Prayer Night Sermon (Praying His Majesty)

Thank you for listening to the Shepherd's Church podcast. This is our Wednesday night service that is focused on prayer and walking through the

Psalms together. We hope that you are blessed and we hope that you will join us as we pray for revival.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Wednesday night prayer service. What we attempt to accomplish on these nights is we pray and we allow the

Psalms to teach us how to pray. And we go Psalm, one Psalm at a time. We've currently done one through seven.

Now tonight we're going to be on Psalm eight and we allow the Psalms really to teach us how to pray. Now, I want to plug

Wednesday nights because if you're listening to this, then you're getting some benefit out of it because you're listening to the exposition of the word, you're listening to the word being read, and that's enough.

If I were to just get on here and just read Psalm eight, it could change lives because God's word doesn't return void.

You're also listening to the preaching of Psalm eight and that is valuable and that has merit, but you're missing so much by listening to this on audio and not coming and experiencing it in person.

I say that because there is something that the Holy Spirit is doing in the room when you are there, when we are praying together, where the

Holy Spirit is authoring our prayers and the Holy Spirit is inspiring our prayers and using our prayers to minister to one another as the body of Christ.

It is a beautiful thing. It is second only to the Lord's day gathering where when you come and you can feel the spirit working and moving through the ministry of the word, it is beautiful.

So obviously Lord's day, the Sunday morning service, that's a priority. We all need to make that a priority, but Wednesday night service is second in that.

In my opinion, I think that Wednesday night service has shown to be such a beautiful and just wonderful time in my week where I feel like that I'm being filled up, where I'm, where I'm drinking in God's grace, where I'm listening to the word in a different way, praying through the word in a different way.

Like it is, it is so good and I hope that, that you will make a commitment to come.

Now I'll put a plug out for the broadcast real quick before we get started. Today on the broadcast,

I released an episode called worship like men, and that's a really important episode for the men of the shepherd's church.

This episode is talking about what does it mean to worship like a godly biblical man?

And one of the ways that we see that we do that is by leading the way in prayer. Paul talks about this.

It's all over the Bible. Men who are godly, who are informed by holy scripture are going to lead the way in prayer.

So I'm throwing out the gauntlet. I'm throwing out the challenge to every man in the shepherd's church. I would love to see you at Wednesday night prayer because if we're going to have prayer become a thing at the shepherd's church, if we're going to have revival happen to the shepherd's church, it's going to be not a pastor led movement, not an elder led movement, not a deacon led movement.

When we have those, of course, it's going to be a movement of men who are leading the way in prayer.

And then who we, then we see from that, even women and children are coming as well.

So I want to throw down the challenge to all of the men in the congregation that I want you to stand up, to come to Wednesday night, and to lead the way.

If you want to be a man who is a praying man, if you want to be a man who leads your family well, if you want to be a man who showcases the glory of Christ in society well, well, you've got to be a praying man.

And there's no better way to practice that, to grow in that, and to be encouraged in that than to come to a

Wednesday night prayer service. So that is my challenge to you. Make it a priority. Your TV show is not more important than that.

I know that we all have things going on, but do your best, make it a priority. I know that you will be blessed and encouraged by it.

So with that, let us get to Psalm 8, which is our text for today. We're going to look at how do we pray through Psalm 8, and then we're, as a church, after this microphone goes off, we are going to pray through Psalm 8.

So let us begin. We're going to read the text together. O Lord, our

Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who have displayed your splendor above the heavens.

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, you have established strength because of your adversaries to make the enemies and the revengeful cease.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that you have thought of him and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than God, and you have crowned him with glory and majesty, and you make him to rule over the works of your hands.

You have put all things under his feet, the sheep and the oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heaven and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the sea.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Now, this passage kind of logically breaks down into a couple different sections.

Now you can read different commentaries and they'll come up with different outlines, but the one that I want us to pray through tonight and the one that I want us to look at is just a very simple outline.

It's five different movements, and let's just call it majestic God, the majestic name, majestic creation, the majestic God made man and majestic mission.

The Psalm begins, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name? That word majestic means that he is majesty, that he's a king who rules, that he has authority and power and glory and splendor.

He is a majestic God. So as we think about how do we pray through verse one of the

Psalm, we would want to remember that he is the Lord. He is not just a

Lord among many of the gods. He is not just one God among the pantheon of the

Greek gods or the Roman gods or the Hindu gods or whatever else. He is the God.

He is the one and only God. So when we go to the Lord in prayer over verse one, when it says,

O Lord, our Lord, we see that he is the Lord, that he has all authority and power on heaven, in heaven and on earth.

