Towering Yet Tender God

Size, Scale, and the Fear of Man in Scripture 1:24

Now, throughout the Bible, size and scale and the like comes up again and again and again, even in the smallest increments. The smallest increments on the scale of the universe can be sufficient to cause the hearts of men to quiver. I'll give you an example. Anyone remember a guy named Goliath?

Goliath was a big guy. Goliath was undoubtedly the biggest guy of his age. Goliath was a big man, but against the scale of the mountains behind him, against the scale of the universe itself, the size by which Goliath was bigger than the average Israelite was only a couple of feet. It really was not that large in contrast to everything else.

It was a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, when they go into Canaan and they see there the impressive city of Jericho, they're apprehensive about Jericho. Why? Because Jericho had a large wall.

The size and scale of the wall itself, along with the people behind the wall, but the size and scale of the wall was foreboding. It looked impenetrable, like it couldn't be conquered.

Why God Lets His People Face the Insurmountable 2:18

There's a lot of examples in the Bible by which the people were petrified because that which they were opposed by was slightly larger than them or seemed insurmountable in their eyes every time the israelites encountered an army — but the philistines, the midianites, the canaanites, the roman legions, pharaoh's army pressing them against the red sea — the number one thing that they did at that time was they measured their strength, such as it was, against the strength their adversary.

And time and time again, God allowed them to seem smaller in their eye than that which opposed them. And the reason why God allowed that to happen time and time again, even to the point of shrinking Gideon's army down to 300 men against 100,000, was because when this 300 men, or when the small conquered the great, the small wouldn't get the glory, but rather God Himself would.

He regularly allowed His people, He regularly allows us to face situations that seem like they cannot be overcome. That's just part and parcel to the biblical narrative. It's part and parcel to what God may be doing in your own life. Because when we encounter those circumstances, something slightly bigger than us, we're inclined to look skyward and say, oh God, my God, how majestic is Your name?

If you could conquer all the problems in your life, then you would be your own God. Why would you need Him? If you could breathe into your life all the things that you need just by snapping your fingers, what would your need be for a transcendent God? With that said, when circumstances come up on our eyes and when a Goliath enters your life, it's part and parcel of God's plan to teach you something about yourself and your need for Him.

The Transcendence of God: Infinitely Greater Than All He Made 3:41

“Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales.”

— Isaiah 40:15 (NKJV)

In Psalm 8, we see a lot of these things. King David had seen impressive soldiers. He saw Goliath firsthand. He knew what a Goliath looked like.

He saw impressive armies, men, mountains, stars, the universe around him. But that said, how impressive were any of those things contrast with the God who had made them? Well, the answer is not much. Elsewhere in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 40 says this, behold, the nations, all the nations, all the people, all the enemies, all the armies, behold, the nations are a drop in the bucket and are counted as the small dust on the scales.

They are as nothing. What Isaiah was saying is what we're going to see David saying in Psalm 8, that when you look at God in contrast to anything else, when you look at God in contrast to everything else added up together, God is greater. You could take every army on this planet, every warhead, every sword, every gun, every pistol, everything we have to offer, you could charge against God's holy hill, you could charge against God Himself, and it would be like a gnat pounding its head against a mountain of granite, it wouldn't make a dent.

God is infinitely greater than us, not just a little bit, not in a way you can measure, not like three feet, five feet, ten feet, infinitely greater than us. And because He's infinitely greater than us, it begs the question, what in the world is He doing with us? If he's that big, that great, that large, that magnificent, then why in the world would He waste His time with a lot of us?

Small, tiny, weak, frail, sinful human beings. Who is man, O God? Who is man, given who You are, that You would condescend to so much as speak a word to me, let alone to give me Your hand to raise me up?

The Name of God and the Meaning of His Nature 5:22

“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!”

— Psalm 8:1 (NKJV)

And every question is what David is going to answer in today's text. All right, let's return now to verses 1 and 2, and then we'll work our way through this psalm. Verse 1, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have ordained strength because of your enemies that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. You know, there's an old rhetorical question. It goes like this. What's in a name?

