Crowned with Glory and Honor: Human Dignity in an Inhuman Age | Psalm 8 | Dr. Jason Thacker

Well, good morning, Church.

How are we this morning?

It's good to see you all.

As Bob said, my name is Jason Thacker, and it's been a real privilege to be with you all this weekend, especially last night at our underground session.

We got to talk about some really interesting topics, especially in terms of what it means to be human.

That's one of the questions we're asking today from Psalm 8.

But I want us to slow down a little bit.

Psalm 8 is one of those passages that many of us have parts of it memorized, that we've been crowned with glory and honor.

But sometimes I think because of how familiar we are with this passage, we sometimes gloss over the whole point of the passage in the first place.

But it's been a real joy to be with you all throughout this weekend last night at the Underground Session as we talked about the question of what is a human being, but specifically who is a moral person.

And if that sounds kind of like a difference without a distinction, it's because that's the way God designed it to be.

Many today in contemporary society will say that someone could be a human person, maybe the baby in the womb.

That's a human being, but they're not yet a moral person, that somehow our value, our dignity, and worth exist on a sliding scale, that somehow we develop those things over time.

That our rights and the care, the duty, protection that we owe others is something that we gain at some point, whether it's at birth or whether it's sometime after birth, or even something, remember, friends, if it can be gained, also to remind you that it also can be lost, especially at the end of life, where we see the very essence of human life being devalued in ways that frankly are quite distressing and overwhelming and heartbreaking.

But the God, God's word is a good reminder of where our true value and worth really lie.

And so last night we dug in deep on this question of who is a person.

This morning we're going to dive in a little bit deeper into Psalm 8 to see what God says about us, but more importantly, what he says about himself.

That's our key point this morning, especially in Psalm 8, is the majesty and the glory of God, not only seen in his majestic reign and rule, but also his creation of humanity, and then also the jobs and roles he gives us, the responsibilities we have as his image bearers.

I'll say that it's also deeply encouraging one to join you all, especially this year, because it's just, I'll be honest, it's such an encouraging thing to see a congregation celebrating 175 years of gospel service in this community.

That's incredible, friends, to see the faithful brothers and sisters and saints who have come before you and to you be sitting here at this place at this time that God's called you to this work in this community, and He's given us all we need.

His word is more than sufficient to navigate the challenges of the day.

And so to be reminded of that and just to be able to celebrate 175 years of gospel service, that's a testament to God's kindness to you all as a church body, but also the call on this church and this community at this time.

As I've said, our theme this weekend has been talking about questions and the debates over human dignity.

We talked about this kind of developmental idea of the human person, which I argued is directly contrary to a biblical vision.

You don't gain it at some point, and you also don't lose it at some point.

It's something intricate to who you are, more importantly, of who God says you are.

That's where our identity is fixed.

What's interesting when we get into Psalm 8 is I said this is a classic text that informs many, uh, often within the Christian church, about how we have long thought about what it means to be human and specifically God's call on our lives as his creatures.

It's one of those psalms that's easy for us often to memorize certain aspects of, but I think our familiarity with it at times obscures the point of really what this psalm is really meant to be.

But regardless of how familiar we are, whether we're brand new to church, we're kind of exploring these ideas, maybe we're here because a friend brought us, or maybe we're here and we've long been here.

We were born and bred in the church, and we know the text inside and out.

I promise you this morning, friends, God has something for you, a word for you, a reminder, or if not, good news for you this morning.

So I our goal this morning is to slow down a little bit and to think deeply about the picture that Psalm 8 paints for us of the majesty of God and what it means to be human.

As I told you, Psalm 8 is one of the classic psalms within the Christian tradition.

Specifically, it's one of King David's Psalms, and it's long been considered a song of praise, more specifically, of creation praise.

We're gonna see that in the text.

It's actually reminding us, calling us back to even the Genesis creation account of Genesis 1 and 2.

But in a little twist, we often go to this text to say, okay, what does it mean to be human?

But friends, I want to put forth to you that this text actually answers that yes, but the central message of this psalm is not so much about human dignity per se, but it's centered on God's majestic glory and his power that is manifested throughout all of creation.

