WWUTT 939 How Majestic Your Name Is?

Picture David standing out underneath the night sky, and he's looking up at all the stars, and as he beholds this heavenly sight, what fills his heart is a song of praise unto

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of the

Psalms. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, starting today with Psalm 8, my favorite psalm, and I'll explain why here in just a moment.

Let's start in verse 1. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and infants you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, 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?

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. 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.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

So we come back to the start of this here, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name?

This is David's praise is exalting the majesty of the name of God.

So of course, when we begin with it, he pronounces the Lord's name twice,

O Lord, our Lord. Now technically, the name of God is just the first occasion, O Yahweh, our

Lord. And then he's calling Yahweh our ruler, our king, the one who reigns over us, who is over all of creation.

But more than just that, he is our God, because he has made us his people.

So we get to call him our Lord. We submit humbly before him.

He has shown us mercy and grace and love. And he has become our

God and we have become his people because of the work and might that the Lord has shown in our lives.

And so it is a privilege to call upon his name, to be able to speak his name and do so in such a way that is reverent unto

God because of his mercy and his grace. It is because he is merciful that he doesn't strike us down as puny little humans for speaking the name of God and not being able to do so with the reverence that such a name deserves.

Yet we can say Yahweh, O Yahweh, our Lord, because he has made himself our

God and made us his people. And therefore, David exalts in the name of God.

How wonderful it is that he has so blessed us to be able to call upon his name and we can utter that name and it is pleasing unto the

Lord. And he delights to call us, to call himself our

God, to make us his people. This is to the praise of his glorious grace.

This is all part of his sovereignty, even over sinful man whom he had made in his image, but men had wickedly desecrated that image, exalting ourselves using the breath that God gave us to blaspheme

God and sing our own praises. What we deserved was the wrath of God, but instead what we have received is the favor of God by his mercy in the giving of his son to be the propitiation for our sins, to pay the price and take the wrath of God upon himself that we deserve because we were so blasphemous and unholy with regards to the great king who sits enthroned over all of creation.

Even though we had acted so wickedly, the Lord sent his son to die for us.

And now it is through Christ that we have gone from becoming enemies of the king to friends of the king and fellow heirs with the king.

This is who God has made us because of his divine forbearance and kindness and patience, not because of anything that we did, but because of what he has done.

And David considers all of this, that the creator who sits enthroned on high has considered a man though we were worthless and deserve to be trampled into the dirt and wiped off of the face of God's creation.

Yet he crowned us as David said, and he gave us dominion over all of the works of his hands.

What is man that you are mindful of him? We are nothing. We're puny. We're minuscule.

We are as worthless as the dust from which we were formed because we made ourselves worthless.

By the way, it was because we sinned. We weren't made worthless. You know, God didn't make man and woman and look at him and go, oh, how worthless is that?

No, he looked at all of his creation and behold, it was very good. But then we sinned against God and made ourselves worthless.

Romans three, 12, all have turned aside together. They have become worthless.

No one does good. Not even one. And Paul is writing there from the Psalms.

In fact, it's Psalm 14 verse three. They have all turned aside together. They have become worthless.

There is no one who does good, not even one. So because we had been made in the image of God and we were made good, but then we sinned and we desecrated that image and we blasphemed

God and we were worthy of destruction. That was how we became worthless. That was how we became as as much of worth as the dust from which we were formed.

We had been given so much by the Lord God and yet we exalted ourselves instead of God.

We were made to glorify him and instead we glorified ourselves. Yet God did not destroy us in our wickedness, but sent his son to die for us.

And though that had not yet happened at the time that David penned this particular Psalm or sang this song, see the way that I picture

David presenting this before the Lord the very first time, this is conjecture on my part, but this is just what

I picture. I picture David out underneath the night sky and beholding the stars in the heaven above.

And he's so awed by it, amazed at the fact that this is all of space that he is looking at from planet earth.

And the creator of all of these things is even greater than this sky that he is beholding the sun by day, the moon and stars by night.

And yet this creator of all who is so holy that he is so far away from us.

We are so wicked that God does not dwell with us face to face because of our wickedness.

This is part of the curse. We've been separated from God. He is harder to see because we are corrupt and he is not.

He is perfect and holy. And yet David is even looking toward a promise that God has made to him and he will fulfill through him.

And that is the promise to establish on his throne God's kingdom forever.

The heir who is going to come from David is Jesus Christ and he sits enthroned as king of kings and Lord of lords.

So with this promise in mind that God has made to David, a covenant that he's made with David, David is looking forward to this coming savior and even references this savior in this particular psalm.

So though we had sinned, God was making a way to reconcile man unto himself and even crown him and make him an heir with Christ in the kingdom already.

That's part of the promise that has been given to David because it's on his throne that his kingdom will be established forever through an heir of David.

And then David will likewise be made an heir of this eternal kingdom. So David is going, hey, we are wicked.

We are evil. We have blasphemed God. We were made to glorify God. And yet we are the most blasphemous of all the creatures that God had created on earth.

And yet God is crowning us with glory and giving us dominion. David says, you have set your glory above the heavens.

How majestic is your name in all the earth and you've set your glory above the heavens.

So this majesty of God is not just filling the earth, but the majesty of God is so great that the earth can't even contain it.

It's even higher than that. It's way out there, even above the heavens.