What's in a name? Well, when it comes to the name of God, quite a bit. Now, why is that? Why is the name of God so important?

Why do we pray in the name of Jesus, right? Why are we baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost? Why does God say don't take My name in vain? Why does the name matter?

Now, you and I, we don't have a cultural context for that because our names are kind of interchangeable. They don't mean a whole lot and they don't convey a whole lot. If you meet a man named Bob, what do you know about Bob other than his name? Well, not much.

Why? Because the name doesn't convey anything about Bob. There's no such thing as Bob-ness. Bob-ness.

You understand this? A name in our culture doesn't really mean anything. Bob, Susan, Michelle, Joe, Biff, whatever. It doesn't convey anything.

However, the name Adonai, the name Jehovah, the name Yahweh does. This name is above all names because embedded in the name is the nature of the one who bears the name. Embedded in the name of God is a whole lot of meaning. God means God.

God means God. God equals God. The name itself represents who He is and His powers, nature, and His might. So when you say the name of God, you're referring not only to Him in the abstract, but also in the particular with regards to His nature and His essence.

So to praise God's name is to praise His nature. At the same time, to denigrate His name is to denigrate His nature, which is why it's a sin to do so. Don't take his name in vain as a sin because you're not only denigrating a name in the abstract, but His holy nature in the particular.

You shall not take the name of your Lord your God in vain, for He will not hold him guiltless who does so. In any case, this verse, how excellent is your name in all the earth, it is the book ends to this whole psalm. He starts with it and he ends with it.

So we'll return to that name here in just a moment.

David Considers the Heavens: The Work of God's Fingers 7:33

But let's look at verses three through five. Verse three, when I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You have ordained, what is man then that You are mindful of him and the sons of men that You would visit? For You have made him a little lower than angels and You have crowned him with glory and with honor.

All right, at the outset of this psalm he's just said how glorious God is. Your name is glorious, Your character is glorious, Your majesty, all the things that make You God are worth all the praise I have to offer. But then there's a transition here in verse 3, where it's almost like David's walking on top of his palace there in Jerusalem.

It's nighttime and he's thinking these thoughts and he's composing his psalms and the like, and as he's doing so, he looks up and he sees the canvas which God has painted before him. Now, we look around the world around us and we see a lot of beautiful things, even outside these windows in the courtyard and like, there's a lot of beautiful things.

In first century Israel, when someone looked at the stars, it was more beautiful than any stars you and I have ever seen, and the reason why is because it's something that we suffer now that David didn't suffer then. Without getting political, it's the phrase light pollution. What's light pollution? If you go down to Biloxi Beach and you look up at the stars, you'll see stars but you'll also see stars against the backdrop of all the other neon, all the other things that are kind of being cast up in the sky.

There's other lights that are competing with those lights, and because that's true, when you and I look up in any given night, even on a fairly cloudless night, when we look up you might see something around 100 stars, give or take, maybe sometimes less, maybe sometimes more. But in David's day, the astrophysicists have said that back in about the first century that you would see, if you looked up, a lot more than about 100 stars at that time, against the relative blackness of the world around you and the lack of any real lights other than the occasional candles and torches.

But against the backdrop and blackness of the sky itself, what you would see is somewhere over 40,000 to 45,000 stars in the sky. So when David looked up, it's more than what you're seeing. When David would have looked up, it was a sea, it was a canvas, more than he could possibly count it, even if he stayed up all night to do the counting.

So there he is, presumably, looking up at all that, amazed by all that. He didn't have to know how far away those stars were in order to understand the scale and scope of the universe around him, how large it was.

Intelligent Design: From the Creation to the Creator 9:48

He was no astrophysicist himself, but he was able to make two scientific conclusions that we see in verses 3 through 5. First of all, he says this. He looks up at that which He has made, and his conclusion is not, wow, what a coincidence. I'm so glad the Big Bang happened or I wouldn't be able to see all this.

That was not his conclusion. He didn't go, this is amazing how centuries and centuries and centuries ago we all evolved from some singularity and everything I now see. How wonderful. He doesn't do that.