David will remind us in a day where we're often tempted, back then and today, friends, to look around and to compare ourselves to other parts of creation, and maybe even to other people at times, even in this room and our family, our co-workers, those in our community, to say, well, they have this and they have this, and I'm not as valuable, I'm not as useful.

We look around to determine, posit the differences between us and the rest of creation.

God's word, specifically Psalm 8, is trying to reorient our gaze.

It's not about looking around, it's actually about looking up to see God and his majestic glory and who he is as he's revealed himself in Scripture.

Not to look out to the world to understand our dignity, value, and worth, but to simply look up.

It is so common for us to look around at what God has made and identify the differences between an animal and a human being and say, well, that must be what it means to be human.

That may be true in part, but this text is actually calling us to do something different, which is to look up.

This psalm redirects our attention upward to understand our value and our dignity is not something dependent upon how we relate to others or the value that others see in us, but actually the value that God has said about us, that we are loved, and that is where our value comes from, as one theologian once said, God doesn't love you, friend, because you're so valuable.

You're valuable because God loves you.

That is the central truth that we see here in Psalm 8, but we really see throughout the breadth of Scripture.

As the theologian John Calvin once noted, when we have a greater understanding of God, we will also have a greater understanding of ourselves.

Why?

Scripture tells us we're made in the image of God.

Look up.

The greater understanding we have of God, the greater understanding we will have of our own value, dignity, and worth.

But friends, the vice versa is true as well.

The greater understanding we have of our true selves, not what we determine, not what we fix, not what we think about, what we think about ourselves or what other people think about us, but what is our true identity found in Christ, we will actually have a greater appreciation and understanding of God Himself as well.

Because He is the creator, we are the creature.

We cannot truly understand our value and ourselves as human beings without a corresponding knowledge of God.

And that brings us to our text here in Psalm 8.

So if you have a copy of God's word, I encourage you to open it to Psalm 8.

And I'm going to read God's word for us and to sit under the authority of God's word as we talk about this question of not only God's glory, but also what it means to be human.

The psalmist writes, David writes in 8:1, 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 babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens and the work of your fingers, the moon's moon and the star 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 work of your hands.

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

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

Let us pray.

Father God, I thank you for this morning.

I thank you for this church.

I thank you for the gospel outreach and out gospel post here at Millington Baptist Church and for the faithful service over these last 175 years.

And God, I pray that you would continue to grow this church, deepen us all as members of the Universal Church and our understanding of who you are and what you've done for us through the person work of Christ.

I pray this morning that you would help us to see you in Scripture, that you would give us eyes to see what you are doing.

Father, that you would give us ears to hear what you are saying, minds that can comprehend the majesty and the glory of who you are.

But all of these things are worthless if we don't have a heart that loves you.

God, I pray that you would instill and cultivate a heart, a posture of seeking to love you into seeking to love our neighbors as ourselves.

God, that you would fill us with your spirit, remind us of the good work that Christ has done.

Father, how you've transferred us from the domain and kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of your beloved Son and whom you love.

And that Jesus, we know that you are sitting at the right hand of the Father, that you are praying for us even as we pray to the Father.

And I pray that you would also remind us that the Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, fully God, if we are in Christ, dwells in us.

That you are here, Spirit.

And I pray that you would speak to us, remind us of Christ, and for the glory and majesty and honor of the Father.

Remind us of who you are and what you've done for us.

And we pray that you would help us to grow in likeness of Christ in every way.

We pray in his name.

Amen.

Friends, no matter where we turn today, we're seeing immense challenges to human dignity, as many today seek to redefine our identity in ways that are contrary to what God shows us about who we really are, and specifically what we see about what's true of us in the scripture, whether we doubt it or not, believe it or not, these things are true of us because God is our creator and it has spoken these things.

From questions from the very beginning of life and the horrors of abortion to questions of reproductive technologies, how to best care for the sick among us, those facing various disabilities, even how to navigate the difficult and heart-wrenching end-of-life decisions.

Friends, we don't like to think about death, but it is coming for all of us.

