How Majestic Is Your Name

6 · The pastor expounds Psalm 8:3, focusing on the vastness of creation as a testimony to God's majesty

Next thing we see David shows us is God's creation itself is majestic. Now he's already alluded to this at the beginning, that the whole earth sings and chants to the majesty of God. But now he delves into greater detail. The sweep of God's majesty is shown as David looks at it and considers just the sheer vastness of the universe. You see it in verse 3: 'When I look at your heavens, when I look at the moon and the stars,' there's this sense of just being overwhelmed. David, you can just picture him sitting there in a palace in Jerusalem and just looking up. And it just keeps going. And there's no end. And he senses this is vast. Now this is hard for us to do in a city. You go outside at night in the city and there's all sorts of ambient light. You've got streetlights all over the place. It's hard to get a real sense of the galaxy in the sky. I remember A few years back, I went with a group of guys up to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. So you go up to this place and it's this series, this chain of lakes that are all over the place. You can't have any motorized boats, so you have to canoe and portage your way in. You're literally tens, if not maybe even 100 miles, I don't know how far it is, you're a long ways away from the closest source of electricity and electric light. So on our way in, we got in and the first day we did like 16 miles of canoeing and portaging. To the place we were staying, and we got there and we had this awesome campsite on this huge lake that was 4 miles across. So we set up our camp, we got done, we ate supper, and that night there was this huge boulder that was right above the water. We could use it for swimming and all sorts of stuff. And that night we went out, we set our sleeping bags on the boulder, and we just looked up. There's no light to diminish the glory of the heavens. It's just huge and vast and filled with stars. And the next morning we got up, and because you're out in the wilderness you get up early. We went back on that boulder and we saw the sunrise. And we opened to this Psalm and we read it together and we worshiped. How do you not When you see God's stars, when you see the sun in that sort of context.

7 · The pastor delivers detailed astronomical data (the Milky Way's 200-400 billion stars, Andromeda's 2

