Majesty
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Language leads us. What we say communicates what we believe. We are going to look at the songs in the Bible that, no matter what led people back to God. This series intends to help us find a language rich enough that leads us back to God.
What if you were suddenly transported to a new country whose language you didn’t speak? You would be in shock. The signs would be in another language, you wouldn’t know what they said, asking for help would be difficult if you didn’t even know how to say “help.”
IT would be a frustrating, even chaotic feeling situation.
We understand our world because we understand the language. We know what the signs say and we know how to communicate to others.
Prayer can feel like another language sometimes. We understand the concept of it but don’t always know what to do with it. It can feel like a frustrating situation.
But what if we had a guidebook to help our prayers? To give us a language of prayer? Even if we’ve never prayer before or if we are frustrated by prayer and it feels like prayer is just talking to the cieling, the Psalms can help.
This series is called the Language of Prayer. We are going to take the next 5 weeks to go through 5 different psalms to talk about what we can learn from the psalms about prayer.
The book of psalms in the OT is basically a song book, containing 150 different songs to the Lord. And the psalms are wildly different. Some of complete praise and worship, some come from a place of anger, rejoicing, fear, frustration. But no matter the starting place, each psalm leads us back to God and helps give us the language to do so.
That is what we will be looking at, that no matter where we start, the psalms help lead us to God through prayer.
So for this morning we are going to look at psalm 8. Let’s get back into the passage by hearing it again.
Psalm 8 (ESV)
To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
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 babies 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!
This psalm is a sandwich, of sorts. It communicates it’s most important parts at the beginning and end of the psalm, telling us what it is that we are to know about God. The psalmist begins the psalm and ends it with
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
God’s Majesty is found in all of Creation and in the middle of all our experiences . The most majestic takes up the most of our attention.
God’s Majesty is found in all of Creation and in the middle of all our experiences . The most majestic takes up the most of our attention.
Define a time where you have experienced something majestic. What made it majestic?
No matter what is happening in and around us, through us by us, near us, above us, we are to know that the Lord is our Lord and His name is majestic in all the earth. We are led from the majesty of God and led to the Majesty of God.
When we lived in Oregon we used to camp on Mt hood from time to time. And mt hood is about 12000 feet high. Once you get about 8000 feet up, you get to alpine level and no matter where you look and no matter your perspective, you can’t help but see the summit of the mountain. It is everywhere. It is all around you. You can’t not see it. It is majestic.
But that can be hard when plaster is literally falling on our faces.
But the psalmist helps us to see that all of creation and all situations lead to knowing the majesty of God.
And the psalm will help us find the language of prayer when we are having a hard time seeing His majesty.
Hearing the language of prayer helps us to communicate with God on His level, with who He is and how He operates. The psalmist says that He is majestic. Above all creation He is majestic.
Understanding majesty means that there is nothing else above that. Nothing else is more supreme than that.
How easy or difficult is prayer for you? What is one thing that could make it easier?
There is nothing better we can do with language than to be able to give credit and acknowledge that which is most majestic.
Let’s look at ways in which we can learn from the psalmist how we can acknowledge God as majestic and what that word helps us to understand about HIm.
God’s Sovereignty helps us to cry Majesty!
God’s Sovereignty helps us to cry Majesty!
God is sovereign over creation, He is compassionate on His creation
To be sovereign over something is to have authority and agency in it. God is the the creator, He has authority in His creation.
Look at how the psalmist describes the God of creation:
you have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies 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,
One who is sovereign is one who rules over something. The Psalmist gives God the range of creation, of humanity, enemy and friend, young and old.
The psalmist covers the range of humanity and the range of creation.
There is not a part of creation in which God does not have a part, or as we will see, does not take part in.
The word here for “majesty” is word that is robust and isn’t just describing God in one way, it points to all the ways that God is larger than bigger than greater than. And to hold something majestic is to see it larger than anything else around it.
When the psalmist used “majestic” is it multidimensional. He is not just saying God is great. To consider something majestic is to understand it's greatness in terms of size, strength, power, or authority.
God’s sovereignty, His rulership, leads us to call Him majestic. His work in creation and His work in humanity leads us to call out the bigness of God and and cry out majesty.
Make a list of all the ways that God is majestic
God’s imminence helps us to cry majesty!
God’s imminence helps us to cry majesty!
But maybe the most miraculous part is that God is sovereign but He is also imminent. He is over all but yet has come to us. He has come close. So God is sovereign and is seen through all creation but has also shown us who He is through coming close.
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.
God is sovereign over creation and yet He has considered humanity. He is mindful of us, He cares for us. It is His closeness to us that allows us to cry out Glory!
The shift here is from who God is in creation to what the psalmist sees, to how the psalmist experiences God.
The psalmist seems genuinely amazed that God pays Him any mind. Our mindsets have changed since then. We aren’t amazed that God hasn’t paid us any mind, we are amazed that He hasn’t done everything in the way we have exactly asked.
Have you ever gotten into the mindset where we are frustrated with God for not doing things specifically in the way we have wanted?
What is one thing you can do to transition to desiring your will to God’s will?
God’s compassion helps us to cry majesty!
God’s compassion helps us to cry majesty!
English Standard Version Hebrews 2:5–9
5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world lto come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere,
m“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,1
8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, nwe do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him owho for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, pcrowned with glory and honor qbecause of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might rtaste death sfor everyone.
Hebrews 2 borrows deeply from psalm 8
- Hebrews places Christ in the place where the psalmist places man. Christ is the one in which nothing is out of control. Christ is the one in whom everything is subject to.
Christ is the object of majesty, the One in which all things are in subjection to. Our order is to come under Him.
But in the middle of all of that He shows up and He shows concern and care.
He has compassion on us, not as someone removed from a situation but as someone in the situation.
The author of Hebrews spends a lot of time building a case that Christ is different than anything or anyone who has come before because Christ, when everyone else turned away, has leaned in,
Look at Hebrews 4:14-16
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
It is Christ’s compassion that allows us the confidence to draw near to God. We see the mercy within the character of Christ. It is His very demeanor that allows us to know how we can approach Him.
How does knowing Christ’s compassion for us help us to grow in confidence toward Him?
We serve and know a God who doesn’t only show up, but pitches in through compassion.
In the middle of our experiences we can experience God and can cry out, Majesty!
In the middle of our experiences we can experience God and can cry out, Majesty!
The Psalmist tells us our language, no matter where we are, can be one of majesty.
There is no place where God’s glory is diminished. No situation or place. Even when it feels like we are diminished God’s glory is not
Even on the Cross we see Christ diminished but God’s plan Gods will, Gods work not diminished. He is still majestic and even in darkness we see light.
There is not a place in your life where God’s glory is diminished. We may not be able to see it, maybe our ability to see what God is doing is limited due to our sin or or circumstances but we can still experience God’s ultimate glory in crying out majesty!
Do you know Him as majestic this morning? Do you believe He is majestic? Does He capture your attention? If not how can HE begin to capture your attention this morning?