He is all authority in our life. When we cry out, O Lord, we are claiming that this

Lord has divine authority over our life. So let's remember that in prayer.

Let's go to the Lord confessing our sins, confessing the ways that we've lived outside of his Lordship, confessing the ways that we've not submitted to his rule and his reign and his authority, how we've been rogue agents in his kingdom and at many times acted as that we are not under his authority.

When we go to the Lord in prayer, we need to remember that he is the Lord. The second thing that we need to remember in this first verse, when we go to God in prayer, is that we celebrate that he's not just the

Lord, he is our Lord. O Lord, our Lord, he is our

Lord. And the only reason that that is true is because David could look down the corridors of time and David could see that this

Yahweh, this covenantal God, the one who did everything to bring Israel into relationship, the one who did everything to bring

Abraham into relationship, the one who did everything to rescue and save Noah, the one who did everything to rescue and save Adam, this covenant

God who's done everything is now called our Lord only because of Jesus Christ, who did everything in order to bring us in.

Christ fulfilled all of the covenants, the covenants of David, Moses, Abraham, Noah, and Adam.

This Jesus brought us into fellowship with God, and now he is our God because of Jesus Christ.

So we can go to the Lord in prayer. We can go to the Lord speaking to him as though he is our father because he is because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

He is our God. We can be intimate with him. We can share our thoughts with him, our heart with him, our problems with him.

We can have intimate fellowship with God because of Jesus Christ. He is now our God. So when you pray, celebrate that fact, acknowledge that fact, admit to God that without him, you are nothing, but with him, you are everything because he is our

God. He is my God. You see how the Psalm already, even just the first four words can teach us how to pray.

The third thing in verse one that will help you learn how to pray to this majestic and holy God is that he is majestic.

He has power and rule and authority. So admit those things, acknowledge those things, submit yourself to him because he is the

Lord. That's the first section. He's a majestic God, and that helps us pray because when we come into the presence of God, we're not coming into the presence of a shabby

God. We're coming into the presence of a majestic God. We're not coming into an inferior's presence.

We're coming into an infinitely superior's presence. So verse one helps us posture ourself appropriately, knowing that he's

God. We're not. He's in charge. We're not. He has the power. We don't.

That's the first section of this Psalm. The second section includes the second half of verse one goes all the way to the end of verse two, and we see four things in this.

I'll read it to you again. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth who have displayed your splendor among the heavens from the mouth of infants and nursing babes.

You have established your strength because of your adversaries to make the enemies and the revengeful cease.

We see four ways in this verse one through two that God's reign makes itself manifest, and there are ways that you can pray through this as well.

The first thing is that we see that God's rule is imminent. If you don't know what that word means, it's a theological term to describe the nearness of God.

God is near. God is close. God has fellowship with his people.

It says that his name is majestic in all the earth. That means that there's not a square inch of the earth where his name, his authority, his rule, his majesty is not present.

It is on the top of Mount Everest, and it is in the lowest valleys in Israel.

His name redounds across every millimeter of this earth, which means that there's no place that you can go to get away from him.

There's no place that you can go to hide from him. There's no place that you can go in your misery where you would be without him.

He is God. He is all over this planet.

He is there and not just this planet, the cosmos also, but this passage is trying to tell us who live on earth that he is eminent.

He is close, which means that he's not forgotten you. So when you pray, you're coming into the presence of a

God who's not forgotten you. You're coming into the presence of a God who remembers you, who knows you, who knows everything that you struggle with, everything that you're going through, everything that you feel.

You can be honest with that God. You can have an authentic relationship with that God.

You can have intimacy with that God because he already knows you and loves you.

His rule is so imminent that it affects even your life, my life, our life, even though we don't deserve it.

The second thing we see is that his rule is transcendent. Transcendence is an opposite theological word.

It doesn't mean nearness. It means supremacy. It means he's high and lifted up. He's distant from us.

He's holy. So he is not only close to those that he loves, but he is supremely other than those that he loves, which means that he's not just like us.

Yes, we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And yes, he has come near, but he's also infinite and he's holy and he's not like us in many different ways.

He's all knowing and omniscient and omnipresent. He's perfectly holy and righteous and just.

These are things that we may be. In part, we know some things, but we don't know all things.

We have some level of righteousness that is like filthy rags, according to the Bible. But he has perfect righteousness.

He is. He has made himself known to us and is close, but yet he is also distant and far removed because he's holy.