But even free from the hum of city lights, we didn't fully grasp the enormity of the heavens. I did a little research into this in preparation. The Milky Way galaxy— so think our galaxy, not the candy bar— the Milky Way consists of 350 discovered planets. So 350 planets, and Earth is actually a little bit on the smaller side. 350, and it's estimated, there's so many they can't even really count it, that there's between 200 and 400 billion, billion with a B, stars in just our galaxy. Just the Milky Way. Andromeda is the Milky Way's closest neighbor as far as galaxies go. However, by close, we're talking it's 2.5 billion light years away from the edge of the Milky Way. And 1 light year, you know, 2.5 billion light years, that sounds like a lot. Well, get this, 1 light year is 5.87 trillion miles. So take 5.87 trillion miles and multiply it by 2.5 billion, and you get a sense of how far away our closest neighbor is in the universe. And that next-door neighbor, Andromeda, contains 1 trillion stars to our 400 billion. And those are just two examples. Astronomers estimate that there are over 100 billion galaxies. Wrap your mind around that. There's a website called scaleofuniverse.com I found. And it's got this amazing— you just, you take this little scroll and you can go up to the highest size and it shows you just the immensity of the largest objects in the universe, all the way down to the smallest things. Like things I don't even know what they're talking about. It's like dwarf quarts and all these weird things. I'm like, what is that? But you just, you keep getting smaller and smaller and you're looking at like a grain of sand. And the grain of sand is seriously like only a third of the way to the smallest stuff. You get to like large viruses, which are way smaller than bacteria, and you're still like not even close to the smallest stuff. You get to electrons and neutrons and you're like, oh my goodness. And then you start going the other way and it shows you the dinosaurs, it shows you the St. Louis Arch, and it shows you the Earth and the Sun and the distance of the Earth to the Sun, and it shows you Saturn. Get this, Saturn is so light in density, if you had a pool that was big enough, it would float. The universe is enormous, and God has set his glory above the heavens. David looks up at the night sky and he marvels at the majesty of the God who created, and David has no idea how big it really is. He doesn't have any concept, but God Who inspired the awe, who whispers the words of this psalm to David, He knows. He knows perfectly well what He's ordaining David to write. Yes, David, my glory is above the heavens, above the 350 planets of this galaxy, galaxy, above the 2.5 billion light years to Andromeda and its 1 trillion stars, above the 100 billion galaxies that humans will one day hypothesize exist. My majesty is above all of it, infinitely above all of it. And then he really blows our minds. David reflects on all that and he says, 'It's the work of your fingers.' God's not straining to create all that. It's just sort of pinky work. I'm just kind of fiddling, playing a little thing on my desk, and— boom! Oh, look at that! Wow! A universe! 46 billion light years! Oh, look at that, just kind of spoke it into existence. Now I just kind of take like a basketball and spin it on my finger. There it goes. I kind of make it expand and I do cool things with it. And way in the middle of it, there's this little tiny planet and this little kind of insignificant average solar system with a little average sun. And this planet, there's like this thing I call dry land. It's really cool. I made it separate from the waters. It's really kind of fun. And on that land, there's like, there's huge creatures and there's little tiny things. And there's this thing called man. Whew! There's this little thing called man. You, man, consider my majesty. Consider my glory. Consider that even the vastness of the heavens fall short of fully encompassing My majesty. And when David considers that, when we consider that in contrast, he writes verse 3: When I look at your heavens, at 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? The first thing David shows us as he transitions to the second part of the psalm is that in comparison to that, man is trivial. Man is small. The majesty of God properly rightly humbles man's vanity. That's meant to make a claim upon you. When you consider the majesty of God in the ways that He's shown us, considering the majesty of God and His name and the things that that name has accomplished, considering the majesty of God and His power, considering the majesty of God in the finger work that He does with this massive universe, it is meant to take your pride and throw it in the dust. In the face of all this, there is no room for foolish exaltation of humanity. There's no room to believe like the Mormons do that someday all of us sitting in this room, we can achieve godhood. We can rule our own universes. Are you kidding me? You think you, sitting in that little chair that's like 2.5 feet wide, are someday going to grow the capacity to rule a universe billions of light years in distance? And it shows us the emptiness of New Age belief. Beliefs about man's unlimited potential. When we consider the stars, and especially the God whose glory goes behind them, we know our limitations. We know our finiteness. We know our createdness. There was once a time when we were not, but there has never been a time when he was not. And knowing that, that's not a mean thing. That's a revelation of grace. Psalm 8 reminds us, reminds me, in the midst of all my temptation to self-centeredness, I am dependent. That everything I know in this world, everything I know, everything I've ever learned, everything I've ever observed, everything is constructed by God and centered in God. It's not all about me. It's all about Him. How can it be all about me? I'm so inconsequential in light of all this. It has to be about Him. If it was about anyone else, if He was working for the glory of anything else, it would be just utterly foolish idolatry. Why would it be all about that little 150, 200-pound bundle of cells. We are small in comparison to God, but that's where grace reveals even more of God's majesty. The question, what is man? It crushes our vanity. It also opens us up to something of immense significance. What is man in light of all that? Well, God, for all His majesty and greatness, for all His transcendence and sovereign power, David says, is mindful of us. God doesn't just remember us on our tiny little planet in our average galaxy. Verse 4 says the God who is above these enormous heavens, who is greater than it all, cares for us. Derek Kidner, helpful commentator on the Psalms, reminds us in commenting on this Psalm of something Isaiah discovered in his book. That when Isaiah considered the enormity of the universe, yes, it made him feel rightfully small. But it wasn't just that, wow, it's so big and God's so transcendent and it blows my mind how big it is. Kidner says the point isn't to show us God's remoteness. That He's like way, way, way out there above the heavens. He's billions of light years away. You're never getting to Him. The point is to show us His eye for detail. That He planned no meaningless and empty universe, but a home for His family. In other words, He's given us way more square footage than we can ever use. Listen to how Isaiah puts it: Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these— He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, By the greatness of His might and because He is so strong in power, not one is missing. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. And He gives power to the faint. He takes all of that enormity And He serves the faint-hearted. Isaiah 45:18, 'For thus says the Lord who created the heavens, He is God, who formed the earth and made it, He established it. He did not create it empty, He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord and there is no other. I am the Lord and there is no other.' I am your Lord. I am your Sovereign God. And I've created all of this because I wanted to make it huge. And I wanted it to have all sorts of detail so that you would have a home. Isaiah 51:16, and I put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundation of the earth and saying to Zion, You are my people. And it's here that we see the same majesty that humbles us also elevates our dignity.

