Get Some Perspective (September 2nd, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

Ready to get into God's word?

I am definitely excited for this.

So why don't you turn in your Bibles as I'm doing that as well to Psalm 8?

We're kind of doing a one-off message today.

We kind of finished our last series, our summer series last week.

We're getting into our fall series, our kickoff series next Sunday.

And so here is a one-off in uh in Psalm 8.

Now, as you're uh getting turned there, it's in the Old Testament, okay, biggest book in the Bible.

Okay, but as you're turning there and finding it, uh perhaps uh this is uh similar, what I'm about to say here is similar to a mourning you've experienced uh re uh recently.

Okay, you're you know you're trying to as hard as you can to get out the door on time, right?

We all know that pain.

Uh but as you're getting ready to do that, you spill your coffee on your uh, of course, white shirt, right?

And so uh you know, you're scrambling right out of the gate here, and you know, you gotta get changed.

And so you've got to iron a new shirt.

And so as you do that, you're scrambling, you're getting out uh into the car, and as you pull out of the driveway, now uh very much late, uh you back over one of the kids' scooters that they happen to place just perfectly.

It's like a science, right?

Right behind your tire.

You can't see it uh in the rear view mirror, and so uh you grit your teeth and maybe curse under your breath, and you get out and you move it directly into the garbage bin at the end of the driveway.

Uh, you remember to do that on the right day.

And so as you get back into the car and you make your way uh down the street, uh you realize dang, forgot the cup of coffee, the fresh cup on the counter.

Right?

But too late, can't turn around, can't go back.

I gotta, I gotta keep pressing uh forward here.

And so as you proceed and your temperature is clearly rising now and you are absolutely seething, what happens while the gas light comes on?

Right?

Perfect.

Of course that happens.

And so, in like a split second, you expertly, you know, process how to navigate to the nearest, most uh the most efficient gas station where there's not gonna be that much uh of a lineup.

So cost goes out for sure, right?

Not going uh there.

But as you're planning all of this, the guy that's been tailing you the entire time, he rips around you in the in the shoulder while like kind of flipping you off and yelling at you as though you know driving the speed limit was you know not fast enough for Mario Andretti over here, okay?

Listen, I could go on.

I could go on for sure, but if you've ever had a morning like this, okay, you know that by the time you actually get to work or to wherever you're going, okay, you essentially despise life itself, right?

And you're questioning a sovereign God's goodness to you in general, right?

This is how we kind of get.

Okay, worst day ever is something that we would post on Facebook before uh we get to our day's work, right?

Your day is ruined, and and everything you face for the rest of that day is now skewed by this negative outlook that you have on life itself.

Sometimes a change of perspective is needed.

You ever felt that?

In a very short amount of time, it seems.

You know, you and I can get into a very negative mindset, and if we're not careful, we can begin to see everything, all of life, through that negative grid and begin to think very negatively, very critically, and get very, very spun out.

And for you, uh, maybe it's that you've noticed just this increased presence of stress and anxiety, and and maybe it's fear that's been welling up in your life because life just seems to be so complicated these days, and you don't know really how to think your way and process through it very well, or or you find yourself discouraged and just down by your circumstances, and again, questioning maybe even just the existence of God on a very foundational level, or it's for you, you know, your your spouse and you have have begun to drift apart a little bit, even though no one else would know it, and and you're sensing that nagging boredom about your marriage that's got you questioning a lot of things about that, even though you know kind of deep down your spouse is great.

Or perhaps it's it's anger and it's it's bitterness and it's this presence of a critical spirit because of something that went sideways in your life a while ago, and it's got you negative, or it's towards a person, it could be a family member, it could be a friend or former friend, and and all of that's kind of blown up, and and and your your whole attitude's just a gas can, really, because of this, but you know, you know, even though you're upset with the person, you know that that your heart and your attitude and your mindset isn't isn't right.

In life, we face countless moments like this, don't we?

Small moments, big ones that affect our our outlook on things.

And whereas we often think that if only the situation would change, right?

If only my situation would improve and get better, uh, I'd get better, I'd be better, I'd be in a better place.