But also as Christians, we live in light of the fact that Jesus has defeated the great enemy, that death no longer has things.

It has already been beaten.

But it seems from now that we're talking about the beginning of life to the very end of life and basically everything in between, we cannot get past the question of what does it mean to be human that is front and center in our culture today and ought to be front and center in the church as well.

But we have a different orientation, a different understanding of human dignity.

It's not something that is self-defined, it's not something that's gained or lost over time.

What God says is true about us flows from who He is.

That's the whole point of this passage, to remind us of the glory and the majesty of God.

This question of what does it mean to be human informs and forms so many of the contemporary debates, from ethical debates and moral debates, social debates, political debates, where our dignity as human beings is often tied to what we do, what we contribute, and how other people view us and see us, rather than what God says is true about us.

That can't be lost, it can't be gained, it just is because of how God has made us.

Psalm 8 reminds us that our true dignity and value is found in relation to God, not in something we define or create for ourselves.

We live in a society that says you have to justify your existence.

Friends, it's already been justified.

It's done.

We live in light of those truths.

We live in light of who God is, what he has said, and what he has done for us, and that is where our true value and dignity comes from.

You don't have to justify your value.

God has already declared it.

And that's what we see here in Psalm 8 that has a distinct pattern and a distinct flow that I want us to unpack this morning.

You see three parts is listed in today's outline.

And I was when I was kind of working through it this week.

I originally had very different points here.

They were all the same points, but I had the language mixed up a little bit.

And the more I steeped in Psalm 8, look, friends, I've studied, I've known this passage, I've taught this passage, and I was just hit fresh this week.

It's all about God.

It's always been about God from the very beginning to the very end.

And so I reordered the entirety of the points and reworded them to start with God's majesty as our creator.

That's the point of the passage.

We see that in verses 1 and 2, but also in verse 9.

Remember, it's kind of a sandwich.

It's all about his majesty and glory from the beginning to the end.

In verses 3 through 5, we see God's creation of humanity.

Remember fronting the fact of God, God's majesty, God's creation.

And then lastly, in verses 6 through 8, we see God's role for humanity.

He has called us to do something, not to earn our identity, not to earn our favor, and definitely not to earn our salvation.

But if we were in Christ, Ephesians 2.10, if we're in Christ, there are works that have been created beforehand that we ought to live into.

But it's for by grace that you've been saved through faith.

This is not of your own doing, so that no one may boast.

But we are, verse 10, Christ's workmanship created to do good works.

So let's dive into verses 1, 2, and also 9.

We'll come back to this.

God's majesty as our creator.

At the both the beginning and the end of this Psalm, we see the same line repeated.

You don't have to be a Bible scholar to know when something is repeated, it's valuable.

You need to hold on to it.

When the Word of God says something over and over again, we better believe it because it is true.

It's being emphasized.

Verses run and two read this: 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.

This psalm begins with an exclamation of praise and a reminder, this song of praise and of worship to God.

Many scholars actually think that Psalm 8 was a worship song, that we would, that early church would have sang these things, that the Jewish people would have sang this, and it's actually something we should probably put to music at some point, just to be reminded of God's word and what he says.

But it starts with praise.

David here is proclaiming the majesty of God and drawing our gaze upward to the heavens, away from the here and now, upward to the heaven to behold who God is and what he has done for us.

It begins with an acknowledgement, friends.

An acknowledgement of God as our eternal creator, through whom all things come to being, including each of us as image-bearers.

It begins with God.

Even as we start to unpack and think through this question of what does it mean to be human, we must, as David is reminding us here, start and end with God.

Within a Christian framework or a worldview for understanding the nature of who God is, what he says about us as human beings, and how we navigate the world around us, long within the Christian tradition, we've recognized a fundamental distinction, a distinction between God as our creator and we as his creatures.

There's a fundamental creator-creature distinction.

Friends, we are like God.

We see that in Genesis 1 and 2.

We're like God, we're created in the image of God, but we're not God.

There's a fundamental difference.

He is God, we are his creatures.

He is infinite, we are finite.

