Monday, February 18, 2013

"The Majesty of God" Sermon: Psalm 8


“The Majesty of God”

[Psalm 8]

February 17, 2013 Second Reformed Church

            If the Lord is willing, for the next six weeks and Maundy Thursday, we will be considering the seven themes which the Puritans saw as the basic themes of Scripture to meditate on.  You may remember that last Lent we looked at the five principles of church growth – the first of which was, if we want to grow as Christians and the church, the Word of God must be central to our life and worship.  In our Tuesday evening class, we looked at the idea of Christian meditation.

            As we considered Christian meditation, we saw that it is different from other Eastern forms of meditation.  Other forms of Eastern meditation recommend that a person empty his or her mind to find truth or peace, whereas Christian mediation asks a person to consider a theme or text of Scripture – to investigate it as deeply as possible.  As one studies God’s Word and finds the doctrine in it, one’s heart becomes enlivened, and one will seek to live differently based on the doctrine one has learned.  As we look at these seven themes, hopefully, we will have our knowledge of them lead us through our hearts to living in a way that is more pleasing to God.

            Today, we begin with the first theme, the majesty of God, and we look at the eighth Psalm:         

“O LORD, our Lord,”

David begins by using two different words for “lord” – the first being that most personal name that God gave to Moses – YHWH – and the second, being the more common word for “lord.”  “O YHWH, our Lord.”

And we notice that David is not just talking about YHWH, the Lord, but YHWH, “our” Lord.  God, Who is personally involved with His people – the God Who chose to make a way for His people to be saved, He is our Lord – our prophet, our king, our master, our father, our husband, our governor, our prince.  We are subject to this personal God as our Sovereign and in an intensely intimately way.

            “how majestic is your name”

            This God Who is our Sovereign and with Whom we have an intimate relationship as His people – His Name – His Being – everything that makes God Who He is – is majestic, lofty, excellent.  He is the greatest of all in every circumstance and in all places and in every possible way.  There is none greater than God, our God.

“in all the earth!”

And God – His Nature – is revealed to everything that is.  There is nothing and no one that does not know that God is and that He is majestic.  The majesty of our God is ubiquitous – it is everywhere and everywhere know and seen and experienced.

Is this your God?  Do you know Him to be the King of Majesty?  Have you experienced a relationship with this Sovereign and Excellent God?  Does knowing that He is your God affect the way that you live?  Have you considered if and how He affects the rest of Creation?

            “You have set your glory above the heavens.”

            God’s Glory is majestic.  It cannot be contained on earth or in the Creation or in the heavens themselves, but God’s Majesty transcends all principalities and powers.  Everything that exists is too small to contain the majesty of God, and so it is everywhere and it is beyond everywhere.

            What else is there that is so great that it extends beyond all of Creation?  Are we not humbled to think of how great this God – our God – must be – that His Glory is beyond everything that can be known by us?

            “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes,”

            And, yet, the greatness of God – the majesty of God is seen in the smallest and weakest things in the Creation, even babies, that God would make Himself known in every possible way.  Babies, who have not yet learned all of the proper things to say, may often open their mouths and speak out the majesty of God.

            Jesus, speaking of the hell that was coming upon those who did not believe in Him and that fact that it is not possible to know God the Father except through faith alone in the Son, Jesus, said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;” (Matthew 11:25b, ESV).

            “But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it’” (Luke 18:16-17, ESV).

            Little children trust their Father.  They believe what He tells them and come to Him in faith and speak His Word as Gospel.  This is what Jesus is saying:  the strength of the Christian is in childlike trust and faith – not in ignorance, but in knowing God – the Majestic God – as Father.

            “to still the enemy and the avenger.”

            God uses the weak and the small to defeat the powers and principalities that work against the Gospel.  Paul wrote, “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. 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; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31, ESV).

            The Lord, our Lord, has chosen many from the world that the world has labeled as unworthy, so that when the world looks at us, they see the majesty and the glory of God.  If our weakness is not due to our sin, God may be using it to overthrow the powers of this world in His Name.  If our only boast is in the Lord, let us boast all the more, until the walls of sin and death and the devil fall around us as they hear the Name of Jesus.