The reality is, if if you and I just had the right perspective, we'd be able to face these things.

We'd be able to face these persons situations, uh, no matter what they are, with with a better attitude and and with joy, right?

In a more healthy and uh and godly and and Christ-honoring way.

In Psalm 8, we see uh David, right, who we are very familiar with, King David.

He you know, he was he was totally prone, we know this, he's totally prone to fear and to anger, even, and and deep despair.

And in Psalm 8, he he writes this, and it would have been a song, he would have would have sung it, and he writes from a place where where he is just in complete awe, okay, uh, of God's majesty.

And as this just hits him like a like a truck, his perspective takes this dramatic shift, this radical shift.

And so if you're coming into here today and you feel like, you know, I'm kind of limping in, I've been beat up all week, or it's been months or or even years, and you're in need of an attitude adjustment, or it's a fresh outlook on life, it's it's a proper biblical perspective, and and I need to think better according to the scriptures.

Okay, Psalm 8 is gold for you, okay?

It really is.

Because all of that stuff, okay, that we just talked about, that nonsense, that garbage, that that stuff we hate, all of that stuff ends up really falling into its its rightful place.

And we start to see it properly as you and I are struck by the majesty of God.

Okay, that's where we're going here today.

I want to read it first, and then we'll pray, and then we'll jump in.

So if you would follow along with me here, Psalm 8, starting in verse 1, only nine verses.

It says 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.

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.

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

God, we bring ourselves before you here today, and um Lord, we know that we get sideways pretty easily, and our flesh gets the better of us, and we feel guilty about this uh some of the time.

Uh, other, maybe the other half we uh don't even really notice, and we're stuck in bad mood patterns for hours and days and weeks.

And sometimes, Lord, this can go on for years, and we don't have the first clue, Lord, and we are so stuck in this rut and and thinking that we're seeing things uh straight and and accusing you of all kinds of evil and all kinds of malpractice.

And and Lord, I pray right now that that those of us who are down that path, whether it's been five minutes or it's been five years, Lord, I pray that you would stop us in our tracks, Lord.

I pray that we would be shaken here today by your majesty, Lord, how great you are, how how how vast and how glorious and how amazing you are, and Lord, how small we are in light of all of that, Lord.

When we get that perspective, everything else in life changes.

Lord, this is not something that we can figure out.

We're not smart enough.

We're not strong enough.

Lord, I pray that we would admit that.

I pray that in desperation we would cry out to you, that you, by your spirit, would drag our hearts, turn our hearts and our minds, and get our eyes fixed and focused on you, Lord.

I pray that you would give us real, true, lasting joy, regardless of what our circumstances and situations are.

God, this is a lot of work that needs to get done in us, Lord, but you can handle it.

You are great, you are mighty, you are good.

So, Lord, we entrust these things into your hands.

We pray it all in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, here we go.

Being struck by God's majesty gives me the right perspective on life.

Okay, so as I observe just how impressive he really is.

Okay, dot, dot, dot.

Okay, so what we're doing here today, a little bit different, is our outline here today, is kind of one big sentence that strings together and is completed as we get to the end of it.

So, just so uh you know that's where we're going here a little bit today.

We're also experimenting.

I think your notes are blank, right?

There's no outline there.

We're just trying some things out and giving you an opportunity to write things how you want to write them, where you want to write them, uh, and all of that.

And sometimes, you know, you have so much writing you want to do and there's not enough space.

So, hey, have at it.

Work it all out how you want to.

Feel free to give us feedback about that if you prefer it on the on the sheet or not, let us know.

We're all ears.

All right.

Anyways, enough about that.

Here's we here we go.

Okay.

Um what really strikes me about this this psalm here, I think, is in just how much turmoil uh David is in circumstantially and I think emotionally in all the psalms surrounding Psalm 8.

Right?

Have you noticed that?

Have you ever read through the Psalms and you're like, it feels like a roller coaster ride that you're taking?

Okay, in in Psalm 3, he's he's been crying out to the Lord to save him from his own son, Absalom.

Right?