God is all-knowing, and we very often struggle with knowing and understanding and comprehending and understanding what God is doing, especially when we face suffering, trials, and tribulations and persecution.

We don't know what's going on, but God does.

There's a fundamental difference.

God did not make the world out of himself.

God is the eternal God, the creator God, the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit from all eternity.

Who chose out of the abundance of his love to make everything, including you.

God, that's the God we serve.

That's the majestic nature of him.

Here's a truth, friends, that's hard to hear at first, but I'll tell you, it's deeply, deeply freeing once you embrace it.

God doesn't need you.

God is all-powerful.

You are not.

He is infinite.

You are finite.

God doesn't need us, but he chose to make us at an abundance of his love.

He is our creator.

We are his creatures.

It's vital for us to maintain this distinction, to continue to champion, especially as we navigate key issues of human dignity in the public square, but not just out there, friends.

Also in here, in our own families, when we're navigating key issues of bioethics and human dignity, to recognize and to remember there's a clear distinction between God as the creator and we as his creature.

And who are we, that Isaiah reminds us, who are we to call out to the potter, why have you made me this way?

He is the creator, we are the creature.

He is the potter, we are the clay.

You can't comprehend God in his fullness.

But David's trying to lift your gaze up to begin to comprehend him.

How majestic he is.

There is a clear distinction between God as our creator, we as his creature, that's often blurred or to be honest with you, completely ignored in contemporary society.

And sometimes, unfortunately, in the church as well.

In a world that champions autonomy, just a fancy way to say it's about me, myself, and I, it's my body, it's my choice, it's my truth, it's my reality, it's about me.

I'm autonomous.

Auto namos literally means self-law, self-rule, self-mastery.

In an age of autonomy and hyper-individuality, Christians must remember you are an individual.

God knows you intimately.

Friend, he knows you better than you know yourself.

We'll get to that in a little bit.

We are known by God, we are loved by God, but we are not autonomous beings.

We never were.

You were created.

Meaning you are utterly and completely and wholly dependent upon another.

Not just your mother's womb, not just others in your family when you grow old, but you are utterly dependent, completely and totally dependent on God, and you are interdependent on each other.

We need each other.

It's actually the good news of gathering as the church body.

We remind ourselves ultimately of our dependence upon God, but also we need one another.

You need to be here.

I need you, you need me.

We need each other.

That is contrary to often a cultural vision of what it means to be human.

Everything we have and everything that we are is given to us by God Himself.

And nothing, this is also one of those hard truths that's also freeing, nothing happens outside of his power and sovereignty and love as our creator, our sustainer, and our redeemer.

We as humans are set apart.

Yes, we are unique in creation, but we are utterly and completely dependent upon God for all things.

You get that in verse 1 and 2.

But in verse 2, we're also reminded of God's power and his authority over all things, as well as his, he is the standard of goodness and of true justice.

When we want to go about justice in society, we have to look for a biblical vision of justice rooted in God Himself and what he says about himself, what he's revealed about himself.

And in verse 2, we see some of that to start to come out.

Again, that's not the point of the passage per se, but it is lifting our gaze up to God.

First, we see in verse 2 how God routinely uses the weak and the vulnerable and the helpless to show strength, his strength, to a watching world.

He takes the weakest, he takes the helpless, he uses them for his own glory, showing off, showing who he is, reminding the world of His power and his majesty and his glory.

This is directly contrary to what so much of the world sees.

That your value, your dignity, and your worth is rooted in the things you do rather than the God you serve.

It's always about me and what I do.

It's about strength, how we this counter-cultural message about strength and power is not about what we do, but what God has already done and what he is doing.

God in his great power and strength could have used anyone and could have done anything, but he chooses out of love to use the weak and the helpless, the babies and infants, to shame the world of the strong and to manifest his immense power.

But a second part of this, he also uses the most vulnerable to bring about justice.

See in the text here.

To still the enemy and the avenger.

There is a great enemy, friends.

There are it, there are grave injustices in our world.

But we as Christians, we do go about the pursuit of justice only because of who God is and what he's done.

He is the author of justice.

He is the true God.

It flows from who he is.