8 · The pastor signals the shift from the humbling effect of God's majesty to its elevating effect on human dignity

And it's here that we see the same majesty that humbles us also elevates our dignity.

9 · The pastor expounds Psalm 8:5-8, emphasizing humanity's unique position as image-bearers crowned with glory and honor and given dominion over creation

Man is dignified by position. When we consider all of God's majesty that's been described in the psalm, it humbles us, but it also rightly, stripping away our pride, elevates us. Verse 5: 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. That finger work. You've 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 sea. It's an echo of Genesis 1 and 2, specifically Genesis 1:26-28, it's echoing the glory of what's happening in those opening chapters. That God has created it all. And David wants to remember, it's not just I'm thinking, 'Oh, God created it. Cool. Like the ground I'm standing on.' No, God, He created it all. And that humbles me that He created it all. But it also is this amazing thought that He created it all. And at the end of that creation, He created a man. And He took a rib out of that man and He created a woman. And male and female, they bore the image of God. Humanity is the high point of all creation. Even as small and frail as we are. For all our dependency, God also makes us image bearers. He installs us as His representatives in creation. And so the Sovereign One who sits enthroned above the heavens enthrones us with dominion as His vice-regents. Rule in My name. Psalm 8 is an extravagant balance of glory and grace. On the one hand, God shakes us from the idolatry of self-exaltation. I'm so important because my car is so big and my rims are so shiny. No, you're not. He frees us from the idolatry of worshiping ourselves. And at the same time, on the other hand, He reminds us there's a way greater privilege to bear His image. He reminds us that there's no greater dignity in all creation than that which He has given to humankind.

10 · The pastor uses two cultural references—superhero movies (Wolverine vs

I like superhero movies. Some of them can be a little bit too cheesy. Some of the Spider-Man ones, not so much my cup of tea. Anything to do with Wolverine, a hairy dude that has claws come out of his hands, that's pretty cool. Kind of gets me excited. We're wrong if we think it would be cooler to be Wolverine. Your imagination is not better than God's. The people sitting in this room are far more glorious, far more reflective of the image of God, than any concept of a superhero the human mind can make up. We make up those concepts because we want to imagine ourselves more like God. But there's no reason to do it. It's not creation that receives the highest glory. You ever seen those DVDs, Planet Earth? It was on the Discovery Channel a while back. It's like an 11-part series that just goes into amazing detail. You have to really see it in high definition with surround sound. You sit there and it's like, 'Ah, I just spent an hour watching pictures of the ocean. And it was cool! Like, I was entertained!' And people watch it and they think, 'Wow!' Amazing! That was so incredible! That pales in comparison to the glory of humanity. Male and female made in the Creator's image. 11-part series on planet Earth. And God says, 'Well, I guess that's an okay summary.' But guess what's even cooler? There's way more to it than that 11-part series. And I have made you rulers over it. I've put you in dominion over it. Creation is a great display of God's majesty, and His gracious condescension is to commission mankind to become partakers and managers and stewards and image bearers of all that glory the glory that we see.

11 · The pastor applies the theology of human dignity from Psalm 8 to contemporary ethical issues: human cloning, murder, abortion, slavery, and sex trafficking