There was this power struggle for the throne there.

And I mean, that's that's gotta be intense.

I don't know that any of us can really relate to that, but that's that's what he was crying out to the Lord for in the next Psalm, Psalm 4, he's he's wrestling with God's timing.

I think we can relate to that.

Lord, why have you not answered me yet?

Lord, I need you, I need you in this place.

Answer me now, Lord.

Okay, in Psalm 7, he's crying out to the Lord to crush his enemies.

Right?

You can tell he's just at he's at his limit.

He's had he's had enough, and he wants the Lord to smite them and end them, right?

I think there's probably a bit of, I don't know, a bit of anger in that, hopefully some righteous anger.

Okay, in Psalm 10, okay, obviously after Psalm 8, he's he's back to wondering why are you so silent, Lord?

What's with the silent treatment?

Why are you so quiet when he's been just crying out for rescue?

Okay, but in Psalm 8, which finds itself nestled right in the middle of all of this, you can tell that David's in this sweet spot.

He in at this point, he he's got that right perspective.

He's in a good place.

He just took a look at, take a look at verse 1 again.

Okay, it says this, O Lord our Lord.

How what's the word?

Majestic is your name in all the earth.

Okay, you have set your glory above the heavens.

Okay, now when we hear that word majestic, you know, we see it written there, it evokes, I think, images of royalty for us.

And that's really what it is.

It means it means splendor and power and might and and nobility.

That's that's the idea here.

This is the God that David worships.

Okay, but what's what's absolutely wild about this, and David gets into this, is that that God's not just some you know impersonal, distant, cosmic force swirling around out there or whatever.

David says, Oh Lord, our Lord, our Lord.

Uh, it's a reminder that this majestic creator who has power that you and I can barely even begin to comprehend also is personal to us.

And he's he desires relationship and and and legit intimacy with us, his creation.

But listen, on top of all of that, he's not just majestic, like like here and now in this place, you know, in these walls, in this, in this moment, or or even to the far reaches of the globe and all of that, but it says that his glory is, notice it, set in place above the heavens.

Okay, in places that that the Hubble Space Telescope can't even begin to reach, you know, if it was, you know, had all of its settings maxed out.

I don't really know how the Hubble telescope works, but okay, throughout all the universe, okay, God's God's glory is locked in.

Okay, and it ain't going anywhere.

Do we understand that?

Okay, it is there, it is it is present.

God's glory reigns.

And uh the the evidence of his habitation and and his handiwork are are constantly there, everywhere.

Yeah, I love how Charles Spurgeon put it.

He said, There is no place where God is not.

That's good.

You're starting, even as we you know, just read the first verse here, you're starting to get your perspective, you know, reshifted a little bit.

You feel like the you feel like the satellite dish is starting to move a little bit here for you.

I hope, I hope that it is.

Now, verse two, take a look.

It says, out of the out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

It's kind of crazy.

Like God's God's majesty is seen in things like the kind of the innocent babbling of a of a three-month-old that you might walk past, a mother's pushing the stroller down at Fairy Lake or something like that.

God's God's glory is seen in something like that, to something so opposite like that.

It's like the the blood-stained battlefield where God's enemies have been crushed decisively, right?

His majesty is everywhere.

If we could just learn to see it, right?

To to observe it.

And that's where that's where perspective comes in.

And really what verse 3 gets at, take a look.

David says, When I look at your heavens.

He looks up into creation and and he sees this.

He says, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place.

Listen, if you sense that your perspective is it's just off-kilter these days, and your thinking just doesn't line up with how a Christ follower ought to think, or you're constantly frustrated and you sense bitterness there because life just doesn't seem to be going the way that you hoped, or or maybe you've lost joy in serving, or something like that.

Or you've got you've got this somewhat subtle, it seems, undercurrent of stress constantly flowing under the flow of your life, and it's disrupting your peace, and you're sensing, wow, I'm uh I'm stressed now, and and I physically don't feel right, and I'm not I'm not sleeping very well.

Listen, all of it suggests that somewhere in your heart, in in your mind, your perspective is it's off.

Right?