Instead, he immediately appeals to something we'll just call intelligent design. He looks up at the stars. He looks up at that which seems to be designed, and he makes the rational deduction that there must be a designer. And he talks about the designer as one who willfully, of His own volition, did things.

Through Your fingers, we see the word fingers in this text. Through Your fingers, You have painted, You have created, You have designed that which is above me. When I consider this, verse 3, when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, which speaks to God fashioning the cosmos. When I consider the moon and the stars that You have ordained, which he's saying means that God is above that which He has ordained.

God transcends all of it. When he says all this, he's making his first conclusion. There must be a creator. And secondarily, the conclusion he makes is that this creator must be a lot more powerful and amazing than he was, even though he himself was a famous king.

And we know that because in verse 4, he immediately speaks how wonderful God is and then immediately talks about himself as if he's nothing.

The Doctrine of God and the Doctrine of Man 11:09

There's two theological precepts we see in this text, the doctrine of God and the doctrine of man. The doctrine of God says that God equals God and God is impressive and amazing and majestic and transcends all He's made. The doctrine of man says against that, I'm nothing. The first theological class I ever took in seminary, the first thing a professor ever wrote on the border, these words, there is a God, you are not Him.

All good theology starts with that at its foundation. There is a God, you are not Him. That's what David is saying here. When I consider the cosmos and the work in Your hands, how amazing, how great thou art, right?

How great Thou art that Thou should make all this. But then in verse 4, but then who is man? When I see who you are, who in the world am I? And not only who in the world am I, but who in the world am I that You, given who You are, would care about me?

And he doesn't have a ready answer to that. Says, what's man? Ah, it's like his brain breaks there on the top of the palaces. He's contemplating these things.

What am I? What's man? I know people say I'm great, but in reality, what is man? What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels, you crowned with glory and honor.

Why? Why? Why? Goodness knows I've given You no reason to do so.

The same palace rooftop with which he looks out and sees the cosmos and says how wonderful God is and praises and worships Him is the same sort of palace rooftop by which he saw Bathsheba and dove into sin. You understand this? Who is God? Holy and righteous and wise and virtuous and just.

Who am I? The same guy who can look at You and say You're awesome and look at Bathsheba and go sin. That's who man is in contrast with who God is. How great thou art. I think we'll sing it.

I think it's in our bulletin. It's our last song today. How fitting. How great thou art, says this.

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee. How great thou art.

Not Only God's Size But God's Substance 13:11

If God is so big and so majestic, the million-dollar question becomes, why does He care for us? Now, before we answer that question or address it, let me insert one other thing here. A few moments ago, we talked about my cat, right? We talked about the difference in size and scale and scope when we compare one person, one thing, against another thing in the created world around us.

But with that said, when we talk about God's size, such as it is, when we talk about God's size, we know this, that the reach of His arm knows no bounds, the power of His word can do anything that He intends it. There's no scale, there's no rule, there's no calculator by which you can measure God.

However, it's not just the size that matters. It's not just God's infinite size and scope and scale and the like that matters. It's also His substance. And I'll prove this.

If you took a soccer ball, you know, kick a soccer ball, you got a soccer ball, let's say that soccer ball goes rolling and it encounters a planet, right? Just a planet. So a tiny soccer ball against a planet, who wins? Well, we know that the planet wins.

Why? Because it's the planet, the size is greater than the soccer ball, dwarfs it, overcomes it. Soccer ball would be eviscerated like that. So on the one hand, we think of God's size is so foreboding and impressive and he just dwarfs us, and absolutely that's part and parcel of the text.

But it's not simply God's size that's the issue, it's also God's substance. Let's say you take the soccer ball, you take the soccer ball and you kick a soccer ball. Now, let's say that soccer ball encounters a bowling ball of the exact same size. As you look at them, they're the same size objects.

A soccer ball coming at the same speed against a bowling ball coming at the same speed. Who's going to win? Bowling ball. But why?

It's what it's made of, the substance of the bowling ball. When it encounters the soccer ball, the bowling ball will not slow down at all. Why? Because the substance, the essence of it is so much superior to that which it has encountered.

