When You Feel Worthless - Psalm 8:3-4 Series

Psalm 8: For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David. 1 O Yahweh our Adonai, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I consider 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, the son of man that you care for him? 5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. 9 O Yahweh our Adonai, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Review

We Need to See Majesty

This psalm begins and ends with the identical line: O Yahweh our Adonai, how majestic is your name in all the earth. So we know that’s the topic of the entire psalm – God filled the earth with his majesty. And if God filled the whole earth with it, it must be really important, right? Majesty must be something you need to see - far more than it seems you need it. Because most people don’t spend a lot of energy on a typical day seeking majesty. Most of us don’t have that on the “things to do” list on the refrigerator. We don’t think about it much, but there is a danger in living too long in the realm of the mundane and the non-glorious. There’s a danger in going too long without beholding majesty. It will shrink and shrivel up your soul. We need to see majesty.

Slight Superiority

And we saw last time that the word majestic literally means superior. We can see God’s majesty by comparing inferior things in this world to superior things, and then following that line upward toward God. Never stop at earthly things, because even the greatest things in this world aren’t enough. But wherever they fall short, Yahweh our Adonai is enough. He infinitely superior to all things and all beings in every way at all times.

And not only is he infinitely superior; he is also slightly superior. And we need that, because we can’t relate to infinity. We can only see so far, and we can only imagine so much. And so Scripture accommodates that. In one place, it says God marks off the entire universe with the span of his hand. Then in another place it says he holds all the waters of the seas in the palm of his hand. That’s two very different sized images. If you picture someone holding an ocean in his hand, you’re picturing someone several times bigger than an ocean, but way smaller than the sun. But then if you picture him holding the entire universe in his hand, that’s trillions of times bigger than the sun. Why give us images of such different sizes? Because we need both.

Think of one of the Edmond kids. The chain comes off his bike, and he spends a half hour trying to put it back on, but doesn’t know how, and it seems impossible. So his dad comes out and with one hand sets the chain on the sprocket, turns the crank one time around, and the chain is on. It’s really not that impressive for a grown man to be able to put a chain on a bike. Most adults can do that. But for that kid – he’s far more amazed at that than the fact that his dad can do things with a computer that 99% of grown adults can’t begin to do. If two little kindergardners get into an argument about whose dad is stronger, and one says, “Oh yeah? Well my dad can beat up a 5th grader!”…. – coming from anyone else that would be an insult, but coming from a child whose world is ruled by the big, tough 5th graders, it’s high praise.

God says, “I hold the universe in my hand.” “Oh, that’s great.” But then Jesus stills a single storm on a little lake in Israel, and we’re blown away, “WOW! That’s incredible!!!” We know that God created the Milky Way, but we’re really blown away when he enables a shepherd to defeat Goliath. God provides billions of tons of food to feed all the animals around the world every single day for thousands of years, and we say, “Hmm, interesting. Yes, God is quite powerful.” But then we have a bill for $806 that we can’t pay… , and we pray for God to provide, and an unexpected check comes in the mail for $806, and we are through the roof with joy. “Our God is so great and powerful and kind…”