And that says volumes about the ethics of things like human cloning. It says volumes about the evil, the horrible evil of murder. Our society is confused. It kind of gets more revved up about animals being put to death than humans. There's something wrong in that. There's something inherently, fundamentally wrong. Now, don't be brutish to an innocent animal. You don't torture animals. That's not what it is to extend the goodness of God's rule and dominion. But don't confuse it. I had a good friend. He studied abroad in France for a summer. Really, he just wanted to have a long vacation for the summer and made it into an excuse he was taking a French class. But he told me this conversation and we were just flabbergasted by it. This girl who was just utterly relativistic in her thinking and completely denied any sense of God or that there's something unique and special about humanity. And he was talking with her and discussing, and he says, 'Okay, let me give you a scenario.' And he's kind of a quirky dude anyway, so this would be kind of in keeping with who he is. He says, 'Okay, you've got two tubes,' and you have to imagine Andy, like this is just the way he thinks. 'Two tubes, and in each tube you've got a human being in one and a puppy in the other. And the two tubes are right there, and you can only save either the human being or the puppy. And you gotta push the button. Who are you gonna save?' He's doing this to help her see, like, 'You know there's something special about the human being.' And she sat there and she said, 'I don't know. I can't choose.' There's something wrong with that. Psalm 8 tells us there's something confused in failing to see abortion. Those little babies that God says he can conquer the earth with, as nothing more than a bundle of cells. There's something wrong with knowing there's more slavery practiced today than any time in human history and not caring. That sex trafficking is rampant. Little girls as young as 12 years old get taken and ripped from their homes. Why should you care? Because that little baby and that little girl, they are the image of God.

12 · The pastor applies the royal commission of humanity (dominion over creation) to vocational faithfulness across diverse callings

And it also speaks volumes on the other side. It speaks volumes about the great privilege all people, every person has to be faithful in this royal commission. The first 40 books of the book of Psalms, the first 40 Psalms, have a very royal theme to them, a very royal tenor. And this is no different. It's just going to creation and saying, you know what creation is about? It's about our God, the King, creating and then saying, you're going to be my governors over this world that I've created. So go out, I commission you as your king. Go out throughout all the land and rule. 'Extend my rule, extend the goodness of my rule. Let people see it and experience it. Let them know that I am King and that my kingdom is a blessing.' It means there is dignity, reflected majesty in the scientist laboring for years who will one day discover quote-unquote, the next galaxy. There's dignity in that. But there's also dignity in the 7th grade teacher who first captured the imagination of the young boy who would become that scientist. There's dignity in my grandfather's hands, these gnarled, almost deformed, just They've been through so much, these hands that have carried 5-pound buckets of feed in freezing temperature and in hot days, who vaccinated hundreds of pigs, and now he's way into his 80s and those hands are just gnarled and the knuckles are just all funky looking. There's dignity in that. And there's reflected majesty in the chemist who sits in a lab and designs the vaccinations. There's potential for faithful image-bearing in the president who wields the sword to restrain evil and prevent chaos according to the Sovereign One's good pleasure. God ordains that the government would have the sword to do that. There's dignity in serving in those roles. And there is quiet significance in the mother. Who first taught the President to write His name, that will now sign all of those laws. Solmate reminds us there is more of God's signature in the human cell than in all the celestial bodies. More of God's signature in humanity than in all the heavens.

13 · The pastor signals a shift by acknowledging that Psalm 8:2's reference to 'the enemy' and 'the avenger' points beyond the creation glory of Genesis 1-2 to the fall and humanity's failure to live up to its calling

But verse 2 also whispers a reluctant nod to what comes right after Genesis 1 and 2. Psalm 8 isn't just a story of glory created. It also reminds us that this reflected glory was tainted. It speaks of the enemy. The avenger. The opponent of this glorious God.

14 · The pastor exposes the tragic disconnect between Psalm 8's vision of humanity crowned with glory and the reality of human fallenness

And that's where we see this psalm correctly, only when we see it in light of Jesus. The final point is this: humble majesty. What happens when humanity considers itself rightly? It's rightly humbled and rightly sees itself as majestic, bearing God's image. That humble majesty is perfected in Jesus. There's a tragic disconnect between the triumphant joy of verses 5-9— crowned with glory, given dominion, ruling over everything you see, bearing My name— there's a tragic disconnect between that and what we experience in the world, isn't there? The enemy. That avenger in verse 2, he successfully twisted our gaze inward. Instead of looking up like David and then saying, 'Oh, to be a man, to be a king after your own heart, the God of the heavens,' he gets twisted inward and he starts doing things far below what he's meant to do. So men and women no longer live for the majesty of their Creator. We start to seek our own dominion and our own glory. Is there a greater confirmation of this? Is there a greater indictment than the fact that the astronomer, the one who gazes into the vastness with these massive telescopes, looking farther than any man has ever looked before, that that person sees the vastness night after night, but is deaf to the thunderous chant of the majesty of God. He concludes instead it's the product of randomness, the product of chance. The scientist still wants to believe in a reason for human dignity, still wants to believe that there's a reason why murder is evil, But in his blindness, the telescope merely testifies that you're puny and inconsequential. By removing God from the equation, we are left to delude ourselves into thinking that we matter at all. That's a true statement. If you really believe there is no God, Why do you feel outrage when a gunman slaughters children? Why do you feel outrage that a bundle of cells just stops living and now decomposes and enters into the circle of life? You feel outrage because as much as you want to mute it, God testifies otherwise. Psalm 8 bears unfortunate witness to just how far short humanity falls from achieving what we're called to in this passage.