It's not simply that God is bigger than us that matters. I mean, that's important to consider. He is majestic and transcendent and all that, but also His nature. His nature is greater, superior to ours, and that's embedded in this text as well.

All right, let's look at our remaining verses, and then we'll try to tie all this together.

Man's Dominion Over the Works of God's Hands 15:20

“You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet.”

— Psalm 8:6 (NKJV)

Verses 6 through 9. He starts talking about man again, and he says, Oh, God, You've made us, You've made man, to have dominion over the work of Your hands. You understand? He says, you're greater than, the creator is greater than the created.

God transcends. The creator is greater than the created. But then he says, within the scope of the created, You put us at top. God, You are wonderful.

You made everything. And You're transcendent over that which You have made. But within the scope of that which you have made, for reasons that escape me, You have put us at the top. And You've given us dominion over everything else.

God, You've made man to have dominion over the works of Your hands. You have put all things under his feet. Not just some things in the created realm, but everything. We scale mountains, we fish the deepest seas, right?

You've given all of it to us. You've put all things under his feet, all of the sheep, all the oxen, the beasts of the field, the birds in the air, the fish of the sea that go through the paths of the sea. That's his way of saying everything. Everything we have dominion over.

And then verse 9, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth. All right, what's going on here? Why is he lingering on this? And why is he closed, of course, again by referring to the name?

Well, back in verses 3 through 5, David acknowledged that mankind himself is small compared to God. If you get nothing else, I trust you got that. There is a God, you're not Him, right? Mankind is beneath God.

And because that's true, as a side note, the right response, the thinking man's response is to say, if there is a God and He exists and He's bigger than I, what do I need to do to be right by Him? What has He told me about how He wants me to live? And whatever it is, I ought to do, right?

That just makes common sense. If He's bigger, He made me, He's in charge of me, He's authority over me. If this is true, then the least response I can have is to take my life and walk it in accordance with whatever He wants me to do. He's God, I'm not.

There is a God, I am not Him. So that was in verses three through five. But then here, he starts talking about man and says, at the same time, God, I can't quite fathom this. It's wonderful, but You've made us and You've given us to have dominion over all of these different things.

So that's what we see in verses six through eight.

The Imago Dei: Made in the Image of God 17:23

Now there's a phrase, there's a Latin phrase sometimes we use to describe what it means to be made in the image of God. What's the Latin phrase? The image of God is what? The imago Dei, right?

Image of God. We are made in God's image. Now, what does that mean? It means that we share aspects of His nature.

Now, there's attributes of God that we don't have. What's one thing God has as an attribute that you and I will never have? For one, we're not infinite. I'm not omnipresent.

Let's do the omnis. I'm not omnipresent, right? I'm not omniscient, right? There's a lot of things God is that I am not.

But there's also a lot of things that God is that I am and that you are. Someone give me an example of what we would call a communicable attribute, an attribute he has that you and I have. What's one? Creativity.

Yes, interesting. That's actually wonderful. So God is creative. Amongst His many attributes is this.

He is the cosmic Bob Ross. Bob Ross, I'm a big fan of Bob Ross. You know this. He's the infinite cosmic Bob Ross.

His canvas scopes everything. He is creative, the things that He makes, the things He can think of. Dear heavens, you and I have only seen just a scooch of a scooch of all that. I've said before, Moses lived a long time.

Moses never saw a kangaroo. Moses never saw a starfish. Moses never saw a lot of things on this earth. There's a lot of things you haven't seen on this earth, and that's just one planet amongst the whole cosmos.

It's the backdrop of all the things that God might have created. And that's just here. What about in the heaven of heavens, the heaven yet to come?

Communicable Attributes: Creativity and the Image-Bearer 18:47

The canvas of God is infinite. He is creative, and at the same time, He made you to be creative too. He put in your heart a desire to take your hands and your skills and apply it creatively to the canvas He's given you, whatever that might be. It might be through song.

It might be literally through paint. That might be through any manner of different means by which we can create things. That's one example. There's many more.

God is loving. He's patient. He's kind. Can you be loving, kind, and patient?