I even have to wonder, did David really have in his human cognition and understanding of just how vast the heavens were?

Something like what, 13 and a half billion light years across, I think is the estimation. So God's glory even beyond that.

God is so great. He's created all of this time and space and the vastness of space. And his glory can't even be contained within it.

None of what God has created contains the glory of God. It's so great. You have set your glory above the heavens, out of the mouth of babes and infants,

David says, you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger.

Here's more specifically what David is saying here. There are some translations of this passage that render this text this way, but out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have ordained praise.

Jesus references this Psalm, in fact, in Matthew 21, verse 16, and it's when

Jesus had cleansed the temple. After doing so, the blind and the lame came to him while he was there in the temple and he healed them.

The chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple,

Hosanna to the son of David. And the Pharisees were indignant and they said, do you hear what these are saying?

And Jesus said to him, yes. Have you never read out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes?

You have ordained praise and leaving them. He went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there as it concludes that section.

Matthew 21, verse 16, whereas Jesus is quoting from Psalm eight,

God having ordained his praise even in the mouths of babes and infants.

I just don't understand how anybody reads the Bible and doesn't understand the the sovereign election of God that he has predestined all and decreed it before the foundation of the world, even ordaining praise that would come from the mouths of babes.

God has done all of this and he's done this to the praise of his glorious grace.

David recognized this out of the mouths of babes and infants. You've established strength because of your foes.

You think of foes being warriors, enemies, kings who exalted themselves as being gods.

You know, they thought of themselves as gods. These were the foes of the true God. And yet God has established strength.

He has ordained his praise. Those who would declare his might would be even babes and infants.

They are mightier and they are greater and they are crowned with glory by the consideration of God.

When these false kings who exalt themselves as gods are but puny and nothing and God, God's strength is seen in that even children will declare his praise, not these kings who rely upon horses and chariots and the might of the sword.

The Lord has established strength through children singing the praise of God.

That's wonderful to consider. Several times a week, my family and I, we gather around the piano in our house and sing hymns.

I've got I even got hymnals for all of my kids so that we can just open up hymnals. The kids will throw out requests and we'll just sing praise songs together there at the piano.

And to think that God's might is displayed there in our little family devotion right there with the kids singing songs.

That's the might and strength of God. It's not in people developing giant governments or oppressing others or or trying to make their name great in history.

That's not the strength of God. The strength of God is in children singing the praises of the Lord in that beautiful that there are children who delight to praise in God.

And that's the strength, not not the oppression of the enemy, but the grace and the mercy and the love of God is the established strength of God.

Verse three. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers. Once again, picture

David out there underneath space, looking at the sky, 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?

We had sinned against you, and yet you're you're mindful of man caring for David, particularly selecting him, electing him that through the line of David, the

Lord would establish his kingdom forever. 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. You have put all things under his feet.

We are the crown glory of God's creation. And God has given all creation to us to fill the earth and to subdue it.

The fear of animals that that animals fear man. Why? I mean, even a deer could kill a man.

And there are occasions in which deer do that. Yet when you are, if you were to ever go out hunting, what do you got to do when you come up on a deer?

You got to be really, really quiet or they run away. Why is it the Lord has put the fear of man into animals?

He said that in the Noahic covenant after the ark ran aground and Noah and his family came off the ark,

God said that he had put the fear of man into the hearts of animals. And this was part of the the fact that creation had been given to man to fill the earth and subdue it, that they were to continue to do this, even as God had instructed

Adam and Eve after the flood. It was the same thing. Fill the earth. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.

You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen. What do they have in common? Their sacrifices 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.

Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth?

So I was going to tell you why this is my favorite Psalm and for a couple of reasons.

Number one, because I love going out at night here in Kansas, Kansas, where the land is flat and you can see more sky than you can anywhere else.

I love going out at night away from the city where there are no lights and looking up in the heavens and just seeing the massive canopy of stars, the

Milky Way. You see that that belt of stars across the sky that's part of the spiral galaxy that we're in, right?

You can see that in Kansas better than you can see most anywhere else that I've ever been. It's beautiful and I love it.

So I picture David is being under something like that whenever I go out and look at the stars, even beneath a

Kansas sky. That's one of the reasons why I love Psalm 8. The second reason is because when

I was a kid, there was an album called Make a Joyful Noise, and the lead character in this album was a computer whose name was

Colby. Some of you remember Salty, the singing songbook, but maybe you don't remember Colby, the computer, and he would sing songs that were taken from the

Psalms. And one of those Psalms was Psalm 8. The song was entitled How Excellent Your Name Is.

I used to sing it as special music. I had the track on a cassette tape and I would sing it at church.

To this day, I still sing this song and I have sung it before my church before. So anyway,

I wanted to share that with you here. So this is a song that I grew up with as a kid. It made me fall in love with Psalm 8 and to this day still has a very special place in my heart.

This is from a kids praise album from back in the mid 80s. So the music is going to sound very 80s, but I still love the kids chorus in How Excellent Is Your Name.

I wonder what you ever saw in me, but you took me and you loved me and you've given me a crown, praise your name eternally.

Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent your name is, how excellent your name in all the earth.

It fills the heavens beyond the farthest star, how excellent your name in all the earth.

I think I ever saw in me, excellent, you're excellent, beyond the farthest star.

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