It's not in a good spot.

And listen, it's likely as as simple as you've taken your eyes off the Lord.

You're not all that enamored with just how truly impressive he actually is.

Right?

If you were honest and you were to think about this, you would admit he just doesn't seem that majestic to me.

I don't even I don't even think about that.

I don't even know when the last time it was I I thought of that word majestic.

Okay, so what does David do again though?

Because he looks, right?

He looks into the heavens, the the the the works of God's fingers.

He he observes where and in what ways God is present and real and at and at work, which which, of course, we know the right answer to this.

It's it's everywhere and always and and in everything.

To be struck by the majesty of God, to have your perspective change from wherever it might be.

It might be fear or or discouragement or you're jaded, or there's just this general apathy towards the things of Christ, right?

You it's to change from all of that, you you've got to look at, you've got to observe, okay, God's impressiveness.

You've got to get your eyes back on that.

You maybe might be like, well, but how do we do that exactly?

Okay, after all, it's not like we're shepherds like David was at one point, where he spent like all of his time outside and in long nights, you know, sitting back on a grassy hill or something, looking up into the stars and watching meteors go by and and all of that.

He didn't have to deal with uh the realities and maybe the restrictions of of modern life where we're so surrounded by so much steel and concrete and too much blue light, as scientists all have us figure, right?

But of course, God's here too.

He's here, and he's in our modern world, and he's always at work, he's always doing things.

We've just got to learn to see it.

We've got to learn to spot him and have that that sensitive heart that that can that can understand and rejoice and see all of these things at work.

Alright, so here's where we're gonna go here today.

You can jot these things down.

Okay, seeing God's majesty in a disenfranchised world.

Do you have a disenfranchised attitude about things?

Okay, here's five five ways that we can do this.

Okay, this first one borrows from uh what David does here.

I just said, get outside.

Okay, get outside.

This is like ultra practical, real simple here.

It's not rocket science.

One thing is you need to see creation.

Right?

You need to get out there, ditch the ditch the iPhone, get rid of the screens.

If you're outside of air conditioning for a little bit, you'll be okay, right?

Get outside, go on a go on a hike, right?

Plan a camping trip or a canoe trip.

If you're like ooh bugs, and that's not your thing at all.

Listen, hop in the car and and take a drive up north and go up to Muskoka as as the leaves are turning color.

You will be reminded of uh of God's awesomeness and all of that and his creativity and how he loves to dazzle us.

Listen, getting outside for some of us we're we're dying for it, especially in the long winter months that we're heading into, and others of us, we love that kind of thing, but get out there, travel, see the mountains, see the Grand Canyon.

Take a walk downtown, Newmarket, whatever it is, get outside.

You'll start to see the Lord at work and you'll start to rejoice in his majesty.

Here's the second one.

Real simple but effective.

Prioritize time alone with God.

Hey, you've heard me say that like a thousand times, right?

You've heard pastors say that a thousand times.

You've said that to yourself a thousand times.

Okay, but you cannot skip this and expect to have an adequate view of God.

You can't.

If you're like, yeah, the majesty's been gone, and and I don't sense that, and you know, but I don't read the scriptures and I don't get alone with him and I don't pray about the things that are going on in my life, and I'm not crying out for you know other people and all of that, and I have no plans to do that, guess what?

Yeah, you're never gonna see the majesty of God.

You you've got to get with him, you've got to prioritize that time.

It takes work, I get it.

It's hard, it might take a reset of some kind, but again, if you neglect this, don't be surprised when your perspective nosedives.

If I spend a couple of days or it turns into a week or beyond, away from God's word, okay, I find that that sin and temptation, just my mentality, my perspective, my attitude just does this real quick.

Do you find that with yourself as well?

You want to get out of this disenfranchised mindset, prioritize time with Him.

How about the third one here?

Learn what God's been doing in someone's life.

I don't feel like God's working, and you know, you read the scriptures sometimes and you're like, wow, it seems like he was doing a lot there, but you know, it doesn't seem like he's doing as much today in in our world, or I'm discouraged about what I see in my life and the people that I know and all of that.