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

            David confesses that the Creation does not exist by chance – it did not just happen into being, but God created it.  And David looked with eyes of faith at the moon and the stars in the night sky.  Have you ever looked at the night sky and wondered at the stars?

Do you know how many there are?  I googled it, and I found out that scientists estimate that there are one hundred thousand million stars in the Milky Way Galaxy – one hundred thousand million stars in our galaxy alone.  And I read on to find that they estimate that there are one hundred thousand million galaxies in the universe.  So there are – in total – one hundred thousand million times one hundred thousand million stars – and God put each one in place.

David lifted up his eyes and was humbled to see something of the one hundred thousand million times one hundred thousand million stars above him.  We don’t see as many with all of the lights around us – yet we can see many – do they humble you to think about how many there are?  If you get a chance to go to a planetarium or out west to Wyoming or St. Louis or some other place with less lights, you’ll see even more of the stars in the heaves.  Have you ever considered that we are just one planet in one hundred thousand million times one hundred thousand million?

What could be more amazing than that?

            “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

            The Sovereign God, Creator of all of those stars, knows you, and He loves His people.

            How big is the space that contains all of those stars?  And God knows you?  And God loves His people?

            Job similarly wondered:  “What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, visit him every morning and test him every moment?” (Job 7:17-18, ESV).

            Do you ever feel unworthy?  “But the centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, “Go,” and he goes, and to another, “Come,” and he comes, and to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith’” (Matthew 8:8-10, ESV).

            Jesus commended the centurion for understanding that he was unworthy.  When we consider all that God has created – and then consider how we have sinned against God – how can we feel anything more than being unworthy – and we are unworthy.  God did not choose us to be His because we are worthy – which makes God all the more Majestic – and should cause us to be all the more humble and boasting of nothing more than Jesus and His Gospel.

            Faith and humility is found in the prodigal son when he told his father, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:19, ESV).  Sinful arrogance is found in his brother who “answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’” (Luke 15:29-30, ESV).

            David looked at the stars and was humbled and understood that he was unworthy of the care and the love that God gave him.  Do you think you deserve the care and love that God has given you?  Do you think that God owes you at least that?

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

            What a mystery it is that God gave the only earth-bound creation that could sin against God the glory and the honor that we have above all of the rest of the earth-bound creation.

            “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.”

            God has given us dominion over all of the animals.  That is:  God has given us the responsibility to care for and nurture all of the animals in all of Creation – to care for them as a steward for God – to care for them as God would care for them.

            How many animals are we to care for?  How many species of animal are we to care for?  I googled that, too.  Scientists say there are about thirty million species of animals on this planet.  Are you amazed that God would tell us to care for them on His behalf?  What do you do to care for the planet and the animals on it as God would?  When God calls us to account for the way we have cared for the animals for Him, what will you say?

            May we rightly include each other in the wide care of the Creation?  Jesus, answering what the greatest law is, said, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself”

(Matthew 22:39, ESV).  We are to do everything we can to promote the health, well-being, and salvation of everybody else.  We ought to do at least as much to provide food, clothing, shelter, and a hearing of the Gospel to others as we do for ourselves.  Have you?

            Consider what we are dealing with:  David described his creation by God and how it made him respond:  “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. 

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I would count them, they are more than the sand.  I awake, and I am still with you” (Psalm 139:13-18, ESV).

I googled one more number – considering that we are fearfully and wonderfully made – I wondered how many cells are in the human body – between ten and one hundred trillion – depending on your body.

Are you amazed?  Are you humbled?  Do you see the majesty of our God – our Sovereign God – and Father?

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1, ESV).

            “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8, ESV).

            Let us pray:

            Sovereign God, Majestic God, our God, our Father, when we consider Your Creation, it is beyond our comprehension.  When we look at the stars and consider their number, when we look at the animals and consider their variety, when we look at ourselves and see the amazing complexity of our bodies, when we hear that You have made us stewards of all that You have created, and that You have chosen us to be Your sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, what can we do but fall before You, lost in wonder and amazement.  Then, as Your Fatherly Hand touches us and calls us to stand for Your Gospel amidst the sin and evil in the world, may we still be amazed, looking to Your Majesty which exceeds the highest heights.  Open our mouths and cause us to boast in Jesus Christ, the Only Savior, until the entire world give thanks to Your Name.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

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