Our God is a God of justice and it's rooted in who he is and his character.

He establishes his strength and the pursuit of justice for his people and reminds them, kind of looking forward, the church has long used this text and seen in this text.

It looks forward because remember, friends, this entire book is about Jesus.

Don't take my word for it, take Jesus' Luke 24, 27.

He explained to them on the road of Emmaus all of Scripture, the law and the prophets concerning himself.

We don't have to read Jesus into the text because he's already here.

He is the Logos, the Word of God from the very beginning, John 1.

But what's interesting here, distill the enemy and the Avenger, the great enemy is death.

I've got good news for you, Christian.

Death has already been defeated.

It's over, it's finished.

Say Phonee.

Go read Revelation.

Revelation isn't about getting our frelt boards out and trying to decide exactly what's happening when Jesus is coming back.

Those are fun conversations to have.

But we don't need that because the apocalyptic literature, revelation itself, is actually to give us hope.

In the midst of the trials, the suffering, the persecution, when we feel overwhelmed and crushed by the burden of life, to be reminded that death has already been defeated.

That we will gather around the throne saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is yet to come.

Death has been defeated.

Death is dead in its grave.

That's what we get to celebrate, by the way, here in a few weeks in Easter.

That Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed.

When he rose to new life, he put death in its grave forever.

And we live in between the times because Jesus is coming back, friends.

When we navigate the challenges of human dignity, especially in the public square today, we should be some of the most hopeful people around.

Why?

Because if we have a reason for the hope that's within us.

So let's make a defense for it.

You can't make a defense in what Peter tells us in 1 Peter.

You can't make a defense for something you don't have.

If you have no hope, how are you going to defend it?

And why would people say, why are you so hopeful?

They can't ask it if they don't see it.

Friends, we have to have hope because we know hope has a name.

His name is Jesus, and he is beaten death.

It's done.

Sephine, it's over.

So let's live in light of that.

We should be marked as some of the most hopeful people ever because we have the greatest hope of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

No one and nothing can stand against our God, not even the great enemy of sin and death.

But here we see verses 1 and 2, especially verse 1, is actually repeated again in verse 9 because it's showing there's a high, there's a structure to this.

There's a purposeful psalm of praise going on here.

Starting with the majesty and glory of God, ending with the majesty and glory of God.

But sandwiched in between us are some really beautiful truths about what it means to be human.

Here, God's creation of humanity, verses 3 through 5.

In verses 3 through 5, we see more about the creation of man and woman.

Read the text with me.

When I looked at the heavens, I looked at your heavens, the work of your fingers, you see the your, it's always about going back to God, speaking to God.

When I looked at your heavens, and when I looked at the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you're mindful of him, and the Son of Man that you care for him?

You have created him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

This is one of the most well-known sections of this passage in Psalm 8, but I want you not to miss the backdrop.

What did we just see?

It's about the glory and majesty of God and what he's done.

And then you get the picture of who we are.

He shifts from looking at all that God has made and starts to shift to say, Me?

Really?

Like of all the things you've done, the great victory you've accomplished, you care about me?

You know me?

I seem so insignificant.

God's majesty here is so profound that the heavens and the moon and the stars, basically, we don't fully understand how all that works, are moved by his fingers.

He's so big.

He doesn't actually have fingers other than the incarnation of Christ.

But the idea, the picture here is that it's so insignificant, it's so small for him.

But not as if he just so majestic and glorious, it's also the fact of what we see here that God knows us and loves us.

He knows not just us, plural, but you specifically.

He knows you, he cares for you.

It always reminds me of this kind of fact of this kind of the majesty and glory of God and how small we often are when I go to the beach.

So later this week we're going to Orange Beach in Alabama.

We're taking our RV.

Yes, we're those people.

And we have a big RV.

I'm going to take my boys, Hollis and Porter.

Hollis is nine, Porter 7, my wife of almost 13 years, Dory.

We're all four gonna get in our truck because I'm a Kentuckian, you have to have a truck.

We're gonna have our truck and we're gonna go to Orange Beach, Alabama.

When we get there, I can guarantee you what's gonna happen.