Well, just talk to somebody, ask, ask people what's going on.

Right?

Learn to ask good questions, simple questions, like what's God been doing in your life?

Right?

Have you ever asked somebody that?

It gets them thinking, it gets them talking about it.

People love to talk about themselves and love to talk about what's going on there.

You want to be encouraged and blessed, find out what's going on there.

If a person is complaining or down or they're discouraged, ask them a question like, you know, what do you think God's trying to teach you in this moment?

Maybe you'll help them start to turn a corner a little bit in their thinking, in their perspective.

Because whenever we're going through something, it's God.

God always trying to get our attention.

He's always trying to show us that something's not right.

And he always wants to meet us in that moment and change our perspective and use that to transform us and use us in this world.

God never wastes a moment.

He never wastes any opportunities.

It's us that does all of that.

But learn what God's been doing in someone's life.

You'll be encouraged, your perspective will change, you'll be blessed by what God is doing.

I mean, I think our conversations sometimes as believers can just be so shallow.

And I've heard people talk before about their relationships with their Christian friends who they've known for years, but they get together and the topic of God never comes up.

How sad is that?

Right?

And no wonder we get so stuck in ruts, and it's because we can be so shallow about these things.

How about this one?

We gotta pray, but here's specifically, pray this.

I love this.

God, give me eyes to see you at work and a heart that longs to join you in that work.

A good friend of mine, Josh, uh, would pray that regularly, and I was so encouraged by it and so challenged uh by that to pray that thing.

Lord, give me eyes to see.

Right?

That's a great thing to pray.

Lord, not beyond that.

I don't just want to see and observe as someone trying to be entertained by a majestic God, but God, give me, give me a desire, a heart that longs to join you in that work.

Okay, your perspective, 180s, real quick.

The Lord loves to answer those kinds of prayers.

Okay, here's the last one here.

Learn to doubt your skewed feelings or viewpoint.

How many times have you gotten into a bad attitude and you've spun out and you're negative and you're critical and you're crusty and you're all of that kind of stuff, but you like you carry the sense of like I am justified in this.

Right?

I deserve to be upset.

Right?

If you know this person hadn't ticked me off, then I'd be better.

Right?

And and you can't you carry that, listen, listen, you're not you're not right to be upset about these things.

You don't have a right to be twisting in the wind like all of this.

Listen, doubt that mindset.

Question that mindset, that feeling, that emotion of anger or or or sadness or anxiety or that viewpoint that you have, because if you don't do that, if you don't bring the scriptures to bear on these things, pretty soon your emotions are gonna start to uh impact what you believe is true.

And I and I I am right to feel this way, and and and God, maybe He isn't so good.

Do you see how it affects that so easily?

And the foundation of how we think and what we believe is so off.

Everything else is gonna be off.

They question that.

Don't assume you're right.

In fact, assume you're wrong.

Bring these things to the scriptures, allow the scriptures and and truth to guide all of this.

Enough of the embracing of negativity.

Enough of this, like, well, maybe God isn't what he says he is, or what I hear Pastor Mike talk about.

Listen, I'm telling you right now, God's never the problem.

It's always us.

Okay, and and and and take it a step further than that.

When you when you understand that that you're the problem here and your your attitude is off and your viewpoint is wrong, confess it.

Right?

Bring these things before the Lord.

He is He's merciful and He is gracious and He He will forgive.

It's very easy sometimes, I think, to see something as, oh yeah, I gotta change this, but then not actually deal with the sin that was that was there.

You'll be struck by God's majesty the more you are observant of how impressive He is.

He's greater than you even realize.

He's He's doing more than you realize.

He He loves you more than you realize.

I mean, just think about your salvation for just a second.

I mean, eternal wrath for for your foolish shit.

That's no longer a reality for you.

Right?

How amazing is that?

Right?

Instead, it's forgiveness and it's and it's grace and it's God's Spirit filling your life and and it's transformation that happens in you.

Right?

The king of heaven has has done this for you and I.

We lose sight of this in our new life in Christ, and we lose sight of our future or where we're going and the hope that we have in him, the glories of his majesty.

