Even When I Can't Sing (Psalm 8) Rowan Fraser | Aug 3, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

It's great to be with you.

I've known Mark for probably over 30 years.

Especially in the more embarrassing times when he was running around not listening to people.

That's probably the same as he is here, so I don't expect any change.

And we were glad to see him leave.

And, you know, it's not like I hold any bitterness that he's invited me on the second last long weekend to come here.

Sort of like the vacation time when chairs are empty, and I'm just um I don't hold any bitterness.

I'm actually going to change from Psalm 8 to a song of an impregatory psalm of wrath.

It's gonna be about Miles.

Um, but in all seriousness, in all seriousness, Miles has been a blessing to myself and to my family.

Um his faithful ministry um to our church um still still has an impact.

Um, the way he is relatable, the way he connects, and even his deep concern over you that continues to have him reaching out to make sure that he is shepherding you well.

And that example is an example that I take with me and and kind of raises him in my views to a pastor of note and a pastor to be emulated.

So I just thank you for him.

Now it was great to hear some of those medleys.

Um and and it drew me back to a time not um unfamiliar to this time.

My wife and I, Joy, um had come in as um come into our church, and we had just had an argument, and there were some things happening in the background, some significant things.

Um and we came, maybe some of you came the same way.

You came and you sat down, started singing, seeing the words on the screen, and you're voicing them, you're speaking them, but your heart is not even in there.

And the visiting um worship director, worship leader came up and said this.

He kind of stopped after about two songs and said, I don't know where you've come from, I don't know what you're dealing with, but I just want you to know God is objectively worthy to be worshipped.

It is not about the circumstance, it's not about what you're going through, because that is serious, it is important, it is significant.

But even so, God is objectively worthy to be worshipped.

So I'm gonna invite you to stand as we read Psalm 8.

To the choir master, 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 mouths of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to steal 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, and 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 heaven, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

So reads God's word.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

Now, and I don't know if it's come across that all the books in the Psalter, in all the Psalms, are not there just because they found them and they just put them, hey, this is number eight, this is number one, this is number two.

They actually put them in order.

There is an order to this.

Psalm 1 and 2 actually fit together.

We have the blessed man who meditates on God's law day and night, and then we have how the heathen, how the nations rage against God's anointed one.

And the call at the end of Psalm 2 is kiss the sun.

Make your allegiance with the Son.

And they go hand in hand.

But we get Psalm 3 to 7.

And they put them in this order, and the order kind of suggests the human experience.

The human experience where we have to ask, is God objectively worthy to be worshipped?

Does God care for me?

Why should I worship this God?

What are his plans for me?

So I'm just going to read the first verse of all three to seven, just to give you a glimpse of what the psalmist has in mind.

Verse 1 of chapter of Psalm 3, O Lord, how many are my foes?

Many are rising against me.

Psalm 4, verse 1.

Psalms 4:1

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness.

You have given me relief when I was in distress.

Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

Psalm 5, give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my groaning.

Psalm 6, O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.

Psalm 7, O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge.

Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me.

And then we get this stop of Psalm 8.

We've gone from deliver me, don't rebuke me, help me, Lord, to Psalm 8.

When it is hard to sing, David finds a reason in praise.

And we're gonna discover why.

So the title of this was Even When I Can't Think.

When it hurts, when it's hard.

Because I've been there.

Forget that I've been an elder.

Forget that I've um served here and served there.

I've been there probably two years ago specifically, sitting there, standing up, my heart breaking, I'm burnt out, and my mouth is moving, but the words are not coming out.

And I know that God is worthy, objectively worthy to be worshiped, but I can't sing.

So before we can sing, we must be able to answer these questions.

The first is does his character deserve my worship?

Does his character deserve my worship?

Let's look at verse one.

This is the subscription of verse one to the choir master according to the Gittith, a psalm of David, the Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth.

The psalm begins with a direction to the choir master on a particular musical theme.

We're not sure what it is.

It could be an isical instrument.

All we know that it comes from the city of Gath.

And if you know, the city of Gath is where the giants came from, in particular, Goliath.

And Goliath and David are linked together.

David is the author of this song, and this psalm is on that thought of Gitter is only repeated two other times and by two other composers.

And it is in Psalm 81 and 84, and it is to call people to worship.

It is the first nature psalm in the Psalter.

