Who Am I That God Is Mindful Of Me? (AM Sermon Notes)
GIST: I am the receiver of the unmerited love of God!
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 8
Both of the psalms we’re looking at today address praise. Psalm 8 in particular is praise for who He is and a reminder of who we are. And, man, we have so much to praise Him for! Friday night’s Movie in the Park outreach event went so incredibly well! Why? Because God is God. He knew what needed to be done and did it. As a result, so many people (most of which we may never see again) were able to enjoy a free block party, hear the life changing truth of the Gospel, and leave with His life-changing Word in their hands! Praise God for all we’ve seen Him do!
"1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at 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, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
I have seen this psalm used to teach on man’s role amongst creation, focusing on the responsibility God has given us to care for the planet...etc. And that’s in here. God has blessed with the task of overseeing this world which, even in its fallen form, is a beautiful reminder of God’s work.
However, I don’t think that’s the central point in this psalm of praise. The psalm begins and ends with the same phrase, which I can’t read without singing the praise chorus in my head: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” That’s the key here. God is majestic, yet He is mindful of us. He thinks about us. He died for us. Why? Why in the world would He do that? One of the most powerful lines from the movie we showed on Friday night was when Lee Strobel was interviewing the archaeologist who had left his fruitful career to enter full time ministry. At one point in the conversation, Lee asks the man why Jesus would die if He was powerful enough to save Himself. The man’s response was, “Now, the answer to that question is what got me out of the dirt and into the church. It’s very simple, love.” And that is our gist for this morning, as well. Who am I that God would be mindful of me? I am the receiver of the unmerited love of God!
I. WHO IS GOD?
So, the thrust of this text is reflecting on the magnitude of God. It seems to be written as David looks upon the night sky and takes in just a tiny glimpse of that vastness. Therefore, I want to spend a little time thinking about that together this morning, as well.
Now, it would be impossible for anyone to exhaust the person and character of God in the time we have here. It would be even more impossible for me (I’m have no exceptional scholarship)! Therefore, I am going to take Alistair Begg’s “4 P’s of God” (Powerful, Perfect, Personal, and Plural) and just briefly expand upon each. This will be more of a listing than an in-depth discussion of each quality. Nonetheless, the purpose this is to get a picture, a snapshot, of His vastness!
Powerful. First, we see His power. This is referenced in the opening verses, "1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens…. 3 When I look at Your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place…” (emphases added). These all point to the almighty God. The one who set the stars in place with His fingers. This is figurative language here, but the point is clearly made. Alone, fingers can only accomplish small tasks. I can’t lift much with just my fingers. But for God, setting the stars in the sky wasn’t strenuous! Let me just note a few characteristics of God that point to His power. (For the sake of time, I will be brief here. However, if you have specific questions about any of these, please message me, and I will do my best to help.)
Sovereign- He is in control… of everything! He is both Omniscient (He knows everything) and Omnipotent (He has all power). Now this psalm opens by saying that His name is great in all the earth. That doesn’t mean everyone everywhere believes in Him and worships Him. But, it does mean that the world itself testifies to His greatness. It’s like Paul wrote in Romans 1:18-20 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (emphasis added). In the same way, though not everyone acknowledges His sovereignty, God is still in control of all things, not least of which being our salvation! Amen!
Spirit- God is not limited to flesh and blood. He is the self-existent, life giver. He is the creator & sustainer of everything! There was nothing before God, and there would be nothing but God if it were not through Him.
Eternal- Those who are saved will have eternal life. The popularity of John 3:16 has made this phrase familiar. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (emphasis added). However, God is eternal. In Heaven, we will experience eternity—life without end. God has never been limited by time. He is completely timeless. Being truly eternal, He has no beginning or end.
Free- This might see like an odd observation, but this is something that makes God drastically different from us. In our fallen nature, we’re slaves to sin. But, even apart from that, we’re subject to natural laws. As much as our American culture might call for us to do whatever we want whenever we want to…we can’t. There are things we simply cannot do. I’d love to be able to fly like Superman. I’ve wanted to since I was a little kid. Sadly, I’ve had to resign myself to the reality that that’s just not a possibility for me. God has no such restrictions.
Wise- He is not only the source of all wisdom but is Himself wise. Knowing all things, He does all things as they should be done.
Perfect. So that’s the first “P”, and the one I think we see most clearly illustrated in this passage. However, the second one is definitely there, as well. He is perfect. Look again at the opening verses, “1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens…. 2…to still the enemy and the avenger…” (emphases added).
Holy- His name is majestic because He is powerful, but also because He’s Holy. He is separate from us. He is sinless. He does no wrong. His glory is His character revealed—and it is all good! His purpose is to still the enemy and the avenger—He is establishing righteousness because He is Himself righteous!
Incomparable- No one else is like Him (Isaiah 40:25). We most definitely are not. I had someone ask me recently if I thought it was possible for a human not to sin. I didn’t have to think about it. No. Not only has human experience taught us this, but we know only God is perfect.
Unchanging- And there won’t be a time when this isn’t true. He has and will always be the same wonderful God. There is a chance that you have heard people talk about liking the God of the New Testament, but not liking the God of the Old Testament…because He’s too mean and hateful. God has never changed. He has always punished sin, and shown mercy on those who follow Him—even though those same people tend to nearly always make a mess of that mercy! God told Moses to call Him “I Am”. He was and remains… everything!
Faithful- He is forever who He is, and is forever true to what He promises. Oh, Praise Him for that!
