Psalm 8 | How Majesitic Is Your Name

Intro

What makes the God of the Bible different from the gods of other world religions?

Worldviews. How you look at life and interpret it. Everyone has a worldview.

Is there a God? What relationship does God have with the world?

Polytheism- (Lit. “may gods”)the belief that there are multiple gods for you to pick and choose from

Pantheism - (lit. all is god). A pantheist believes that everything that exists is a part of god or that god is a part of everything that exists. For pantheists, God, the sun, the stars, the trees and rocks are all made of the same “stuff.” (Buddhism, Hinduism)

Secular Humanism - The belief that puts human reason as the foundation for morality and ethics. We are god!

Atheism - (lit. “without God” The belief that denies the existence of God.

Agnosticism - (lit. unknowable) The belief that the existence of God is unknown.

Deism - The belief that God the creator exists but he does not care nor intervenes in the universe.

In contrast to these worldviews, the Bible teaches that there is one God who is great and good (transcendent and imminent. That is, God is above and beyond his creation yet He is also near his creation)

Let’s look at those two attributes this morning: The greatness of God and the goodness of God.

The greatness of God.

Imagine David, lying on the fields one night, gazing at the stars as he is filled with awe and wonder

David structures this Psalm around the theme of praise.

Ps 8:1 “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Ps 8:9 “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

What makes God great?

God has a great name

In the Bible, names are important. A name was not just a way of identifying a person, it was a way of revealing their character.

Notice in your English Bible it says twice, O LORD, our Lord.

In Hebrew it reads, Oh Yaweh, our Adonai.

Why is God’s personal name all capitalized?

Video

YHWH is God’s personal name.

Gerald Wilson, “the divine name recognizes that Yahweh is the God who is and continues to be. (Psalms, 120)

When Moses asked God, when I come to the people of Israel and tell them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, “What is his name? What shall I say to them?

Ex 3:14 “God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ””

The fact that is Yahweh is the God who is and continues to be gives me great comfort and encouragement because I know he is unchangeable and reliable. Nothing will move him and nothing can stop him from keeping his promises to his people.

Mal 3:6 “6 “For I the LORD (YHWH) do not change.

Gerald Wilson, Psalms Commentary

It is the name Yahweh, with all its attendant mystery and revelation about the nature of Israel’s God, that the psalmist of Psalm 8 pronounces “majestic.” It is a majestic name for a majestic God, who promises to be with us, continues to reveal himself to us in each and every new circumstance, and yet remains forever beyond our power to control or manipulate to our own purpose.

The second thing that I learn about the greatness of God is,

God displays his great glory in creation

Ps 8:1 You have set your glory above the heavens.”

Ps 8:3 “3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,”

Tim Keller illustrates God’s power at work in the following way.

If our galaxy (the Milky Way) was the size of North America, then our entire solar system would be the size of a coffee cup. The earth would be just barely visible as a kind of speck in the coffee cup. We know the Milky Way is one of at least a hundred billion galaxies we can see, and the universe might be way bigger than what we can see.

When Tim Keller was a young Christian a camp in Colorado, he heard a Bible teacher say,

...if the distance between the earth and the sun (93 million miles) was the thickness of a piece of paper, then the distance between the earth and just the nearest star would be a stack of papers 70 feet high. The distance between the earth and the end of just our galaxy would be a stack of papers 310 miles high.

No wonder David declares in Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

How you make sense of the universe and everything that is in it? There is no way that this is all random. There is gotta be a creator.

When a child looks at the stars and the moon, they ask, who made all this? There is something in us that understands that there is a creator.

David begins Psalm 8 with worship and concludes Psalm 8 with worship because he is in awe of who God is.

Yawning at Tigers: You Can’t Tame God, So Stop Trying by Drew Dyck

But for the most part we neither tremble in fear nor thrill with excitement at the prospect of encountering [God]. Instead our church experiences are largely predictable and sedate. Our spiritual lives are devoid of passion. Yes, we believe, but often our knowledge of God is dry and cerebral. We give mere mental assent to truths that should leave us shaking. We mumble perfunctory prayers.Even when we see evidence of God in our midst, when we glimpse his holiness, we’re more likely to yawn than yell. Somehow we’ve succeeded in making the strange ordinary.

Why are we so [sedated and numb]? What’s behind our lack of reverence, fear, and awe? I think it’s simple. We’ve forgotten how big God is.

Worship is a response to the greatness of God. Therefore, our worship must begin with an understanding of who God is.

The goodness of God

We see the goodness of God...

God is mindful and cares about you and me.

Ps 8:3-4 “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?”

David now switches his focus from the greatness of God in heaven to the goodness of God on earth, specially toward humans who, in contrast to the vast universe, are small. We see the goodness of an infinite God caring for finite humans.

Humans ask, “Does anybody see me? does anybody care about me?” God says, “I do. I see you. I’ve known you since you were in your mother’s womb.”

God is mindful and cares about you and me. Why? What makes humans so different from the rest of creation?

We God’s goodness in the fact that,

God gives humans worth and dignity

The reason why you have worth and dignity is because God has given you the honor of being created in the image of God.

Ps 8:5 “5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

The Hebrew word for heavenly beings is the Hebrew word Elohim which is the word translated God.

Humans are created in the image of God.

Genesis 1:26-27 “26 Then God [Elohim] said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God (Elohim) created man in his own image, in the image of God (Elohim) he created him; male and female he created them.”

The Bible gives us the proper perspective on human worth and dignity. Evolution concludes that humans are simply one step above the animals, but the Bible declares that we are created a little lower than God and his angels and thus crowned with glory and honor. In other words, God gives every human worth and dignity.

Can we agree with this?

The baby inside his/her mother’s womb. You cannot dismember the unborn because they too have worth and dignity for they are created in the image of God.

The young child and his parents trying to cross the border. They are made in the image of God.

We oppose human trafficking. Humans are not products to be exploited. Humans are created in the image of God.

We oppose senicide, the killing of an elderly person because no human ever loses their worth and dignity based on what they “contribute to society”

We oppose genocide, the killing of an ethnic group because they too bear the image of God. No skin color is superior nor inferior.

We oppose the slavery and the lynching of black humans because they are created in the image of God.

Every single person has worth and value, whether in the womb or outside the womb. Regardless of their gender, age or skin color, or disability, every single human has worth and dignity because they bear the image of God. No human being is a burden or expandable.

We also see the goodness of God in the fact that

God commissions humans as rulers over his creation

One of the implications of being created in the image of God is that we are commissioned by God to rule and to have dominion over his creation.

Ps 8:6-8 “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.”

Friends, we don’t live in the world of Genesis 2 anymore. We live in a Genesis 3 world marred by death and sin.

The apostle Paul states in Romans 8:20 that creation was subjected to futility because Adam and Eve relinquished their right to rule (sin was introduced).

Is there hope? Can the fall and the curse be reversed? Can death be defeated and paradise restored once again?

The Bible gives a resounding yes! Psalm 8 is about Jesus.

Hebrews 2:5-9 “5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 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 first Adam introduced sin and death. Jesus the second Adam introduces salvation and life.

In Psalm 8 we see the story of the gospel.

The majestic Creator of the universe came down to our world in order to show us his goodness by rescuing us from sin trough his death and resurrection.

The difference between all the world religions and Christianity can be summarized in the following way:

Religion says DO. The gospel message says DONE.

No wonder David concludes Psalm 8 with the words,

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”