Psalm 8: Humble Praise

Intro

Introductions

Picture of Pale Blue Dot

Guess what it is

Could it be a hair in a microscope?

Maybe a small bug?

A picture of a dark sea

Grandma’s Thumb over the Christmas picture?

That’s actually earth (Show Arrow)

Taken in 1989 from 3.7 Billion miles from the earth

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturing’s, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

Sagan was an atheist, but even from a Christian worldview this photo Raises uncomfortable questions

Why would a God who is so immense and powerful and omnipresent and phenomenal pay attention to something so small?

How do we wrestle with the uncomfortable reality of how insignificant we are compared with the magnitude of the love demonstrated to us

The answer according to the Psalms is praise

Acknowledge the wonder of God, understand our size, accept the love he showed – Praise.

Lewis said “A lack of praise is a lack of reality” – How does praise shape our reality?

Praise Reminds us who God is (v. 1-2)

English Standard Version Psalm 8

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.

Open every moment with praise

Similar to Lord’s Prayer

Good habit for us - Begin moment with prayer and each prayer with praise

Even when things are going well

Story of Gifts from Grandparents

Dr. Matthew C. Bryant - “Seek God’s Face rather than his hand”

Keeping this habit in times of plenty will help in times of stress

Remind yourself the one to whom you are praying and prayer will come so much more naturally, joyfully, and peacefully

Keller story of woman who prayed better when opening with praise

God opposes the proud (v. 2)

“Uses infants to silence the avengers” references those who are dependent and recognize their helplessness opposing the enemy and avenger, the ones who stand up for themselves and seek their own honor

The phrase infants refers to those who are dependent for survival

Kaitlyn’s Post about Brooks - “Christmas is different from the perspective of a mother. Looking at a newborn & thinking that God chose to enter the world this way, physically dependent on a woman & fully exposed to the human experience at its most vulnerable.”

Psalms shows us that God uses those who acknowledge our dependence on God the way that an infant is dependent on their mother to provide everything that sustains and protects them

The “Enemy and Avenger” refer to what Scholar Robert Alter refers to as the Inhuman forces of chaos and destruction which lead people to rebel and claim their own authority

This is why praise is so important - Failing to Praise is praising yourself

Spiritual Plagiarism - “Cosmic ingratitude is living the illusion that you are spiritually self-sufficient. It is taking credit for something that was a gift.”

Failing to praise God is an act of pride

Uses the humble to shame the proud

English Standard Version Chapter 1

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

2. Praise Reminds us who We are (vv. 3-4)

English Standard Version Psalm 8

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?

important to the context.

psalm 3-7 are all written in times of fear and struggle

Common phrase among millennials and younger – Existential Dread

Fortune Cookie – “If you’re struggling in life, it’s important to remember. Nobody really cares.”

2018 NYT Article points out a connection between the increase in knowledge and an increase in suicides

Acknowledged by other worldviews

Secularists – Make a more comfortable experience for yourself and others

Post-Modernism (the idea that truth isn’t knowable) – Create your own meaning

Both ultimately end without hope

Acknowledged by errant branches of false Christianity

Mormonism – You are also a god

Word of Faith/Prosperity – You have godlike powers. You are god.

Both ultimately lead to either an arrogance that leads to corruption or disillusionment with the reality of a broken world and feeble humans

How do we deal with the painful realization of how small and insignificant we are? - We turn to praise

We acknowledge that though undeserved the greatest possible being, the creator and sustainer of all, the one who formed the vast expanse of the universe and is supremely and ultimately transcendent, is also passionately and intimately here and with you

God is both wise and sovereign above his creation and near to you and loves you

God is both objective and just and righteous and holy beyond comprehension and merciful and compassionate and understanding of our condition

God chooses to build relationship with us

According to Theologian Millard Erickson His Transcendence reminds us “There is something higher than human beings. Goodness, truth, and value are not determined by human opinion. There is something that gives us value from above.”

3. Praise Reminds us what we have been given (vv. 5-9)

English Standard Version Psalm 8

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!

Key Words

“YET” – Turning point of the passage

Crisis to Contentment

“You Have” – All of this comes from God (3things)

We have been GIVEN value (v. 5)

David would have understood this better - Honor/Shame culture – All glory comes from the group, not of yourself

We have a self-esteem culture - We create and claim our own honor

Remember the “You have”

Our Glory and Honor do not come from ourselves

Man’s glory is futile

Proverbs 25:27 – it is dishonorable to seek your own honor

God ascribes us value/ we don’t decide or earn our value

We do not get to decide anyone else’s value

Each person has been given honor and glory from God

We do not decide based on anyone’s actions or decisions or culture or anything else their level of honor. They have been given honor from God

We have been given a Role (vv. 6-8)

God has given us dominion over creation

Genesis 1:26 – His image is dominion

He as king has shared his authority and made us ambassadors over creation. The go between for heaven and earth

WE have not earned this role; God has given it to us

Keller says it this way – “Living with care for the land and sea and air and all who live there and doing justice for every human being stamped with his image brings God glory.”

WE don’t have to look farther than Washington, D.C. to see what happens when you give mankind his own authority.

Problem with figuring out power is mankind can’t handle power when we forget where it comes from.

It’s not just absolute power that corrupts but any power that we think we earned or built for ourselves

God gave us power and the first thing we did was use it for our advantage.

WE were given an honorable position of representation and we have failed

We constantly abuse the earth and each other

We have a natural bent to please ourselves at others expense

We have not done well

Adds more to the crisis of God’s love. Not only are we insignificant, we have royally destroyed our tiny pale blue dot for the sake of our own passing pleasures.

How can a God who oversees the vast expanse of the universe give his failed dust monkeys a second thought?

He gave us value and we defaced it. He gave us a role and we abused it. But he also gave us one more thing.

We have been given a Savior

English Standard Version Chapter 2

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.

10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

This is the Gospel

We were given glory and abused it

Christ through suffering received glory and victory

He freely offers it to us

Conclusion

How can a God that is so high above all, pay any attention and let alone love something as small and insignificant and corruptible as humankind?

Christ has come and restored honor and victory and offers us a spot on a winning team.

How do we respond?

Praise always

TO remind us who God is

To remind us who we are

And to remind us what we have been given

Application

See we are all in different places.

Maybe 2021was good to you, maybe it was fruitful, and you are stepping into 2022 with great optimism and in a good place.

Don’t forget where that gift came from. Don’t forget who you are. Be sure to begin this year acknowledging your place in the universe and the grace you’ve been given. Seek the face of the one who has given you every good gift.

Maybe 2021 was even harder for you than 2020. Maybe you’re stepping into to 2022 with great anxiety about your health, or finances, or your family connections, or your next steps, or just feeling the stress of the conflict and pain we’ve been in over the last 2 years.

Remember that all of these problems are in the midst of a fleeting world and God offers a hope beyond your pain and circumstances. That the God of the universe knows you and is suffering with you and are working to redeem all things.

Maybe this is your first time in a Church in a while and you came looking to start the year off right or this is your 70th year attending Church and you’ve hardly missed a week.

Good for you, I challenge you: continue to worship. Start every week remember the realities of Scripture and placing yourself in the perspective of the God who loves you.

Maybe you have never felt the hope I’m telling you now. Maybe you’re here because the overwhelming existential dread is catching up to you and something just felt like Church could help.

The way we can help is to show you that you are loved. That you are not alone. That The God of the universe gave himself up so that you have a hope of something greater than you and that you have a purpose beyond this pale blue dot.

Whatever your situation is on this pale blue dot and however the Spirit is leading you, I desperately pray that you will begin every moment with Prayer and every Prayer with Praise