It says that his name redounds into the farthest galaxies. You know,

I was just watching the other day how the Hubble telescope, they found this dark patch of sky where they couldn't see any light.

So over, I think, I think it was like three months. They let that telescope point.

They let the iris of the camera open, just absorbing all of that light, as much of that light as they could, because they wanted to see, is there really a dark spot in the universe?

So they pointed the telescope that direction and they waited to see what would happen.

And they found millions of galaxies in the dark spot of the sky. This is a

God whose name redounds across the entire cosmos, even in the places where our eye can't see and our telescopes can't see.

And it takes special equipment over three months of gathering light just to be able to see that there's millions of galaxies.

This God, his name is present in all the earth, in all the cosmos, in all the universe.

And if that's true, then he's not only near while you suffer, he has power and authority to help you when you suffer.

You see, your mom, your dad, your friends, your closest neighbor can stand right beside of you and they can be imminent, but that doesn't mean that they're powerful.

And then you can think of someone like a president or a king who can be really powerful, but doesn't know you. This God is both.

His rule has come imminently in your life where it's accessible to you, but it's also so powerful and available at the same time that he is able to help you in your time of need.

He's both transcendent and he's also imminent. The third thing that we learn in this second section about his name is that his name can even be uttered on the lips of babes.

His rule, his reign, his salvation, it's accessible. That's the third thing.

It's accessible even to babes. That means that if you're a Christian and you understand what the

Bible says about salvation, that before the foundation of the world, God elected for himself a people. God, I think, is saying in this particular section that infants and nursing babes can be among the elect children of God, even though they can't perfectly, you know, with their lips that don't know human language yet.

They can't perfectly scream out a viable profession of faith. It does stand to reason that they can be known by him because it says that he's even on their lips.

His name, his authority has been put on their lips, which means his rule has been placed upon them.

So God, before the foundations of the earth, we know that he claimed all of his people says that in Ephesians, that before the foundation of the world, he elected us predestined us to be conformed to the image of Christ.

We know that, but this also teaches us that that can be true even for the smallest babe.

The fourth thing is that his rule is also inaccessible to some, and that's the unbelievers. It says, even though his name is on the mouth of infants and nursing babes, that they've established strength because their adversaries, he has made the enemy and the revengeful cease.

The indication in his passages is that God's name is not covenantally speaking on the reprobate.

While his name redounds all across the earth, there are those who are set apart for destruction, who his name has not been applied to.

Their name is not written in the lamb's book of life because his name is not written on them. And because of that, his rule, his authority, his salvation, his grace, his mercy, his love, they're all inaccessible to him.

So we see four things about his reign. It's eminent, it's close, it's transcendent, it's powerful, it's accessible to those he loves, and it's inaccessible to those he doesn't, to those who are not a part of his covenant family.

And how does that help us pray? When we think about the majestic name of God, we think about how his name is powerful.

We think about Jesus Christ who came low and brought God's name in our midst.

We think about him ruling from the right hand of the Father. He's transcendent and glory. We think about his rule being accessible.

He says, don't forbid the babes to come to me because theirs is the kingdom of God. We see that even

Jesus is affirming this idea that the babes can be a part of the elect people of God because of God's name.

And we see Jesus saying, depart from me, I never knew you. We see that his rule's inaccessible to some people.

So in the face of Jesus Christ who perfectly manifest, perfectly lives out this passage, verse one and two, we can praise

God for the wisdom of his Christ. We can praise God that his name has been brought to the earth and we can praise

God that his name has been applied to us. So these are passages that we can praise

God for because he saved us by the power of his great name. The third section in this

Psalm is that God has brought a majestic creation. This is in verse three.

It says, when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, he is looking back into Genesis one, into the creation of the universe, and he is praising

God for the creation of the cosmos. He's looking up at the sky and at the stars and at the moon, and he is praising

God for the wisdom and the intelligence of creating the cosmos.

He's saying that, Lord, your character is testified in the heavens. And Lord, your character is testified in your works, the works of your hands.

And Lord, your character is even testified in the closest planet, the closest solar object in the sky, which is the moon, but even more, the most distant solar objects in the sky, which is the stars, the moon being close to us and the stars being infinitely far from us or incredibly far from us, light years far from us.

They all testify to your glorious name, to your power, your holiness, your infinitude, your immutability, your self -sufficiency, your omnipotence, your omniscience, your omnipresence, your wisdom, your faithfulness, your goodness, your justice, your mercy, your graciousness, your lovingness, your glory, your wrath.

