Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

This Sunday, November 14th at the conclusion of our Sunday AM Worship Service, we’re planning on taking the Lord’s Supper together.

I’m reminding those of you that will be there to take time over the weekend to prepare your hearts for communion.

Repent of sins and come to the table in a way that is worthy of the sacrificial atonement that he made for you on the cross.

On Wednesday, November 24th, we’ll have a love feast in lieu of our normal Bible Study & Prayer time.

This will look like a normal dinner time followed by the Lord’s Supper.

The meal for that night is taken care of, but we could utilize some help with desserts.

If you’re willing to help with desserts, please speak with Natalie as soon as possible.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the Lord through your giving.

To help you give, we have three ways for you to do so: (1) you can give in-person at the offering box at the entrance: checks should be written to Grace & Peace; and if you’d like a receipt for your cash gifts, please slip it into an envelope with your name on it; debit, credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by (2) texting the number 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or (3) by visiting us online at graceandpeacepa.com and selecting “giving” in the menu bar.

Everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Sermon

Introduction

Our passage for this evening is Psalm 8, which is a shorter psalm of David that simply praises God for what all he has done.

It might be somewhat familiar to you, it’s one of my favorite psalms because of its high emphasis on simply praising God.

Like many of the other Psalms, the time period that psalm 8 is written is unknown to us—we don’t really know when it was written or where it was written or even, what the circumstances that surrounded it were.

We just know that David wrote this psalm as a psalm to praise God for who he is and what God has done.

The superscription of the psalm, tells us that it was written “to the choirmaster: according to the Gittith.

A Psalm of David.”

Much like the previous psalms that we’ve worked through, we don’t really know what a “Gittith” is.

Most scholars tend to think that the Gittith is a musical term of some sort, but beyond knowing that it is a musical term, we have no knowledge of what type of musical term it is.

What we do know, from the superscription is quite simple—it is written by David, it was sent to the choirmaster (so we can assume that it was meant to be sang by a choir) and it’s musical in some manner or another.

What we know from the text itself, is that David is reflecting on God’s creation and it is this reflection on God’s creation that causes him to well up in praise and worship.

Let’s read Psalm 8 together.

As we study this passage together, we’re going to break it into three parts: (1) Vs. 1 & 9, which I know is a little unusual to do, but what you’ll see as we study this passage is that David says a similar statement in both verses to bookend the psalm together.

Or in other words, David is utilizing vs. 1 & 9 to encapsulate all of Psalm 8 with its theme and the theme of Psalm 8 is simple, it is all about The Majesty of God.

(2) Vs.

2-3, shows us God’s glory as seen in Creation, and (3) Vs. 4-8, shows us Man’s Position in God’s Creation.

All of Psalm 8 should cause us to praise and glorify the Lord in our present world as we reflect on his majesty, his creation, and the position that he has placed us in.

Prayer for Illumination

The Majesty of God (1, 9)

Psalm 8 begins and ends with very similar statements that are meant to wrap up or tie together the entire chapter.

To help us see the connections, I wanted us to focus on these verses simultaneously, Vs. 1, “O LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens” and Vs. 9, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.”

The first four words seen in both verses is O LORD, our Lord, which might sound a bit repetitive, but remember that anytime you see the word LORD in all capital letters, there’s a specific reason for it.

Whenever you see the word lord in all capital letters, the Bible is translating a specific word that actually differs to the second use of Lord that’s not in all capital letters.

Whenever you see the word LORD in all capital letters, the Bible is translating the personal name of God, which means that whenever you see the word LORD in all capital letters, the Bible is translating God’s name, which is Yahweh.

Whenever you see the word Lord in the Old Testament not in capital letters, the Bible is translating the Hebrew word adonai, which is the generic word for master, lord, or God.

Literally, what we see here is David calling God by name and claiming God to be his master.

“O Yahweh, our adonai,” “O Yahweh, our master, our lord, our God.”

This shows us what David considers the relationship between God and man to be like and it shows us the relationship that David had with God.

God is the master, he is the lord, he is truly God.

David isn’t and he is clear on his position before God.

He’s also clear on what his relationship with God is as well.

Yahweh is very much the personal name of God.

It isn’t a name to be uttered lightly, in fact, we’re warned to be sure that we don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.

And yet, we’re also told that his people can call him by name.

David in saying “O Yahweh, our God” makes it clear who he’s speaking to, he makes it clear what the relationship between him and God is like, and inadvertently, he keys us into what type of psalm or poem this is.

