*Below is Pastor Andrew’s teaching outline from Sunday’s sermon, not a word for word manuscript. This is meant as aid in seeing the thought and direction of the sermon.
The reality of music in the Advent season
O Come O Come
O Holy Night
Silent Night
Who Would Have Dreamed:
- Wondrous gift of heaven: the Father sends the Son
Planned from time eternal, moved by holy love
He will carry our curse and death He'll reverse
So we can be daughters and sons - And who would have dreamed or ever foreseen
That we could hold God in our hands?
The Giver of Life is born in the night
Revealing God's glorious plan
I. The Majestic Lord (1-3)
Psalm 8:1–3 ESV
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,
- Praise the Name of our God YHWH
-The Personal Name for God is here proclaimed in all the earth
-YHWH
-The name most closely drawn to the covenant working nature of God
-He is not just any god to be praised he is the one true YHWH
-He is our lord/Master/ Adon
- This praise is not limited to Israel, but the personal God is the Lord to be praised throughout the world.
-The mouths of children cry out the praise of his great God
Jesus will reference this text on Palm Sunday:
Matthew 21:16 ESV
and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”
The people cry out in praise to the God who cares for them.
-The text here is referencing the care God has for his own that he will defeat his enemies and rescue his people,
In reference to Advent, it is true that “God will rescue captive Israel” he will save his people, and they will praise him
- And the reality that he will save them is a marvel to David:
-David Marvels at the heavens:
-He is the detailed creator of the universe
-Work of his fingers highlights the detail-oriented nature of his creation.
-God is not a lazy craftsman, everything he does is with detail and care
-You ever just look out at the heavens and marvel at God
-ILL: Growing up laying on the roof to think and pray
II. Humbled Man (4-8)
Psalm 8:4–8 ESV
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 the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
So, after declaring and observing the majesty of God in the universe David is struck then by the fact that God would even care for humanity.
-What is man,
-in the light of all this why man
-why create us and care for us
-why do we even matter to you
-even the offspring of man is important
-the smallest and feeblest among us is of value and worth to you
-They cry out your praise as you are the one who has sustained them
HE has created us with worth and honor
-David now reflects on the original state of creation:
Genesis 1:26 ESV
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
-Man was created in the image of God
-Reflecting on our Genesis series briefly (check out the website for the whole series)
-Mankind was given a special place in the creation order, placed lower than the heavenly beings yet given dominion as image bearers of God
-The text can be debated to be between the term ‘gods” or angels (The NT will use the Septuagint reading of heavenly beings the Hebrew is elohims)
He was created to rule well
-Reflecting on the Garden dominion was given to Adam to have dominion and rule over all the earth as God’s ambassadors ruling as he rules
-This is the marvelous reality that God created, and again we think what is man that we should be given such a responsibility
-But we can only see mankind from a fallen state
-We are a wicked and selfish people
-Much like our parents Adam sin has marred our created being we do not rule rightly
-We do not steward creation we abuse it for our own ends and call it stewardship, just as the nations do their people.
-Creation groans for the sons of God to be revealed and for all that is wrong to be put right
So, we have not seen this text truly fulfilled:
-We do not rule rightly and fully
-we do not care for the Lord creation as Adam was commanded
-We do not do the things the Lord has given us charge over due to sin and corruption beginning in in Adam, yet He was still mindful of us:
- In a more personal connection the song Who Am I by Casting crowns is has a similar thought to it
This is the beauty of this Psalm as we unpack the fulfillment of this in Christ the true and perfect Adam, the true and perfect Sovereign ruler of creation, the one who will bring life and restore the Image of God to those whom He saves.
And we see this as the book of Hebrews picks up the refrain
III. The Majestic Son (9 & Hebrews 2:5-9)
Hebrews 2:5–9 ESV
For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
The author of Hebrews brings forward the Psalm and focus’ us on the true man who would rule is Christ.
-In this we see that Christ is the true man, while not ceasing to be the true God,
-He is the one with perfect dominion and rule because he is the one who is crowned with a true and eternal glory perfectly fulling the law of God.
-An he did it because he was mindful of us
-He became man to save man
-He joined in with creation to be the true king of creation
-The Holy son for God was mindful of humanity that he became a helpless babe born into the world, raised by earthly parents, experienced life here on earth in all its mess without being stained by it, so that he could save us and redeem us.
-The perfect son of God is the perfect son of man
-And when we see this, we are amazed even more of the majestic name of our God.
Psalm 8:9 ESV
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