We're gonna have lots of fun.

There's probably gonna be a lot of craziness on the way down there.

I have two boys under 10, remember, and a like six, seven-hour car ride, which will be fun.

But nevertheless, we're gonna get there.

And then we're gonna go out to the beach.

Anybody like the beach?

I love the beach.

It's fascinating to me what happens at the beginning at sunrise and sunset, though.

Everybody flocks to the beach, right?

And it's interesting.

We flock to the beach, and about 90% of us, I saw in the first service, some people going like this to their spouse, like, oh, this is you.

What ends up happening is we take, what do we do?

We pull out our phones and we start videoing the sunset and the sunrise.

Not looking at the sunrise and sunset, by the way, but looking at it on our phone.

It's kind of weird.

We do that with fireworks too, and I don't totally understand it.

You're never gonna re-watch those videos.

I don't know why we do that.

But anyway, another story for another day.

But we behold, there's something about going to the beach, especially when I can just stand there for a minute and just behold the glory and just see the beauty of creation.

Guess what it does, friends?

It one lifts my gaze up, but two, there's also this corresponding feeling of how small I really am.

This happens maybe not for you at the beach, maybe at the mountains, maybe at the canyon, maybe it's just looking at your child one day.

I remember especially with Hollis and Porter, it'll just be kind of daddy and Porter, and I'll look into his.

I'm just I'm just blown away that God has made him and given him to me.

But there's something about beholding these glorious sights, the beauty of creation, that lift our gaze up, right?

This also will happen later today when I get on the plane.

I'll be heading home back to Louisville, and when we get above about 30,000 feet, and you kind of look down, especially it's not a super cloudy day, I get to see just how seemingly insignificant I really am in the grand scheme of things.

That is true in one part, but something I have to mention here, when we think about this, it doesn't just help us to see the glory and the majesty of God, how big he really is.

But here's the really amazing countercultural, kind of ironic truth.

God still knows you and cares for you individually.

He is the creator God, the infinite, majestic creator of the universe, and he knows you and loves you.

He knows every single hair on your head or the lack thereof.

He also knows every single gray hair in my, especially right here and right here, my boys like to point it out.

He knows you better than you know yourself, friend.

And he's still the creator, majestic God of the universe.

That's the beautiful, ironic truth, a little bit within the Christian belief and understanding of who God is and what he's done for us.

David here is pointing out in the light of the vastness and the greatness of creation that it's natural to go, me?

Why are you mindful of me?

Why does God care for us?

Why does he know us?

Why would God, who needs nothing, create us?

Why is he mindful of us?

God created all things, eternally existed as a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, crafted all things, upholds the universe.

Me?

You care about me?

You know me?

This is a central truth of the Christian tradition.

Your value, your dignity, and your worth is not rooted in the things you do, how impressive you are or not, what other people see about you.

Your value, your dignity and worth flows from who God is and what he says about you.

Because, friends, despite what we were told when I was growing up, I'm not that special.

You're not that unique.

You're not that valuable on your own.

It's your value flows from the fact it's not because you're so valuable, that's why God loves you, as the theologian tells us.

It's actually that you're loved, and that's where your value comes from.

We see here that he's mindful of us, that he cares for us.

The language here that David writes conveys God's love for us, that God loved us so much that he's mindful of us and cares for us.

He knows, friend, I don't know what's going on in your life right now.

I don't know what you're feeling, I don't know what the challenges you're facing.

Maybe even on the way here this morning.

Maybe you're not looking forward to tomorrow or the next day.

You have a big doctor's appointment come up, you have a big job issue coming up, you have another thing.

It's political season.

We have all these things swirling around us.

Friend, he sees you.

That's part of being mindful and caring for you.

He remembers you.

He doesn't have to, but he chooses to.

He knows you better than you know yourself.

That's deeply freeing to know that you are not only fully known, but also fully loved, as the late Tim Keller once said.

In the vastness of all that God has made, he takes time to know us and he takes time to reveal himself to us.