And it repeats this phrase, O Lord, our Lord, or Yahweh Adonai, self-existent, sovereign one.

David is using this to draw attention to who God is.

And it's almost like that foreboding.

Like, I'm a bit of a Star Wars fanatic.

I actually like Star Trek, but we're not going to get into that battle right now.

But Star Wars, there's that foreboding when Darth Vader comes in.

That dum-dum-dum-dum.

But now imagine we elevate that 1100fold, and instead of foreboding, it is awe.

That's what David is trying to elicit here.

When he bursts out, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

David is like looking over a perch or a balcony, and then he's seeing the majesty of God everywhere.

And he wants everyone to know it's true.

Do you feel that same way about Jesus today?

Do you feel he's majestic?

Do you feel that he is worthy of awe?

Sometimes I don't.

And I realize my desire to make Christ known is wanes due to maybe my own laziness, my own preoccupations, my own boredom, my own struggles.

I may have heard it many times before, but the awe of God sometimes is like a campfire that instead of burning bright and hot, it is smoldering, about to go out.

But David here struggles all there, behind, in view, still sees God and his character.

And he goes to verse 2 You have set your glory above the heavens.

James Boyce says it like this If God has set his glory above the heavens, it is certain that nothing under the heavens can praise him adequately.

In this psalm, you're not going to see David's hardship or failings.

Simply the enormity of God's sovereign power to set, to establish, to place his own displayed excellence above the heavens.

Think the stars, think the skies, above all that we can see.

So majestic is Yahweh Adonai's sovereign power that he uses the weakest of his creation.

Out of the mouths of babies and infants, you've established strength.

The unintelligible, the utterly dependent, babies and infants establish his strength, his power over his foes to still silence the enemy and the avenger.

We're supposed to think of those hostile, those who are accusers of David.

Or maybe even God Himself.

And we are no different in our weakness.

But we've been called to demonstrate strength.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 26 to 31, which is going to be on the screen, listen to the Apostle Paul relate a similar thought.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

For consider your calling, brothers.

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.

Not many of you were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

But God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to think, bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

So it is written, let the one who boasts boasts in the Lord.

In some translations, it is instead of stills the enemy, or establishes strength, I should say, it is he has prepared praise.

Even Jesus in Matthew 21 says it like that.

It reminds me of King Jehoshaphat, and he's outnumbered on the battlefield, but instead of bringing swords and spears, he brings the song.

He brings a song of the character of God, and the enemy is confused and defeated by a victorious worship of God.

Verse 3, David continues.

And you can almost picture him strolling at night, looking up.

You and I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place.

David sees the meticulous, intimate, yet awe-inspiring, and immense work of God, like crafting an ornament and hanging on a tree.

My wife and I, before we were married, Joy, we went up to this camp in Muskoka often.

Not the same camp that Miles went, that's a garbage camp.

But the another camp.

And they took us, they took us out to this dark sky reserve.

I um and I'll never forget it.

I'll never forget it because one, I was irritated that um, irritated because I'm really stalking, sorry, pursuing my wife.

Um and she was keeping an arm's length.

Um she would have been great at football.

Um, but so we get to this dark sky reserve, and we're told that there's a certain barrier several kilometers around, that it there's no lights.

And so we're we're there to see um, I believe, Venus, because it's gonna be so clear.

So as I get there, I think it's gonna be a romantic evening.

You know, I can I can shoot my game, I can, you know, kind of close that distance.

Another guy comes over and says, Hey, there's somebody in need, why don't you go help him help her?

And I'm like, Are you for real?

So I'm I'm left there now looking at the stars, which I didn't come to look at.

Um, but in that, I got.

Have you ever been in those moments where you're looking up and you just see you just you just see the stars all there and you just like and you realize how small you are.

You just realize I am so insignificant here.

And you're just pale in comparison, you're like, this is amazing.

This is what David is saying.

He's reading he's looking up and saying, Oh my god, you are more than I can take in.

Unfortunately, often it's not the bright lights of the city that blind us from seeing the work of his fingers.

It's more the brightness of our own problems.

We often stand in awe of how big our situations are, how big our challenges are, that we miss what's going on, and we miss seeing the awesomeness of God in us and around us.

We don't see ourselves as small in his midst, but we see our problems as bigger than the God who created the stars, who set the moon and stars in place.

