Majestic name made known by weakness

Night Sky

Malawi..... power outage......night sky…cool grass…flat ground…billions of stars…feel small and known at the same time.... brought to tears and laughter

Scripture: Psalm 8

Psalm 8 “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at 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, 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 have 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 heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Verse 1&9

Psalm 8:1 “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.”

Inclusio - Gives theme to the passage Majestic name in all the earth

O Yahweh

OUR

Adoni

ALL the earth

Verse 1b-2

God’s glory is known in the stars. the galaxies speak of his majesty

Malawi sky

God needs no help in making himself known

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

Weakness of babies used to still the enemy

This sounds figurative but you’ll see in a bit that this is truly prophetic

verse 3-8

This is a restatement of the previous verses

Verse 3 testifies to God’s glory on his own, reflecting “You have set your glory above the heavens” from verse 1.

Verses 4-8 reflect God making himself known in weakness, the same message as verse 2 “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.”

I’ll read 3-8 Psalm 8:3-8 “When I look at 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, 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 have 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 heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”

Jesus’ interpretation

This passage is set right after the entry on palm sunday. Jesus humbly enters Jerusalem on a donkey colt. He is displaying his own weakness and possibly had Psalm 8 in his mind while doing so.

Matthew 21:12-16 “And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “ ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?””

The first example in this psalm is not simply figurative but it is prophetic

Implications of our weakness

We bear his image.

Genesis 1:27-28 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””

“You have 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 heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”

We are to display humility

In Matthew chapter 20 During a discussion among the disciples about who among them will be the greatest, Jesus corrects their thinking, drawing them to humility. He says that the Gentiles are the ones who quarrel about such things and he continues, i’ll start reading in verse 26.

Matthew 20:26-28 “It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

Reflect the humility of Jesus

We are to have childlike faith

Matthew 18:1-4 “At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Live simply before the Lord, believe simply before the Lord. The simple every day life lived out by faith in Jesus will lead to a marvelous story for God’s glory.

I’ve only said yes a handful of times and God is writing his story with that.....wife, three yeses to sibling groups, yes to our home, yes to seminary, yes to jobs etc.....

We are to rejoice in his choosing of our weak vessels

“What is man that you are mindful of him”?

express weakness of man

Gospel

Jesus became weak, leaving heaven to come to earth, die on a cross for our sins etc....