Lord, these celestial bodies even are telling the story of the glory of God. Jesus said the rocks even will cry out if we don't.

The stars cry out, the heavens cry out, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, all the planets in motion, the galaxies, millions and billions of light years away, all of that declares the glory of God.

So how do we pray? We declare the glory of God. We declare his majesty.

We think about the holiness of God and how it leads to his even unbelievable creativity, his omniscience to be able to put the planets in motion in a way that makes them function and not fall apart.

Scientists have talked about the fine tuning of the universe for a long time, but if any one of the constants that exist in the universe were tweaked even just a little bit, the universe would fall apart and would never would have existed.

God is infinitely wise, infinitely intelligent, infinitely creative. These things should lead us to awe and to worship him.

The fourth section of this passage is that God made man in a majestic way.

It says in verse four, what is man that you take thought of him and the son of man that you would care for him, yet you have made him a little lower than God or in other translations this is a little lower than the angels and you crown him with glory and majesty and you make him to rule over the works of your hands and you put all things under his feet, all the sheep and the oxen and the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven and the fish of the sea and whatever passes through the paths of the sea.

What the psalmist is doing, what David is doing is he's now comparing the

Genesis 1 table of rulers. It says that the sun, the moon, and the stars rule over the sky and it says that the human beings as the pinnacle of God's earthly creation rule over the earth.

He's saying that and the psalmist is saying that it is too glorious a thought for him to consider that man would have such a high position on the same level as the sun and the moon and the stars, on the same level as the angels of God, who is man that God in his infinitude would think about us and would deal with us and would allow us to have such a treasured position.

Knowing that should lead us to great humility and as we're praying through this passage, it should lead us to great confession.

Lord, I don't deserve the status that you've given me as a human being and I don't deserve the status you've given me as a

Christian. What is man that you are mindful? Look at me in my sin, look at me in my failure and my rejection.

I don't deserve the things that you've given me, God. This passage, it allows us to have a humility, a great humility when it comes to God.

Verse five and six teaches us that we have a certain dignity. While we do have a humility and we don't want to miss that, we also have a dignity as installed leaders in the world.

We've been crowned with glory and majesty. God has made us a little lower than the angels in heaven. He made us in his image.

He made us to rule. He made us to have dominion. He made us to be blessed. He made us to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the world.

He put us in a position that he put no one else, no other creature. We have a position on this planet that Satan himself was envious of.

David in humility says, who is man that God would do such a wonderful thing, but also who are we to not remember the role that God has given us, the dignity and the nobility, that's the verses seven through eight, the nobility of our role.

We've been made rulers. We've been made kings and queens. Our responsibility on earth is not to sit around as victims and not to sit around as people who are perpetually depressed and broken.

Our goal is to stand up like kings and queens and bring the rule of God to earth.

How dare we violate that mission? Again, there's a humility that comes from understanding that God actually did this, but then there's a great arrogance when we refuse to live in it.

So as we pray, we ask the Lord to help us with our humility, that we would be a humble people.

But we also ask the Lord that our humility would not ever be perverted into arrogance.

And there's two ways to be arrogant. You can be arrogant when you think about yourself too much, and you can be arrogant when you think of yourself so little.

When you think of yourself as being disgusting and broken, when you're constantly thinking about yourself in negative ways, you're doing the exact same thing as someone who's constantly thinking about themself in over positive ways.

True humility is thinking of yourself less frequently and thinking of God more frequently.

And when you do that, you'll realize that he has installed you with a plan and a purpose in this world to bring the gospel to the nations.

And we see that even in the final verse. And that's the final thing that we're going to be praying through is called majestic missions.

It says, oh, Lord, oh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth? By the plan and the sovereignty of God, the reason that God's name is going to redound across the entire planet, the reason that his name is going to be proclaimed in every tribe, tongue, and nation is because he's called a people to himself called

Christians, called the church, who are kings and queens in this society, who go about sharing the message heralding the gospel of the true great king that we all serve.

The reason that we can have humility, dignity, and nobility is because of Christ and his salvation.

And then our mission becomes to go share that gospel with the rest of the earth so that yes, in fact,

God's name really has redounded to the ends of the earth. This passage helps us have a proper view of the majesty of God, that he's majestic, his name is majestic, his creation is majestic, the way he made us is majestic, and the way that we engage in missions is extending his majesty to the ends of the earth.

It's a majestic mission. So as we pray tonight, I want us to remember that his majesty means his authority and rule and power.

And I also want us to remember that we've been invited into that with a great plan and a great purpose. So let us go to the