No matter the failures that you've had this week, maybe last night, this morning, or the failures you will have this week, the brokenness, the challenges, the suffering, the pain, the heartache, whatever you are facing, let me tell you the good news of the gospel.

Not only has death been defeated, but Jesus has sent the Spirit to be here with you.

This is the beauty, the glory of the gospel message that Christ has sent the helper.

If you are in Christ, Colossians 3, if you are in Christ, the Spirit of God dwells in you.

You have not been abandoned.

You need to know that.

Some of us need to hear that viscerally right now.

You are not alone.

You have not been abandoned.

Your God sees you and knows you and remembers you, and you are a created being that serves an uncreated creator.

He has no beginning, he has no end, yet he still knows us, sees us, loves us, and has fashioned us a little lower than himself.

Verse 5.

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor, depending on the translation you have, and this is kind of a nerd fact, but it's kind of fun anyway, of the translation here, a little lower than the heavenly beings, the ESV says.

Other translations say a little lower than God.

There's actually a little bit of a debate on exactly what the word means, but I can tell you the point of it and what it actually means.

It means you're not God.

God is God, you are not.

You are created lower than him, lower than the heavenly beings, lower than God.

And that's actually deeply freeing.

Genesis 1 and 2 tell us we're made like God, but we're not God.

We're made in his image, but we are not God's ourselves.

We are set apart in creation, and we have been given, note the text, you have been, we are crowned with glory and honor, meaning it's given to us.

It's derivative.

It comes from God.

It's God giving to us a status.

Glory and honor are only fitting for a king.

But we have been given glory and honor, which are attributes of God's kingship, and it's extended to us as a royal status.

This is what God says about you.

Think of 1 Peter when you see Peter talk about being a royal priesthood, a chosen people, a people called for his own name.

This is your new identity if you are indeed in Christ.

You reign under his sovereign rule.

The psalmist is reminding us of our unalterable status.

In a day and age, it says you have to earn it.

God says, this is who you are, so live like it.

It's given to us by God, and it's not dependent upon us in any way.

This status isn't dependent on our actions because we are sinful and broken people outside of Christ.

But we are given glory.

We're crowned with glory and honor because of what God has done.

Not because you're so special, not because you're so worthy, but because of his great love for us.

Let's finish up the text here.

Verses six through eight, we read about God's role for humanity.

So we start with the majesty of God.

We also end with it.

Remember verse 9?

But you also see here not only God's creation of humanity, but God's purpose and role for humanity.

That's what verses 3 through 5 is highlighting God's creation of humanity.

Verses 6 through 8 expands that theme to remind us that our ultimate purpose in this life is actually to honor God and go about the work he's called us to do.

He's going to equip you, he's going to give you the power, the strength.

It's all given by him.

You didn't earn it, you don't deserve it, but he still nevertheless gave it.

You see here in verses 6 through 8.

You, God, have given him humanity to dominion over the works of your hands.

You've put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen over the beasts of the field, the birds of the heaven, the fish of the sea.

Basically everything, friends.

And whatever path passes along the paths of the sea.

I want you to note something.

Does this remind you of something else in Scripture?

It's almost a direct reminder, direct allusion going back to Genesis 1, after the creation of man.

He says to be fruitful and to multiply, to take dominion over the earth and to steward it.

And then goes through a very similar list, basically seeing everything.

There's something unique about humanity.

Humanity has been given by God and his sovereign plan dominion over creation itself, and thus we are entrusted with a great responsibility.

We're accountable to him.

No other part of creation was given this type of role, this type of purpose.

Remember, your value isn't found in what you do, though.

It's found in who you are.

You are freed to do the works that God has planned beforehand, but your salvation and value and dignity does not depend on those works.

We are endowed, we're crowned with glory and honor under his majestic rule, and thus we also are equipped and given power and responsibility to honor God and to steward his creation.

Real practical example here.

Your work matters.

Whether you're a student, whether you're a career employee, whether you're looking for a job, whether you're underemployed, whatever it is, your work matters.

Not because it puts food on the table, not because it takes care of your family, all of those things are true, but because you've been called by God to do that.

You're a student, your work matters.

It's not just some arbitrary thing that you just have to do.