15 · The pastor introduces Hebrews 2:6-10 as the Holy Spirit's authoritative interpretation of Psalm 8, showing that the psalm's vision of humanity finds its fulfillment in Jesus

And this is where the author of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, brings an even deeper sense of awe into the discussion. Listen to how he interprets the significance of this psalm. Hebrews 2. It has been testified somewhere— Psalm 8— what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You have made him a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, 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 see everything in subjection to him, 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. 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. Did you see that the first time you read the psalm? Thank you, Holy Spirit. The author of Hebrews correctly takes the general descriptions of all mankind and applies them directly to one man. He can do this because Jesus is the fulfillment of all the hopes expressed in Psalm 8. He is the fulfillment of every hope expressed in every page of the Bible. Jesus is the fulfillment of everything God hoped humanity would be. He is the perfect man. He's the only one who lives up to this huge calling to reflect majesty, to extend dominion, to be crowned with glory. We'd be hard-pressed to find a place where the true majesty of the Incarnation is set down in such awesome detail than when Hebrews meditates on Psalm 8.

16 · The pastor develops the awe of the Incarnation by recalling the earlier exposition of cosmic vastness: the One seated in glory above the 46-billion-light-year universe humbled Himself to inhabit human flesh

Think back to everything we said earlier about the galaxy, right? About the universe beyond our galaxy. The One who is seated in glory far beyond and above the 46 billion light-year radius of the universe, that One has come to dwell on a tiny speck of dust known as Earth. The One more infinite than the vastness of 100 billion galaxies has willingly been humbled to inhabit the finite space of human flesh, with all its weakness and frailty. The One whose metaphorical fingers set the stars in place, whose word of power holds it all together, now has literal fingers and a literal mouth. And in one awesome act, God showed just how capable He is to magnify His name through weakness. You, my glorious Son, High King of Heaven, Heir of all things, will inhabit flesh so that in the weakness of that flesh you can die. And show my power to save. By putting to death the Son of God, true humanity goes to the grave to underscore the breathtaking majesty of divine glory. He is mighty to save. His strength is so immense he can save through the weakest vessels.

17 · The pastor makes the decisive soteriological claim: every purpose for humanity in Psalm 8 finds fulfillment in Jesus, and there is no accurate understanding of human identity outside of Him

Every purpose for humanity— this is the point of Psalm 8— we see in Hebrews, every purpose for humanity described in this passage finds fulfillment in Him. Every hope is met in Him. There's no true humanity, there's no accurate identity of who you are outside of Him who has come to restore all of His redeemed to their rightful place through His life and death and resurrection. It all happens through Him. Outside of Him, you don't get it. You can have multiple PhDs and the biggest telescope in the world, and you won't know what it's all about. Because it's all about Him, as the author of Hebrews says, 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. For it was fitting, it was planned, it was right, it was glorious that he for whom and by whom all things existed, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

18 · The pastor brings the sermon to a doxological close by returning to the psalm's refrain (Psalm 8:9) and making an explicit identification: 'O Lord, O Yahweh, O Jesus our Lord

In Christ we see the majesty with greater detail. Psalm 8 is really cool. But it's way cooler in light of Hebrews. Psalm 8:9: O Lord, O Yahweh, O Jesus our Lord. How majestic is Your name in all the earth! Shabbat Yeretz.