Chris McCurley: Yeah. Kate, thanks for leading us. You know it's funny. I had these interns signed up almost a year ago. And I texted them not long ago and I said, Can any of y'all lead singing? And I said, Not would you, like, are you like actually decent at it? Can you do it? And I think all of them kind of gave a I don't know. You know. So I appreciate you being willing to come up here and do that. And I thank you all for being here tonight. And we're in a series all summer looking at the Psalms. And tonight we're in Psalm eight, as you can see. So if you want to turn there, you know. If you're a massive superstar, you get a security team. And apparently, among the members of those security teams, you have different code names for the people that make it up. And such is the case with Michael Jordan. Probably all know who Michael Jordan is, ex Chicago Bull, NBA legend. He has a security team with codenames like Venom and Viper and Butler and Harmony. Any guesses what Michael Jordan's code name is among this team? It's not heir, that's a good guess. No, his nickname, his code name is Yahweh. Because he is the center of the universe, at least his own universe. He calls all the shots, he has all the authority, everyone bows down to him. And I guess if you're Michael Jordan, you can pull that off, but we know that there's only one. Who has that name, and only one who is worthy to have that name. And that, of course, is the one true God. In Hebrew, he is known as Yahweh. Look at Psalm 8 with me. This Psalm is all about how we are just little dirt creatures. No matter how great we think we are, we were made from dirt. No matter how great Michael Jordan is, made from dirt. But the Wonderful thing about these little dirt creatures is that God wants to partner with us, and that He wants us to rule and reign with Him. That was the purpose we were created in the very beginning. So look at it. Psalm 8. 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. You know, if you were to isolate the latter part of verse five and following, you would probably think that David was talking about who? Well about God or Jesus, right? I mean Look, it says, and crowned him with glory and honor. You gave 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 heaven, the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. You would think that this would be a reference to God or Yahweh or Jesus. But who's he talking about here? Who's David referencing with these words? You and me, these little dirt creatures that God exalts. Now, lest we get the big head or get too big for our britches, David's not saying that, like Michael Jordan, we should wear the name Yahweh. But what he's saying is because God is our Kvod, because He is our glory, we get the honor and the privilege of partnering with Him. That He has exalted us, that He has given us a position of honor. It's He that does the exalting. He is the center of the universe, make no mistake about it. He is the creator and sustainer. He is the authority. He is the one in control. But how majestic is his name in all the earth, that he would promote little dirt creatures like us. ⁓ Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. This psalm begins and ends with that statement of exaltation. On April the 30th, 2013, Robert Galbreith wrote a book entitled Cuckoo's Calling. Have you read it? Nobody had. I don't think it even, I think it sold like 500 copies. But when the author decided to re-release it under their proper name and not their pen name, it shot up multiple bestsellers lists. The true author was J.K. Rowley, who wrote the Harry Potter series. But she wrote Cuckoo's Calling under the pen name of Robert Galbreath. And nobody read the book. But as soon as her real name was attached to it, then everything changed, right? And certainly that is the case when it comes to Yahweh, when it comes to Jesus. Everything changes when that name is exalted. He impacts every aspect of our lives. Our reflexive response, our impulse is to praise Him with everything that we have, because we know that we are nothing without Him. And this is what David is doing in Psalm eight. He is praising God for exalting humans to such a high, high position. And what position is that, you might ask? Well, that's what we're gonna go through here for a few minutes tonight. Tell me, what comes to mind when you see these characters? According to Movie Web, these are the greatest underdogs in movie history. Now you can agree or disagree with the list. I didn't come up with the list. This is Movie Web, whoever that is. They say that Rocky and Luke Skywalker and Rudy and the Karate Kid, these are the greatest underdog stories films ever made. I would challenge that by saying you are the greatest underdog story that has ever lived. Because God loves the underdog. If you look through the stories of Scripture, over and over again you see God selecting the unsuspecting, the one that was anything but a hero. Remember when it comes to Gideon, who's threshing out wheat in a wine press, calls him a valiant warrior? Gideon was as far from a valiant warrior as you could be. And you think about others, whether it be Moses or or or many of the characters that we read about in the Bible, over and over again we find this underdog theme. You find Many times how God doesn't select the eldest son in the family, which would make sense, but rather the youngest, perhaps. And so we see this theme play out. And we see it in the life of David, the one who authored this psalm, don't we? I mean, we talked about it this morning, but David goes from zero to hero. He's a shepherd