And how it's it's really so clear when you see the scriptures, it's because our eyes get turned inward so easily.

We're so self-focused, and and sometimes I recognize it in my life.

Oh my god, I'm like struck by it.

Like, man, I don't even have the first clue as to how deep this this really goes.

And I mean, all of that really leads us to the second thing here.

Being struck by God's majesty gives me the right perspective on life.

So as I observe just how impressive he really is, and accept how thoroughly unimpressive I am, okay?

So this is really the other side of the coin, isn't it?

Right?

This is the other the other side of it.

You cannot, listen, you cannot be, you know, enamored with God, think he's so great, and at the same time have this overinflated sense of self.

You can't have that both ways.

Hey, look at what David says here in verse 4, again, as he's struck by the majesty of God here.

He says this, remember, he's just been looking up into the heavens, he says, What is man that you were mindful of him?

Right?

The Son of Man, that you care for him.

Yet this is what you've done.

You've made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

I mean, he just seems blown away by this, and we should be likewise.

With everything that we've just looked at, with God's presence and his glory extending to the furthest regions of the universe, and his incredible ability to create stars and moons and planets and life out of, you know, with just a word.

Okay, who are we to think when you really think about that, that God should pay any attention to us?

Just a week ago today, in the evening, I was I was laying on a dock up in Muskoka, and it was pitch blackout, and I was laying on my back, and I'm looking up, and it was starting to get darker, and you know, this the stars start to start to show forth, and we're you know, watching for shooting stars and all of that, and you know, I just so happened to read Psalm 8 the very next day in my own time with God in his word.

And I was starting to be blown away.

Like the Lord, I started to get that sense again of his majesty and and his goodness, and this sense of like, oh, I who am I?

Right?

Who am I to to boast about anything?

I'm I'm so I'm so small when you think about the grand scale of all of these things.

You know, who am I to think that I deserve to be to be dealt a better hand in life?

Right?

Who am I to complain and whine when things don't go my way?

You know, who am I to to not care about the things of God?

Right?

Who is man that you were mindful of him is what David says.

In light of your your vast size, your grandeur, your majesty.

I mean, who am I really?

Have you ever been in that place before?

Where you're struck and you realize that God doesn't have to give me the time of day.

He doesn't have to, he didn't have to care for us.

He he could have, and you could argue, should have wiped us out the moment that we that we sinned against him.

And we certainly would have deserved all of that, but but verse five shows us that he goes so far beyond the the opposite of destroying us because we deserved it.

It says here that you made man uh a little lower than the heavenly beings.

Some translations say angels.

God's been so gracious to give us this position of being just a little kind of lower positionally than the than the angels.

He's crowned us with with glory and and honor.

Now you need to understand here a couple of things that are going on in these verses.

On one level, this is referring to Genesis 1, right?

In creation.

How the Lord made man as the the pinnacle of his creation here on earth.

We've been crowned with glory and honor in the sense that we have more value to him and more importance in his eyes than, you know, let's say, you know, plants or animals.

And that being said, it should be very humbling to us that in light of God's majesty, as we've been talking about here, and and and our sinful rebellion, that he would value us like this.

We don't deserve it.

I heard R.

C.

Sproul talking about this very thing just this week, and someone had asked him the question why do you think God's punishment in the garden uh was so severe, right?

That death would come.

And R.C.

Sproul, what a legend.

I mean, he was just like, are you kidding me?

He's like, man, Adam, okay, who was made from dirt, okay, defies the one living God, okay, does the one thing that God told him not to do, and said, This is what will happen if you do that.

You will what?

Surely die.

So what does he do?

He goes ahead and does it.

And God, in his grace, doesn't strike him down right there.

Could he have?

Sure.

Should he have?

Yeah, probably.

But what does he do?

He even says, I'm actually going to come and rescue you from all of this mess that you have just made.

Right?

He says, through the seed of the woman who we know ultimately means Jesus Christ.

Yeah, Jesus Christ.

I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna be merciful and I'm gonna, in the meantime, I'm gonna give you a life that's gonna be very difficult because you're gonna experience the consequences of your sin.