Just- We have spoken of this often recently. Though He is merciful, He hates evil and will ultimately punish sin.
Personal. This is probably the most popular “P” to talk about, and we do see it referenced in these same opening verses, "1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!”(emphasis added). In our society, people like to talk about God as “personal”. However, they often mean, though they would rarely use these words, ‘My god is one who does whatever I want. He doesn’t do any of that judgment stuff. He’s the ‘man upstairs’, a sort of ‘cosmic Santa Claus’. That’s not what we mean by personal.
Revealed- God is personal in part because He has been revealed to us. I think those of us who have grown up in church sometimes take this for granted. God did not have to tell us anything about Himself, but He did. He has given us His Word. He has worked continually and actively amongst His creation. He sent His Son, God-in-Flesh, to die for us! He is not a distant, uninvolved creator.
Loving- He has revealed Himself to us, and in that revelation we see that…He loves us! We’ll come back to this more in a moment, but what a blessing it is to know this…and to know that we can in fact know this!
Patient- If He were not, where would you be today? Aren’t you thankful for His patience?
Compassionate- I know this is similar to love, but we really can’t emphasize this enough. It makes me think of Romans 5:8, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Merciful- Mercy is not getting what you deserve. We deserve Hell, yet He died so that we could be with Him in Heaven.
Providential- This is always a fun point to make at Providence Baptist Church! He provides. I remember hearing my Grandma and Grandpa Upchurch pray growing up, and they would almost always end their prayers with “lead, guide, and direct us”. He does.
Redemptive- We need redemption. The hymn “Jesus Paid it All” puts it well, “Sin had left a crimson stain, You washed it white as snow!”
Plural. Now, this “P” isn’t clearly expressed in this psalm, but it is clearly expressed in all of Scripture and for that reason I wanted to briefly include it here (and don’t worry, I will be brief ☺️).
Trinitarian- Plural might sound misleading, but what we’re talking about here is the Trinity. God is one God in three persons. Yes, it is hard to wrap our minds around, but that points all the more to it’s divine nature. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirt. Distinct, but one.
Scriptural- Like I said, this can be a hard topic, and to really do it any kind of justice would likely require an entire service. However, let’s suffice to say that what we know about God has been revealed to us through His Word. He cannot, therefore, be whatever we want Him to be because He is who He is, not a product of our creation!
II. WHO AM I?
I know I spent a long time on that, and we’ve only hit the first few verses. However, the rest of the passage hinges on those truths. Seeing God for who He is, David realizes some truths about himself. I think we can summarize these in a few observation.
When I consider His vastness, I feel small. God made the universe with His fingers! I can barely thread a needle with mine! What boasts could I possibly make that would even come close to that? I remember watching a video with the youth years ago where a comedian was talking about people always trying to one-up each other with their stories. You know, if you talk about something bad that happened to you, then there is always that person who has to tell you what they’ve gone through that was worse. The comedian then explained that he wished he was one of the few people who has walked on the moon…because there would be no one-uping that one! “You got a promotion at work and now make “x” amount of money. Cool…I walked on the moon!” How do you compete with that? Yet, God blows that experience out of the water…He put the moon there…and didn’t even break a sweat! No one can one-up God!
When I consider His favor, I’m astonished. Several of the closing verses in this psalm are dedicated to talking about the dominion given to man over all other works of creation. As I noted at the beginning, this is true, and we should take seriously that dominion and care for this place His set us up as stewards over. However, Broyles made a great observation in his NIV commentary, and it really hit home with me, “Egocentric humans need not be reminded that we are the center of the universe, but we do need to be reminded that our place at the center is a surprise.” I love that quote! When David is praising God for giving him dominion, he isn’t praising Him for something he felt worthy of. He’s looking at the stars and considering God’s handiwork—and he cries out, “why would You be thinking of me?”
When I consider how He works to save, I’m humbled. This verse struck me as I studied this week, “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” We have this contrast between babies and infants, which are by nature very weak, and God establishing strength. There are two points I want to make on this. First, this could be pointing to how God often uses literal children (or those who are weak) to praise Him even when “mature adults” are missing the point. Or in other words, God uses the weak to accomplish His plans in the face of hostility. All Christians are spiritual Gideons--incapable, but used! In fact, Jesus quotes this verse in such an instance, “But when 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!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” (Matthew 21:15-16).
If Jesus uses the verse this way, it must be true! Jesus also refers to His followers as children and tells us to come to Him like children, dependent on Him for life. So the second point to note is that God takes His enemies and makes them His children! This is the ultimate stilling of the enemy! We who were against Him, have become His. Broyles put it something like this, “Infants have strength because of their privileged access to the One who is strength…The powerless have access to power”. In both examples, this is God working to save using the testimony of the weak!
When I look to His ultimate dominion and salvation, I cannot but praise!
Hebrews 2:6-10 makes the following observations about theses verses (though it seems the author couldn’t quite remember where this was said ☺️):"6 It has been testified somewhere, "What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under his feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering." All this talk of dominion points to God’s ultimate dominion which Jesus came to secure for all who call upon His name! Like David, when we think of all God is, we should praise like he did, “1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!”
TAKEAWAYS
I have spent a lot of time on these two points, so I will be short here.
1. God is majestic beyond our imaginations! Powerful, Perfect, Personal, Plural
2. We aren’t.
3. Yet, He has shown us unmerited favor. This is grace!
4. That should change how you face each day! Be humbly astonished and praise!
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