boy, ⁓ no significance, no importance. He faces off with Goliath, who is nine feet to whatever feet tall. I mean, there's different varying ⁓ you know ⁓ heights you know that are that are given to him. And so David approaches him with a slingshot, five stones, that's it. It only took one, but he had five. Not only that, but Goliath is armed with with a hundred pounds of armor. And the truth of the matter is David was never at a disadvantage. Ever. Because this had nothing to do with his marksmanship. His ability with the slingshot. It had nothing to do with the size of the opponent. It had nothing to do with even David's courage. It had everything to do with God. And David recognized that in the moment. The battle belongs to the Lord. And therefore it wasn't even a fair fight to begin with. David was never at a disadvantage. In fact, Goliath probably was the underdog. He had no shot of winning that day. And giant sized problems need giant sized solutions. We love the underdog story. Movie creators know this, which is why they come up with all these storylines, because they know we eat it up. We eat it up from a biblical perspective. We love the sermons on David and Goliath and how you too can be a David and slay your Goliath. But David recognizes that it all comes from God. His strength, his power, all of it comes from God. And we see in Psalm 8 this contrast, but before we dissect it, Let's get a feel for what's going on around it. Remember, remember this slide, the one you can't read? So this breaks down the Psalms for us, and you have five books that make up the Psalms. You have book one, which is chapters three through 41, book two, which is chapters 42 through 72, book three, which is chapters 73 through 89, book four, which is chapters 90 through 106, and book five, which is chapters 107 through 145. There's 150 books in the Psalms, so why. Did they leave out the last five? Because we talked about last week. The last five provide a conclusion to the entire book. So if you have a conclusion and you have a ⁓ a section that is the meat, then you've got to have an introduction. And we talked about the introduction last week. That's Psalms one and two that provide the introduction for us. Now, what we notice is that Psalms concludes with five songs of praise to the God of Israel. And each one begins and ends with the word hallelujah or praise the Lord. Hallelujah is not only an expression of thanksgiving to God, but also a command. Praise Yah. Yah being short for Yahweh. And so we're praising Yahweh with hallelujah. We have this conclusion, we have this internal organization, and we have an introduction. And it's from these first two chapters that we talked about last week and throughout the book that we find four major themes that come up over. And over again. And what are those four major themes? Temple, Torah, Messiah, Kingdom of God. And again, these four ⁓ points, these four themes play out through the entirety of Psalms. They review the biblical storyline. And so you enter the Psalms to meet with God and to hear the entire story of God's kingdom being sung back to you in poetry. So when you open your Bible. And when you open up to the Psalms, you are encountering God while meditating on his word. You are doing exactly what the people were doing when they read the Psalms for the first time. They're meditating on Torah as they wait for the Messiah. And that's what we're doing when we open up the Bible. We are meditating on God's word while we wait for Jesus. You do realize that the Bible is living and active. This is a living document, it's a literary temple. If the temple is where you encounter God, then certainly that is what the Bible is. And certainly Psalms help us to encounter God. We are meditating on God's word as we wait for Jesus. And so that brings us to Psalm 3. And actually, if you look at the Psalms and how they're broken down, you have Psalms 3 through 7, which is really based around David hiding from his enemies. Psalms 9 through 14 are more about David and the poor and the afflicted. And right in the middle is Psalm 8. And Psalm 8 is in the middle for a reason, because it kind of joins these two thoughts or themes together. It's kind of a it's kind of a transitioning between the two themes. The major theme in both sections is David and the afflicted ones are powerless and weak. That's the takeaway. However, even though they are powerless and weak, God has been gracious and He has chosen to rule the world through these little dirt creatures. They are the underdogs who will be top dog. And this is what Psalm 8 is all about. Look at it again, verse 1. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Now, this is where we're introduced to something known as an inclusio in biblical poetry. It is a signal to the reader what this poem is. Is all about. So you read the first verse and you know what the rest of the psalm is going to be about. It's kind of like Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. You don't even have to read the rest of that psalm. The first line tells you everything that you need to know. Everything else is just a praise for the Lord being a shepherd. And so that's what we have here. We have an inclusio, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. David and the afflicted ones are experiencing. Adversity. Things are not great for them. Even though God is present, they feel that God should be doing more, or perhaps is not listening to them, or not ⁓ maybe abandoned them. And God is still the majestic one, but things aren't really working out for them at this point. And at this moment, God's power does not seem to be benefiting them at all. And that is what the rest of the Psalm is all about. Verse 2: out of the mouth of babies and infants. You have established strength because of your foes to steal the enemy and the avenger. So God's going to build a fortress out of baby Babel. That seems a little strange until you kind of start to unpack it. 