Okay, but you're also gonna be able to enjoy life and have joy in me, and the relationship's way different now, but I'm still gonna be here for you.

I'm still gonna be your God.

And he reiterates to Abraham and to Moses and to David and to all these leaders all the way through the Old Testament.

God is unbelievably good to us, and we deserve none of it.

If you're tempted to think that, man, I really wish life went better, listen, we deserve death and hell.

Bottom line, that's what we deserve.

It kind of puts that like guy that cut us off in traffic into perspective a little bit, right?

This week.

Right?

The anger that was seething in that moment.

All the little things that we twist in the wind about, listen, I'm I'm speaking to myself as much as anything.

God has given this placed value on us and he loves us so much.

Okay, so these verses are talking, first of all, about creation, like I said.

And then the second thing to understand is that these verses are also messianic.

Okay, they're a prophecy about Christ, and we see that in Hebrews chapter 2 and verses 6 to 8.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

Okay, the author claims that Jesus is the one being referred to here in these verses we just read.

Okay, he you made Jesus a little lower than the angels, meaning that that Christ put aside all of the rights and all of the all of the privileges that he deserved, that he was due as God, and he he lowered himself, he humbled himself and took on human flesh to execute this rescue mission for all of humanity.

It also says there in Hebrews 2 that you have you have crowned him, borrowing these words from David, meaning Jesus.

You have crowned him with glory and honor and putting everything in subjection under his feet, saying that Jesus is the supreme and ultimate ruler of all.

These verses point us to that.

Now, the response here for you and I, when we consider both meanings of this text, should be nothing less than humility.

Right?

God, who am I that you would crown me with glory and honor and ascribe value and worth to me?

We think about what Christ subjected himself to just to bring us out from underneath the penalty of sin that you and I deserved, all of my self-righteousness and you know, self-importance and pride and arrogance and all of it just feels so dirty, doesn't it?

It feels pathetic, appalling.

Do you find yourself humbled by this?

When we're struck by God's majesty and how thoroughly unimpressive we are in comparison to all of that, that's when our perspective can take this dramatic shift in life.

We lose that sense of self-entitlement as though God somehow exists to serve our agenda.

It begins to melt.

That disinterested, I've got better things to do in life than pursue Christ, mentality that we have.

It begins to disappear, doesn't it?

We're just left in awe of him and want more of him and want to press into him and pursue him.

That's the right perspective.

Sweet spot.

Now listen, you know that this is the exact opposite of what the world teaches us, right?

You know that.

Out there, they're gonna tell you that the right perspective is learning to love yourself more.

Right?

I just I gave myself permission to love myself more.

You you hear people say things like that.

It's it's more self-focus, right?

More self-obsession.

Another way of putting it, see yourself as majestic.

That is the heartbeat of the world's message.

That's their answer.

But the scriptures teach us time and again that right sizing God and and a right sizing of self, that it's that that puts us in the optimal position for for joy and happiness.

Okay, all those things that the Lord is, or that the world is actually trying to find so desperately in other things, but it's only available truly, thoroughly, foundationally in our Creator.

God, he's the impressive one.

You and I, not so much.

Okay, accept it already.

If you haven't, you can't have the right perspective any other way.

Okay, if it's all if it's been all about you for too long, again, confess these things.

In desperation, in humility, bring these things before the Lord in repentance, as God's majesty starts to take focus for you again.

All right, last thing here.

Being struck by God's majesty gives me the right perspective in life.

So as I'm uh as I observe just how impressive he really is and accept how thoroughly unimpressive I am, I'll be prepared to face my responsibilities joyfully.

Take a look at this here in verse six.

Okay, verse six says, You have given him, that's that's man, right?

God has given man 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.

Okay, now in the prophetic sense, again, remember from one angle, this is speaking to the supremacy of Christ over all things, right?

We talked about that.

Okay, but it's also here referring to the responsibility that man has been given by man to steward and manage all of creation.

Okay, he's put us in charge of overseeing all of this and and and taking care of it.

