Sermon Tone Analysis
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Illus: Went by George for a year
My guess is for your kids you thought a lot about the names you would give them, that there's some significance, weight, meaning, hope, prayer behind those names.
You probably didn’t put your hand in a hat and just draw out, but even if you didn’t put a lot of thought behind it, the moment you held them the first time, the name took incredible form.
There are names, not just our kids' names, but certain names carry certain cultural weight and cultural meaning, for good and for ill.
For instance, in no particular order, let me give you some names of people who have shaped history.
Here are some names we have likely heard.
I think of Aristotle, Galileo, Plato, Socrates, Lincoln, Gandhi, King, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Washington, Moses, Caesar, Marx, Gutenberg, Edison, Beethoven, Mandela, and Einstein.
Or maybe more from the mainstream, pop culture, celebrity world there is Elvis, Sinatra, Cher, Sting, Prince, Madonna, Usher, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Adele, and Zendaya.
All of those names carry some semblance, aspect, of weight and meaning, yet there is a name that is beyond all names.
There is a greater name.
There is a name that is incomparable, indescribable, a name that is above all names.
Where we're going to be this morning in Psalm 8, David, the author of this psalm, is going to answer this question for us: Why is God's name so majestic in all the earth?
Why is this name the name above all names?
Why is there no rival, no equal to this name?
I'll just let you know the answer now.
Here's my point.
Why is God's name so majestic in all the earth?
It's because God is the compassionate Creator and God compassionately recreates.
As you're turning to Psalm 8, here are a few things I want you to keep in mind, because we're simply not going to have time to let these things sit.
The psalm begins and ends the same way.
This is called an inclusion.
What that means is the beginning of the psalm and the end of the psalm point to everything in the middle of the psalm.
I want you to see that God works through the weak things of the world to display his power.
You're going to see that in verse 2 and in verse 4.
I want you to see the rhythm and structure of the psalm.
It has this reverse order rhythm to it, where it kind of goes like this: wonder, glory, weakness, glory, weakness, wonder.
That's what Psalm 8 is doing.
It doesn't call us to any specific action other than worship, astonishment, and awe.
The psalm just leaves us there, mouth open, staring up, and saying what David says at the beginning and the end: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
What I also want you to see is that this psalm is going to point out that God is both transcendent and immanent, far and near, infinite and intricate, and God is mindful of you and cares for you.
So, let's read Psalm 8 together, keeping those things in mind.
Read: Psalm 8
Why is God's name majestic in all the earth?
David begins in verse 1 talking about God's name, that there's something unique about God's name.
He starts, "O Lord, our Lord…" If I could translate it like this, it translates, "O Yahweh, our Adonai."
"O God, our Master."
David starts the psalm using first the covenantal name of God.
"O Yahweh, this is your name.
You have established relationship with us, and our position to you, Yahweh, is you are our Lord, our Adonai, our Master."
"O Lord, our Lord…"
Then David says that it's majestic.
It's stately.
It's kingly.
It's glorious.
It's above all.
"…how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
His name is majestic.
Where is it majestic?
In all the earth.
There is no place near or far, high or low, where his name does not rule and reign supreme.
Every tongue, every tribe, every nation…
His name is the great name in all the earth.
Then he goes on to contrast the earth at the end of verse 1. "You have set your glory above the heavens."
David just starts with wonder, with wow, with astonishment, with being taken aback by this good, gracious, loving God.
God creates compassionately.
Verses 1 and 9 describe the wonder and wow of God's name, and then verses 2-8 describe why his name is majestic.
In verse 2, David says, "Out of the mouth of babies and infants…"
Seems like a strange shift, right?
But at a closer look you see David is contrasting here.
He is highlighting weakness up against and in contrast to God’s power.
Notice what's happening in verse 2. God is saying, "I defeat the enemies of the world, the foes of this world, not with my might and strength and my overwhelming presence.
But I use the weakest and the most vulnerable, because that's how transcendent and powerful I am.
Out of the mouth of babbling babies I bring down the strongholds of this world."
Then in verse 3 it says David looked.
Where did David look?
He looks up into the heavens, to the moon and the stars.
David, in his looking, takes a step back.
I want us to get how important this is, how important perspective is for you and I to have.
You and I get so caught up in the routinized realities of our days.
Just day after day, the pressures and the struggles and the worries and the temptations.
They're here, they're in front of us, and there's this microscopic reality to what we do.
Have you looked?
Have you stepped back, church?
When was the last time you took in a sunset?
Like, took it in, or maybe were met with the breaking of the dawn.
Illus: I do this with my kids.
When driving.
In the ocean.
And it doesn't stop there.
It goes beyond.
It goes higher.
It goes more.
This is what David is doing.
He's gathering perspective as he looks up and he sees.
Read Psalm 8:3
You can almost hear David.
“This is nothing for you.
This is no sweat for you.
The expanse of the heavens you just knit together with your fingers."
So, where does this leave David, and where does this leave us?
With the question he asks in verse 4…What is man?
"Who am I? Why me?"
Read: Psalm 8:4
Man means the fragility of man, or the feebleness of man.
Son of man is an idiom talking about the commonality of humanity, that we are all feeble and weak and frail.
Have you felt this?
When was the last time you felt weak, especially in a time of contrast when you thought you were strong?
Illus: When I had covid.
Or, As we age and the new aches of our bodies.
These are lighthearted, easy examples, but what about the moments when you thought you were strong until life began to crumble?
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