It's actually part of you stewarding the gifts God's given you for his glory.

This stewardship is not because of our great power, though.

We have to see in the text.

It's not because of our intellect, it's not because of our prowessness.

It's given to us by God that sets us apart from the rest of creation.

And he has a good plan for your life.

You want to know what you should do?

That's the big question, especially young people often.

What should I do?

What am I called to do?

What's God's calling on my life?

Let me tell you what God's calling is on your life.

You don't need Thacker to tell you this.

Jesus tells you in Matthew 22.

What is the greatest commandment?

What am I to do?

Love God with every heart, every five year of your being, your heart, body, soul, mind, and strength.

And guess what?

The second is like it.

You are to love your neighbor as yourself.

You see the orientation here?

In a day that says it's about me, myself, and I.

The Christian gospel, the message of how we ought to live, is actually calling us something deeply other oriented.

Ultimately, God, to love God and to love our neighbor as ourself.

You fulfill the second by fulfilling the first.

Loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself.

The language here in verses 7 and 8, though, remind us of the creation mandate or ought to remind us of the creation mandate that God gave Adam and Eve in the garden, Genesis 1, 28 through 31.

We know 26 through 28.

Let us make man in our image after our likeness, male and female, he created them.

And then the word of God says, and he blessed them.

And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion.

And then you get the listing that we just saw here in Psalm 8.

It's alluding to it, it's reminding us.

And then at the very end of the days, so the five days God creates, he speaks, it comes into being, and then what does he say?

It was good.

Fascinating what happens on day six, though.

God speaks, it comes into existence, specifically that of humanity, and then he looked at what he had made and said, It is very good.

There's something different.

Not because they're so special, but because what God has said.

This mandate, this cultural mandate was given to us before the fall.

And it speaks as one way that we're able to manifest and model God's majesty, remember the point of the passage, in the world around us.

The work that God has given us is a divine blessing and responsibility that we are up to steward well.

We are not to take those things for granted.

God chose us, he didn't have to, not because you're so special, but because of his great love.

He chooses to use you.

He also chooses to use you, NBC, for the last 175 years in this community, out of an abundance of his love.

His love not only for you, but also for this community.

Now we can't miss what's happening here, though.

Remember, I told you we were coming back to verse 1?

So, verse 1 and 2, the majesty and glory of God.

Verses 3 through 5, focusing on God's creation of humanity, and verses 6 through 8, focusing on God's role, his calling, the purpose on our lives.

And then you get verse 9.

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

It begins with praise and it ends with praise.

This psalm is a song of praise for our God and all that he has done through his people.

As we welcome the worship team back up here to lead us in a final song, I want us to be remembered and to take away here how this psalm has held such a special place in the hearts of God's people for millennia and for good reason.

It reminds us of the majesty of God, what he has done, who he is, and what he's done for his people.

But also, note something here, it also points us forward to the day we see in verse 5, the great enemy will be defeated.

The author of Hebrews, and remember it's all one story, friends, and it's all about Jesus.

The author of Hebrews actually points to this very passage, by the way, in chapter 2, verses 6 through 8.

And he does so in a little bit of a different context.

We often read this in the sense of, what is man that you're mindful of him?

But then you see in Hebrews that the context is actually about Christ himself, who similarly is crowned with glory and honor.

The early church saw this as pointing forward to Jesus.

Why?

The whole story is about him, and he's our only hope in life and death.

It's only because of the shed blood of Christ that we have life.

It's only because of Christ's incarnation when he took on flesh.

That also speaks, by the way, it's a very visual example of our value, because God took on flesh.

He didn't have to, but he chose to.

It's only through his blood that we can be made new and that we can actually live as God would call us to live, as creatures in a broken world.

Creatures, yes, but crowned with glory and honor for the praise and glory of our God.

Let's pray.

Father God, I thank you for this day.

I thank you for your grace and mercy.

I thank you for who you are and what you've done for us through Christ.

I thank you for this church as a gospel outpost.

And I pray, God, that you will continue to bless this body, continue to help us as we can love you and to love our neighbors ourselves in every way.