But when we have a right view of his character, sovereign, transcendent, all-powerful, creator.

Our only response is to worship.

Our only response is to put our situations in perspective of the God who is overall.

And I know this.

So does his character deserve my worship?

But secondly, does his compassion demand my wonder?

Does his care demand my awe?

So we come to verse four here, and verse four is sort of the hinge point of this.

If I was gonna, if we were going to look at this, this is called a chiasm.

This whole psalm is a chiasm.

Basically, it comes from the Greek letter chi, so an X.

So the the beginning of the psalm and the end of the psalm, they're the same, and they kind of mirror each other all the way to this point, which is verse 4.

Yeah, I'll give you some examples.

First and second, our Lord, our Lord, how majesty is the name of the earth.

We have the work of his fingers, work of his hands, we have the sky above, and then we're gonna get the earth below later on.

But here the hinge, the hinge is this What is man that you are mindful of him?

The son of man that you care for him?

David may be borrowing from Job here.

Now, Job asked him a similar question in Job 7.

What is man that you make so much of him and that you set your heart on him?

Or Bildad, one of Job's friends, then becomes sort of like his accuser, asked this question.

In chapter 25, Bildad says, Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the snars are not pure in his eyes.

How much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man who is a worm?

Kind of striking, isn't it?

Two different perspectives.

All that said, this hinge statement revolves around these questions.

Why does God think we are significant?

He made everything.

Why does he think we are significant?

Why does God care for us?

And if we boiled it down really to its nuts and bolts for why we're here, is why does God care about me?

When I'm overwhelmed with that weight in line, when I'm overwhelmed with my mental health, when I'm overwhelmed with a financial setback, when I'm overwhelmed with death, when I'm overwhelmed with crushing consequences of my sin, or the unpunishing of those who hurt me, the diagnosis that we dreaded that became true, or the unexpected diagnosis, or the cancer, the miscarriage, the alcoholism, the struggles of an unsaved spouse, child, or sibling making the wrong choices.

Failed marriage, failed dreams, dash told.

Does God care?

We have the, and it's not like we're alone in this.

We think of the disciples, they're in the boat, in a boat with Jesus.

Jesus is sleeping, the waves and the waves are coming into the boat, and they ask Jesus, don't you care that we're perishing?

The big question is, do we know that God cares?

We hear it over and over.

Yes, he cares, he cares.

But really, sometimes we don't feel it.

It's in our heads, but is it in our heart?

But how do we know?

If you're a believer today, someone who's been, if Jesus has died for your sin and taken your place, yes, we know he.

Cares.

Are your sins forgiven?

Then God cares for you.

Does the Holy Spirit live inside you, which is true of all believers?

Then yes, God cares for you.

Is Jesus coming back to right all wrongs and take you where he is?

Then yes, God cares for you.

But what some of you may not be willing to say out loud, and I'll say it for you, is Rowan.

I know that.

But that doesn't help me in the here and now.

When I'm struggling.

I know that's true.

I want to give you five ways to reinforce that God's God's compassion in your life.

Five ways that we can reinforce that.

Because all those things are true.

And we need to cling to them.

But sometimes we need something to press it in.

First, surround yourself with godly people.

We need, brothers and sisters, to come alongside, to rally us, to remind us of truth.

To remind us that God cares and that we're not left alone.

Because oftentimes we live in this isolated bubble when we get hurt, when we're feeling pain, that we're pushing everybody away.

But no, we need to surround ourselves with godly people.

David did it.

Jonathan comes, finds David, when David's on the run from Jonathan's own father, and encourages him.

We need to surround ourselves, not with people who are just going to keep battering us down, like Job's friends happen to do, but those who are going to build us up, show us God's compassion.

Secondly, we need to see things from eternity's view.

This is just a moment in time.

God is a God of eternity.

And you may be struggling from for something for a week, maybe a year, maybe a month.

Maybe it's been decades.

But God is still bigger, still.

And in his redemptive plan, he has included you in it, and he has a purpose and a plan for you.

This is not, this one day, this one event is not the end of your story.

Yes, it may shape part of it, but you need to see, step back and see it from eternity's view.

Third stay active in creation.

There is something that is so refreshing of seeing just the intimate nature God takes care of, way God takes care of his creation, and that we can see his nature, even his invisible attributes reflected in what he has made.