It is a personal psalm written by a man for God in which his focus is on God himself, which is why this psalm begins and ends in the same manner.

“O Lord, our Lord.

How majestic is your name in all the earth!”

The word majestic might be a bit unfamiliar to you because we don’t typically utilize the word today, so let’s get a good definition of what majestic means.

According to Oxford Languages, Majestic means “having or showing impressive beauty or dignity.”

The noun form of the word can be defined as “impressive stateliness, dignity, or beauty.

And that can be seen in the different English translations of Psalm 8.

ESV, NASB, and NIV all translate this “How majestic is your name”

The KJV translates this “How excellent is thy name”

The CSB translates this “How magnificent is your name”

Each translation is attempting to quantify something that’s totally unquantifiable, we can’t express how excellent, majestic, or magnificent God’s name is, we can simply proclaim the majesties of his name.

And David, says that God’s name is majestic in all the earth; or we can say it this way, “O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills all the earth.”

Now you might hear that and you might wonder, “how exactly does a name fill all the earth?”

Or “What makes his name majestic?”

In our modern sense of what a name is, we consider someone’s name just an identifier of who they are—my preferred name is Daniel, but not everyone calls me Daniel, some call me Dan, and some call me pastor; and in each case, those words just identify me from someone else.

In the Ancient Near East, the idea of a name is far greater than just an identifying word to differentiate someone from someone else.

In the Ancient Near East, when they utilize the word name they’re not just talking about a word that identifies someone, they’re talking about that person’s standing, reputation, fame—everything about that person.

So, very literally, David is making the statement that God’s standing, his reputation, his fame, everything about him fills all the earth.

Conversely, because God’s standing, reputation, fame, and everything about him fills the earth, the creation itself proclaims his glory (as Psalm 19 states).

God’s majestic name fills the earth, but David is quick to point out that God’s filling of all the earth with his name doesn’t negate God’s transcendence.

Or in other words, God’s name fills the earth, but God is still exalted above all creation.

David says it like this, “You have set your glory above the heavens.”

Occasionally, we focus so much on God’s desire to have a relationship with each and every believer that we neglect God’s transcendence.

We’re blessed in that the Creator of all things wants to commune with us, but the truth is that God is still above us.

We’re blessed that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords wants to have an intimate relationship with us, but much like David, we need to recognize that God is still God.

His name fills the earth, but God himself is still exalted above all creation.

David expounds on God’s transcendence in Vs. 2-3, let’s re-read those verses:

God’s Glory seen in Creation (2-3)

Vs. 2 starts in an unusual way, “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.”

I say that it’s unusual because it seems as if David starts with one thought and completely changes gears multiple times.

He starts by talking of babies and infants and it seems as if he completely changes topics because he jumps to the strength of foes and enemies and avengers.

So, let’s slow down and take a closer look at this.

If we take a closer look at this verse (and pay a little attention to its grammar) I think we’ll understand it significantly better.

It’s easy to read this verse and think that the babies and infants are the subject of the verse, but in reality “out of the mouth of babies and infants” is a prepositional phrase.

This means that the subject of the verse actually starts after that phrase.

The subject is “You,” which refers to Yahweh; and the verb is established.

Keeping that in mind, what David is writing is that Yahweh has established strength because of his enemies for the purpose of stilling the enemy and the avenger.

And Yahweh has done this out of babies’ and infants’ mouths.

Or put another way as 1 Corinthians says, God has utilized the weak to confound the strong.

The issue that you might see in this, is that the verse itself might still be confusing to you.

You might read it and think “how does God establish strength through the mouths of babies and infants?”

Babies and infants aren’t actually strong, so this verse must mean something other than babies and infants being physically strong.

So, let me posit an idea concerning this verse.

Consider the fact that this is poetry; meaning, that the author is following a poetic writing style, which might not always put the words in order or it might seem as if a word is missing because the author is trying to adhere to a certain poem style.

In this case, I think we can determine the meaning of the text by understanding strength as being God’s strength.

With that in mind, the verse would then mean that that out of the mouth of babies and infants, God’s strength has been established.

Which brings up another issue—God’s strength comes from him alone, not from his creation; so, how does a baby establish God’s strength?

We can solve that issue by looking at all the different meanings of the word established.

According to Oxford languages:

“set up on a firm or permanent basis”

“achieve . . .