying response. Let me clarify what I mean:

ILL: When you were dating or maybe in your early years of marriage, did you ever look at your significant other and ask, “Why do you love me? or What do you love about me?”

And what do you want to hear? I love your eyes, your smile, your intelligence, etc.

You see, we are vain and insecure and so we greatly desire to hear that we deserve the love that we receive; that the efforts and demonstrations of love shown to us are warranted. The problem is that real love is not something earned and thus we cannot secure someone’s love toward us.

So, even as we join the company of David in asking why God loves us, you and I need to understand that we will not likely get the answer our burning ears desire.

Instead, we are invited to ponder even more the mysterious and overwhelming character of our God. This morning, as we explore Psalm 8, I hope to show you how the measure of God’s love in common grace expands our perspective and enables our worship. We will do this by observing 3 benefits of God’s common grace in a sermon I’ve entitled, Belonging in Worship.

If you picked up a bulletin, I invite you to make use of the sermon guide as we study together. The first observation I want to make is:

Our Value is From God (5)

We all long to have value, don’t we? And we assert that we do in fact have value. Yet, people around the globe are more depressed than ever, more anxious than ever, and more confused than ever about what qualifies as valuable and how one earns that value is even more of a conundrum.

Have you ever noticed how pop culture keeps trying to convince you about value and at the same time keeps moving the goal posts? This is because, to our ever-secularizing world, value is measured by one’s usefulness in regards to an ideology or agenda.

For instance:

WOMEN are valuable. Our culture wants them to have the same opportunities and voices as everyone else until we talk about women’s sports and then we have to change the rules, make exceptions, and allow men who claim to be women compete against actual women. Sorry ladies, the culture no longer values women.

MEN are valuable. Our culture wants men to work in certain jobs, perform certain tasks, but the minute you are masculine- you become a toxic oppressor. Sorry guys, our culture does not value you beyond your usefulness.

Babies are valuable. They are the future after all… unless of course they are inconvenient. Then, our culture urges us to discard them like last week’s meatloaf. Sorry kids, the culture does not value you.

It’s no wonder that counselors are over-booked and our social media feeds are filled with veiled pleas of people longing for affirmation. Folks- you and I need to understand that culture is not who determines value.

Let’s read vs. 5 (READ)

There are 2 things we need to note here:

God has made man lower than God- IOW- we are NOT God

If God owns and holds the entire creation, only HE can say assess value. Your opinion of another’s value is irrelevant. And the world’s opinion of you and I does not matter.

Actually, as Christians, Jesus promised that we would be hated by the world because they hated Him. Remember, it was children, the poor, the unwanted ones who praised Jesus while educated elites blasphemed Him.

God has given us intrinsic value.

He crowned us. We are made in His image and our value is rooted in HIM!

Genesis 1:27 NASB95

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Our value is given to us in that we are created in God’s image. We had nothing to do with that. We didn’t earn that value and we don’t lose that value because of our sex, ethnicity, political party, or even our sins. In fact, the NT writers point back to this Psalm to speak of how Jesus returned the glory of Adam to mankind by offering His life as ransom for those who believe.

Folks, All humans are valuable because God gave us value. As for our relationship with this God, We can belong in His court only because of Christ’s atoning sacrifice.

Discuss: Where do you find affirmation? What makes you valuable?

The next observation I want to make is:

Our Authority is From God (6a)

Have you noticed that every empire, monarch, government and civilization is made up of humans?

ILL: I’ve never seen a Nat. Geo. special where a group of jaguars build a city, establish commerce, improve sanitation, or have a justice system.

God gave humans the authority to rule over His creation. Let’s look at 6a again. (READ)

This is a repetition of

Genesis 1:26 NASB95

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Also

Genesis 1:28 NASB95

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This authority was given to mankind in order to bring a flourishing society: To be in relationship with God and represent God- He gave us the right to enact justice and to utilize the resources of His creation- wood, fossil fuels, the sun, water, etc for the good of our society. God has entrusted us to steward the earth and to leverage our intelligence and creativity to do so responsibly. And we will one day give an account to God for how we ruled His creation.

There are some in our current culture that believe humans are a blight upon the earth. They don’t believe we have any more authority than a tree or a rock…of course, they say these things hypocritically as they live in luxury and post tick tok videos from their IPhones of themselves apologizing to the plants…

God made us in His image and gave us authority to subdue and to rule over His creation.

It’s because of God’s grace that you can tame your dog or ride a horse. You can understand things your little dog or cat cannot! God gave you the ability and the authority to do so.

It’s God’s grace that affords us the ability and authority to build homes and cities, to have indoor plumbing and electricity.- Y’all, I praise God for this!

God has given us authority over His creation so we might traverse the seas, and build highways through the country.

He has given us authority that we might explore, create, and enjoy the world He has given us.

WHY would He do this? Who are we that God would give us value and authority? Oh, but that’s the beauty of His grace! This is His idea, that we could commune with Him. God has given us value and authority, not social media, not government. GOD!

Finally, we observe that

Discuss: What does God mean when He commands mankind to subdue the earth and rule over it (Gen. 1:28)?

Our Uniqueness is From God (6b-8)

When we consider all that God has made, it truly is wonderful isn’t it? Do you like gazing at the stars? How about animals- Do you like animals? My kids do.

In fact, we like to go to the zoo and see all the creatures that God has made- the cute, furry ones, creepy slithering ones, and big stinky ones alike! And you can’t help but notice that we are very different from these. Not only are we different, but God tells us that we are above these- Let’s read 6b-8 (READ)

Again, our culture has twisted the minds of so many in this regard. Can you believe that our public schools actually teach that all these different animals managed to evolve from a single, accidental cell? Beyond that, they teach that humans evolved too.

R.C. Sproul summarizes this way: “Nothing could be more irrational than the idea that something comes from nothing.” Yet this is the best that a rebellious world can come up with in order to not acknowledge God.

But beyond rational observation, God’s Word testifies to our uniqueness. We’ve read the creation account- mankind was created different and special from the rest of creation. The very fact that we can be aware and come to know God is very unique from the animals.

Just as God gave us authority, He set us apart.

Psalm 139:13–14 NASB95

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

Let me put it this way: Because God has set us apart, we instinctively know that it’s ok to own a dog or a cow, but not ok to own a human. You know why we know that? Because God has written His law on our hearts. His law is not written on the heart of any other creature.

It’s a true wonder, isn’t it? That God, in His grace and love, chose to give us value, authority, and uniqueness. So where do you belong?

Well, the truth is that these are all acts of God’s common grace. As great as it is to know these things, apart from Christ you still do not belong in the presence of God.

You see, the Psalm points back to the wonder of God’s creation before sin and ahead to the restoration found in Christ.

As humans, we are valuable but in Christ we are

1 Peter 2:9 NASB95

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

As humans we have been given authority over His creation, but in Christ we are co-heirs with Jesus!

Romans 8:16–17 NASB95

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

As humans, we are unique, but in Christ we are His masterpiece

Ephesians 2:8–10 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

This morning, we can worship God because of His grace towards all humanity, and His mercy and love demonstrated through Jesus Christ. As the Psalmist declares in v. 9 (READ)

If you are here this morning and you have never trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are indeed out of place; You do not belong in the courts of heaven nor can you enter into His gates; indeed you are dead in your trespasses.

As we close our time today, I urge you to place your faith in Him today.

[Pray]

Discuss: How are we different than all other creation?