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. This is Genesis language. And the Psalms does this quite often, where it reverts back to Genesis language, garden language. We find it all over the Bible, but we especially find it here in Psalms. You'll find that the psalmists often go back to creation when there was chaos and how God turned the chaos into something orderly and he created everything that we get to experience today. And so there's often this reversal back to Genesis language because you remember what was lost in the garden? Everything that was lost in the garden, the Bible seems to be playing out towards that being restored, right? And and so from the very beginning we witness God's love for the underdog. Whether it be babbling babies, lowly humans, the poor and the afflicted, God has a special place in his heart for the weak. We saw that with Jesus in his earthly ministry, didn't we? He had a special place in his heart for the weak, for the afflicted, for those who were not the prominent ones, for those who did not have status, who were not important. The powerful are humbled, while the meek and the lowly are made strong. That's another theme that we see play out over and over again. This is what the psalmist is alluding to. David, the poor, the afflicted, the weak, they set the pattern for the ultimate human that we were introduced to in Psalm 1. Remember that last week? There is a new human that's going to make his arrival on the scene later on down the road, and this new human is. Is going to be everything that the previous leaders were not. Even though David was a great king, he certainly had his flaws. Even though Moses was a wonderful deliverer, he had his flaws. But there's going to be one that comes who is perfect. The perfect king and ruler, and the one who is not flawed, the one who does not have stains on his character, and the one who will take away our sins. Notice Matthew chapter twenty-one. Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth Page, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets, saying, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble. And mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. You see what's going on here? King Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a war horse, not a majestic stallion. He is going to confront the most powerful people in the city, yet his entrance is not indicative anyway of strength or power or might, and the people that are hailing him. The people that are praising him are the who? The poor, the afflicted, the children. Israel's leaders mock Jesus. They put him on trial in a kangaroo court. They put him on a cross. But God raises him from the dead and exalts him to his rightful place as king and the true image of God. But Jesus doesn't keep his power to himself because this power is not selfish. No what he invites his followers to share in his power and his mission. However, this power, this mission is not standard run-of-the-mill that you see in society. To be a true follower of Jesus, to share in his power, is to share it with others. And not just your money in helping the poor and afflicted, but sharing Jesus. That's the mission. You share that with those because those that are poor and afflicted. May not be such in in a societal sense. They may have a lot of money, they may have a lot of status, but if they don't have Jesus, they're poor and afflicted and they're weak. And so we share with the poor, the afflicted, and the weak. We help those who can't help themselves. But even more than that, we share Jesus because Jesus has been shared with us. We have something that everyone else needs. God's kingdom and power are most clearly on display when we serve. Powerless. Matthew chapter nine, beginning in verse thirty-five. And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, and therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. Into the harvest. So Jesus saw the crowd and he had compassion on them. You might remember we talked about this a couple of years ago, but when it talks about compassion here, this is this is like a gut punch. It's like when you hear ⁓ of someone that you knew, maybe you weren't real close to them, but you hear that they maybe they they passed away and it's like a kick in the stomach. You know, there's there's it's a gut punch, and Jesus looks at the people who are poor and afflicted and weak, and he has compassion on them. And he has compassion on them because they are harassed and helpless. Harassed is a a very graphic word in the Greek. It denotes being skinned, mangled, and flayed. It refers to stripping the flesh from the body. And so Jesus saw these poor and helpless people. This crowd is ⁓ as a flock of sheep. That was ripped apart and skinned alive. This word can also refer to being hunted and worn out. These people are foot sore, fleece worn. Some are lying on their backs, unable to get up, like cast sheep. And he goes to them. He looks at them and he says, They need help. And we're not gonna wait on somebody else to do it. We're gonna do it. Jesus, the apostles. And now us. Now it's our job, it's our mission. They had no shepherd to care for them or to provide for them. They were aimless. They were directionless. And Jesus