Whether it's water, whether it is trees, whether it's looking at the sky.

Stay active in creation.

Oftentimes we're just alone, doom scrolling on our phones in a room somewhere, and we're wondering why we feel so down and why we feel so alone.

Daniel Stevens, reflecting on this, has with a quote that I think is so powerful, it's going to be on the screen.

He made the heavens as grand as they are to give us a hint of how much he cares for us.

Exactly in our smallness, he is mindful of us.

If you still find yourself too small to face all God is and has made, know that this only makes you fit more firmly in his hands.

Fourth, search for his past faithfulness.

Look through the word and see how God has been faithful.

Mark mentioned giving the word as a gift, the Bible as a gift, and you're even more blessed when you read it.

Search how he has been faithful.

My family and I have this prayer journal, and we should use it more often.

But we track all our prayer requests and how God is answered.

And when we go back and see how God has answered things over the years, over time, something that we felt like we've given up on, we see God has proven himself to be faithful.

And yes, indeed, he does care.

Search for his past faithfulness.

And fifth, sing the truth.

What I learned when I couldn't sing was this.

Sometimes my mouth needs to lead my heart.

The songs that are selected, the songs that are put up there, the words are put up, the words are carefully searched out because the words have truth behind it.

And when we sing the truth, we're teaching our heart, yes, this is true, let's live it out, so that the abundance of our heart, we can speak it out.

But sometimes we need to do it in reverse order.

Because even though we may not feel it, it does not mean it's not true.

His compassion is even laid out in the construction of verse 4.

The construction of these questions is interesting and subtly answers, what is God, what is man that God is mindful of him.

So in verse 4, we get this word, we get what is man, and man is not our usually Adama.

It is actually Enosh.

It's another version.

And then we go to the second part of that verse, that second part where it goes, Son of Man, which could be rendered Seth Adam.

So almost trailing backwards, we almost have this mini, mini genealogy of Enosh, Seth, and Adam.

Where God is kind of saying, I'm mindful of man because this is going to lead to the ultimate man.

This is going to lead to Christ.

I've already prepared this.

I know what you're dealing with right now.

I know sin that is wrecking you, but I'm leading a line to him.

And God's compassion doesn't just hang there, it extends to you.

His care and compassion are needed because Bildad was right in some ways.

And that our sin has made us like worms, moving in our own filth, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our minds.

We consume it in our screens that we watch.

And sometimes in the viewing of pornography or the things that we have, so we just build up this greed and this envy.

We imagine the violence and deviance in our minds.

We listen to our music and feed our lusts.

Or every next post we read, we can have compassion on such people who deserve nothing but shame.

Who can have that compassion on those who deserve destruction?

But God, in his compassion, lifts us out of the muck of our own making and cleanses us and makes us new.

This is mercy.

It is our shame, anger, and pride that often prevents us from receiving repentance and often keeps us from believing that he cares and extends mercy.

He crowns us by first sending his son, the uncreated, sinless, co-equal, co-creator, to die on a cross for the creatures of his own hand.

Jesus offers to take your place.

Jesus offers to adopt you, adopt you.

He offers to be a joint heir with you.

The Father offers to adopt you as sons and daughters.

The Spirit offers to live inside you so you can become what you always were meant to be, but never could.

The compassion is not shying away from our brokenness, but Jesus binds us to himself.

We should wonder and be at awe at his care for us.

It should compel us to sing to him.

We have answered essential questions that may borrow from singing.

Is he worthy of my worship?

Yes, he is.

Does he care for me?

Yes.

But does he have a plan for me?

Do I have a purpose?

Which leads to our last question.

Does his creation determine my work?

Verse 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

If these verses sound familiar, yes, they are because they're quoted in Hebrews.

These verses are have dominion given to man and his creation, while also have in view the incarnation of Christ.

We were created and crowned with glory as stewards and image-bearers in God's creation to exercise dominion and carry forward God's rule.

Yet the ultimate fulfillment of it is Jesus, who is made a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned.

We as humanity have failed to bring this world into subjection, to exercise dominion, to do anything that brings the image of God further.

We've corrupted it more and more through our sin and our fallness.

Yet the author of Hebrew rightly sees Jesus as the one who succeeds where we have failed miserably.