Okay, God created the world, we're to take care of it.

Okay, so so you and I, we have these basic human responsibilities as Christians to, for example, be good citizens here in the country of Canada.

We should also, you know, as we grow older and become adults, we should get jobs and work hard to provide for our families and be useful to society and contribute, right?

We should we should follow the laws of our of our land and be examples to our governing authorities and to the world in all of that.

We should do unto others as we would have them do unto us, right?

The golden rule.

We see that in a few places.

Matthew chapter 7 is one of them, okay?

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Through all of this, we're we're to exemplify what it means to love God and and love neighbor as well.

Right?

These are just a few of the general responsibilities that you and I have as people living on God's green earth.

Right?

This is what he's called us to.

You can't get out from underneath that, or you shouldn't.

You know, it just so happens that these are also the things that you and I tend to lose joy about real quick.

You see this, right, in your life.

This is where our perspective distorts and it warps.

We don't care about the planet and we treat it badly.

Yeah, I'm not gonna get too Al Gore on all of that, but we we break the laws, and we gotta pay tickets and go to court and sometimes sometimes serve jail time.

We complain about our rulers, our government, our authorities there.

Trust me, I get it, it's easy to do.

We have poor attitudes about work and about our our job, and it's nothing but but pure uh drudgery to us, or we get real lazy about it, and you know, we we refuse to just sort of grow up and have an adult mentality about all of this.

Okay, how else does our mentality and viewpoint shift?

Well, how about with when it comes to the responsibility of our of our family, right?

To our spouse and our and our kids.

Sometimes we would rather just escape all of that and the difficulty.

Of it and the drama and the lack of connecting about it and the tiredness and the stress and the all of it.

And we would so rather put ourselves ahead of them instead of them ahead of ourselves as Christ would have it.

Right?

We're to love others, and we all know this.

That's not news to us, but honestly, we're just far too busy to adequately do that.

Or we're, you know, even more honestly, we're just too selfish to give a rip.

And so we don't.

Isn't it amazing how so much of life in these foundational basic responsibilities that God has given us can be so void of joy.

Right?

We can be so miserable and so cold, and so many of us have tried in our own strength, maybe time and time again to find happiness in this and to find joy, and it's just not working.

We get more and more frustrated, or we've just shut off even trying to care, and and we're numb to the entire thing.

And I mean, it's just it's amazingly sad, and we haven't clinged to the Lord about this, and we haven't experienced the joy that we're supposed to have that He would have for us.

So understand to have authentic joy and the various responsibilities that God has given you, whether it's towards your job or or your family or your church or your country, it requires a heart that's continually being stunned by the majesty of God, right?

Over and and over again as you find greater delight in him.

If you keep trying to find joy and in the responsibilities that that God has has given you, apart from a fired-up relationship with Christ, because you you know you you found yourself compartmentalizing him to some area over here, and though he is even though he's Lord over all things over all things, or you've squeezed him into some corner over here, and you're trying to find joy another way and in other things.

Listen, you're just gonna find yourself continually frustrated.

You're gonna become disillusioned.

It's gonna be just one letdown after another.

You're gonna be irritated, which will boil into anger, and you're gonna be stressed out and anxious and and depressed about all of these things.

And and I mean, at the end of the day, you can be you can be broken, right?

Just broken and your perspective is off.

Again, being struck by the majesty of God is what prepares you and I to face all of life with joy.

Like there is no other path.

All the other roads that you know you have tried and we have tried, and mankind has has tried time and time again, they're trying to get more creative about it, and all that.

Listen, it's it all ends in in disappointment apart from Christ.

So you're starting to see here that a right perspective that's fixed on God's majesty.

You're starting to feel like that's something worth fighting for here.

Because when I when I when I've got that, and my as my heart learns this, it's not just you know, you figure it out one day and then you're good, right?

We need to learn this.

We're we're growing in these things.

But it's worth fighting for because it it transforms us.

So, what I want to do is I want to pray for us now, and I want to cry out again to the Lord for us.

I want to do that on your behalf.

God help us to be dazzled by you, help us to see you for who you really are.