says, We're gonna do something about it. He was gonna do something about it. His apostles were gonna do something about it. And the charge has been handed down through the ages, and now it's up to us. I'm not just a part of the rescued. I'm a rescuer. And to be lifted up, to be exalted means that I promote the king by promoting the poor and the afflicted. Excuse me, that's what David is writing about in Psalm 8. The poor, the afflicted, the weak, who he was now among. The people around him were among, and who we are among as well. Poor, afflicted, weak, in need, desperate need of a Savior. Once we receive that rescuing, it's our mission, it's our job to rescue others, to be a part of the mission. God wants to partner with these old dirt creatures in a big way. To rule and reign with him. Those of us who have zero status and zero importance get to be exalted. Because the Lord, who is the most exalted, wants that for us. When my kids were pretty small, we were living in Missouri, and I went to pick them up from school, and they could not wait to tell me about this monumental event that happened at school. They were so excited, they couldn't wait to share the news, and they jump in the car and all three of them are trying to talk at once. Finally, after they calmed down, they shared with me the news that they just that it's just unbelievable to them. And you know what it was? A dog had gotten into the school. It was warm that day, they let the doors open, and a dog wandered in and started roaming up and down the hallways. That was the big news that they couldn't wait to share with me. To them, that was a monumental event. That a dog would come in and walk around until somebody had to shoe it away. And I don't know about you, but maybe you felt that way when you walked through these doors. Maybe you feel like this is not really a place I feel comfortable. It's not really a place where I feel like I belong. Kind of like that dog that wanders into the school, you feel like I'm wandering into this place and I'm so out of place it's not even But let me reassure you that God wants you. He not only wants you here, he wants you in a relationship with him, and he's not going to shoe you away, nor are we. It's easy to think of ourselves as a dog, as worthless. And unfortunately, we have done this too much through the years, just in the way that we perceive ourselves through Bible study or whatever. Even the songs that we sing, such a worm as I, wretched man that I am. We we think of ourselves as wretched and lowly and and and I'm a worm. And so we say the gospel is bad news before it's good news. And the truth of the matter is the gospel is good news, then it's bad news, then it's good news again. You may see yourself as a worm, and you may think that before God, that's how I must see myself. God doesn't see you as a worm. I know Paul says, Wretched man that I am, that's how he saw himself, but God sees you as a beautiful creation stamped in his image. You were valuable enough that he would send his son to die for you. So anytime you think that you have you know low self esteem spiritually, remember you were created and someone died for you. You're not a worm. You're not a wretch. You may do some wretched things, you may done some evil things, but God loves you and He wants to see you as someone created in His image. Don't ever think of yourself as worthless. Don't ever look at yourself as worthless before God. It's kind of like if I had a $100 bill. Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it? Let's say I had a $100 bill and I just asked you, who in this audience wants a $100 bill? Probably a few of you would raise your hand. But before I give it to you, I wad it up, I you know, I spit on it, I put it on the ground, and I I I I rub it into the dirt and then I pick it back up and I say, now who wants it? Probably all of you. Because even though I crumpled it up, even though I spit on it, even though I put it on the ground and and rubbed it in the dirt, it's it's still worth a hundred dollars. Whether it's finely creased or whether it's all crumpled up, it's still worth a hundred dollars. And many times in our lives we're we're dropped, we're stepped on, we're crumpled up, and we feel like we can't go forward. We make bad decisions and we find ourselves in bad circumstances, and because of this, we feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened, no matter what will happen, you don't lose your value. Dirty or cleaned, crumpled up, or finely creased, you are priceless treasure before God. The God who created you and the Christ that died for you. So back in the first century, they would often have responsive readings. Let's just read this together as we close. Ready? O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Let's pray. Most kind and gracious Heavenly Father, you are majestic. You are highly exalted. You are. The creator and sustainer of everything, and we are just so blessed to be in your presence, to have ⁓ any sort of status among you. That you would want us, that you would choose us. You could have chosen anybody, anywhere, but you chose us, and we are so grateful that we get to be children of yours. And may we seek to carry out your mission to everyone, everywhere, so that they can understand that there is a better way. That there is a purpose. There's fulfillment that maybe they've never known. Thank you, God, for blessing us in so many ways. May we seek to bless others. We love you, and it's in your Son's precious name we pray. Amen. Cade's got a song. If we can help you tonight, why don't you come as we stand and as we sing?