David calls us to witness this coronation and reasserts this whole song that God has done this.

God gives, he puts, he crowns.

The future visible sign of Christ is positioned here as an accomplished reality.

Notice verse 6: you have given him dominion over the works of your hands.

You have put all things under his feet.

Over as in above all things, it continues with all things under his feet.

It means that he has preeminent supremacy.

This is echoed in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

That he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated on his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And he's put all things under his feet and giving him to being the head over all things to the church.

Living in a fallen world comes with trade-offs.

Nothing is as it should be.

Things break, we break.

Things fail, we fail.

But we're witnessing the coronation of God's man over his creation and have to recognize that this is grace.

We don't deserve to witness it.

But we are.

So this amazing grace has to compel us to do something.

Because we can't just stand in it and see it and observe it and feel it.

We need to act on it.

So this amazing grace compels us to express his glory.

We must do the works up of his hands as God's stewards, his vice regents, his joint heirs.

Our character must reflect the one of our true King.

Our character and conduct must be molded and shaped so that we're reflecting his glory.

We're expressing how excellent he is.

Do your neighbors, your co-workers, even family members, do they see you reflecting God's glory?

Or when do they look at you, they just look at you're the same as them.

Whose glory are you reflecting?

A fallen world or a risen king.

So not only do we work to express his glory, we expand his kingdom.

The creation mandate in Genesis shows God giving responsibility to man to expand his kingdom by dominion and by subduing creation.

We have this great commission in view as new creations in Christ.

We expand God's kingdom through making disciples, like we have in Matthew 28.

Go therefore, go therefore and make disciples and teaching them to absorb, observe all that I've commanded.

That's how we make disciples.

If we looked at Genesis 1.28, we would see the order of creatures that we have in verse 7 and 8 is actually reversed.

It's fish, bird, and livestock in Genesis 1.28.

And here we have the livestock, the sheep and oxen, then we have the birds, and then we have the fish.

It's almost like David is reaffirming that this is the way that things should be, but something has interrupted the flow, so it's things are in reverse.

But when we expanded our kingdom, I want to ask you: when is the last time you shared the gospel with someone?

Could you mark it on a calendar?

Because we need, we're we are given this mandate of being image bearers that cover the whole world to expand his kingdom.

Who was it?

So I want to lay out a challenge for you.

Let's not let a month go by without sharing the gospel.

Let's not let even two months go by without inviting someone to hear the gospel.

We can invite them here, we can share it, but these are the principles that we want to do.

Wait, we we want to get about the work of expanding his kingdom.

The psalm brings us to verse 9, the last verse here, and we are to exalt him everywhere.

The psalm begins and ends the very same way.

And this is a literary device called an inclusio, because the first and the last are the same.

The call is the same, but in my opinion, it's louder because of all that went before it.

My son and I and my family went out to New Brunswick, and we were, and if you've ever been out east, it's beautiful, rolling hills, all great, and we went to Hopewell Rocks, where the tide goes out and then suddenly starts coming in and raising up.

So there's there's rocks you can even climb on top of the seaweed.

Some of them are towering, and you can go far out, and then suddenly you start seeing the water start coming in.

You could have built a structure and then it starts coming in quickly, and you're wondering how I was just standing on dry ground.

How is it wet now?

How is it up to my waist now?

And in the distance, you can actually see clouds forming from the mist rising off the water.

I'm telling my son this.

Can you see?

This is the majesty of God.

You're seeing it right here.

Things are changing right in front of you that you have no control over.

God is sovereign through our struggles and our successes.

He's calling us to exalt him everywhere.

Everywhere we are.

Whatever passes along the path of the sea, we are supposed to exalt him, not in part of the earth, but all the earth.

We worship his majesty, we wonder at his creation, we work to make him known.

It is and will be a global event.

That should make us sing.

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

Let's pray.

Indeed, O God, you are more glorious than we can think, more immense than we can describe, and yet you have given us your word.

You've given us the person of Christ Jesus to look on.

You have given us a song in our hearts to sing of how great and glorious, how majestic you are in all the earth.

And so we ask that you would not leave us here, that your very person would transform us, that we may leave and go out to make you known.

That Christ would be magnified in all that we do and we say.

May our song match our hearts, and may we be a people of praise.

We ask this in Christ Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Please stand and continue to worship.