I hope so. So those attributes God has that we share. Now, there are other attributes that we share with God that are completely foreign to the animal landscape around us. You can take a million monkeys in a room for a million years, they'll never hammer out the words of Shakespeare, let alone words of scripture, let alone anything halfway legible, right?

Why? Because for whatever God has equipped monkeys to do, which isn't a whole lot, He has not equipped them with the creativity to compose Shakespeare or a sonnet, to do ballet, do any number of different things, but He has us. We are all together different. The things in the world around us are kind of neat and nifty.

I like going to the aquarium. I really, really do. The aquarium is a lot of fun for me. Zoos are a lot of fun for me.

There's probably a reason why we have so many animals. I like what God has made, and yet at the same time, I know that what God has made in the animal kingdom is nothing compared to mankind who is made in the image of God and who is creative and has many of the attributes that God Himself has.

And God Himself, it's like if you're a home builder, let's say that was your job to build homes, and you have a child, small child, and as he gets a little older, you give that child his first hammer. Isn't it cool? You've used a hammer all your life. You've used it, you've wielded it, you've constructed things, you've built things, and you give your child the first hammer.

I don't know what he's going to do with it, but your idea is something good, his first hammer to be utilized and to build and to create and to construct things and the like. In a sense, that's our opportunity as God's children to emulate our Father using the tools that He has given us.

So that's just a small representation of what we see in these verses when he reflects on the dominion that we've been given.

Nebuchadnezzar's Pride Contrasted with David's Praise 20:49

But let's close by looking again at verse 9, which brings us back to the name of God. Verse 9 said this, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent, how majestic, some translations have it, is Your name in all the earth. Let me ask you a question. Do you remember a guy, a guy named Nebuchadnezzar?

And if so, what do you remember about Nebuchadnezzar? Well, Nebuchadnezzar's story, it's in the book of Daniel. It has really two different parts. Now, initially, Nebuchadnezzar is a pretty proud guy.

Nebuchadnezzar, like David, is a king. Nebuchadnezzar, like David, ruled over a lot of people. People would come bowing and scraping into his presence, right? But here's the thing.

Unlike David, Nebuchadnezzar let all that stuff go to his head. And do you remember what happened to Nebuchadnezzar? One day he's out on his palace. One day he's out in the palace in Babylon.

He's looking out over all that he has made. And what does he say? I'm paraphrasing here, but in essence, he looks over all he's made. And he says, how wonderful I am for all that I have made.

In essence, what he says is, how majestic is my name. He looked around specifically. He looked around at everything that existed in Babylon. And he said that these things exist for the glory of my majesty, is the phrase that he used.

And what happened? What happened in Nebuchadnezzar like that? God struck him. Became dumb as a beast.

Became dumb as a beast, was sent out to live in the field, lived like an animal did, right? And it was only, only when ultimately God permitted him, God allowed him to look up. Interestingly, to look up as David looked up. When Nebuchadnezzar looked up, what happened?

His reason returned to him. Maybe it was that canvas. Maybe it was all the stars. Maybe it was the thought that all that was more impressive than the palace in Babylon.

Whatever the case is, God used that moment to restore his senses, and the response of Nebuchadnezzar to this recognition of who he really was in comparison to who God is, is that there in Daniel chapter 4, he has this wonderful admission, this wonderful moment where he praises the God of all creation and admits that he is nothing in comparison.

Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, through the hand of God, was disciplined, and yet there was grace in that discipline. I've preached in the past that I believe Nebuchadnezzar was saved. You'll have to go look for it in the Sermon Archives. Different story.

But God gave Nebuchadnezzar grace in that moment to have an understanding of who he was versus who he was.

Conclusion: The Towering God Who Wipes Away Your Tears 22:59

And Nebuchadnezzar responded with praise towards his maker. What that said this morning, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth. Nebuchadnezzar initially looked at his environment and praised himself. David praised his God.

When you go out these doors, when you go down and look at the beach, we are blessed to live in a place where we can look at the canvas of creation in a way that not many people can. When you look out at the vastness of those waters, so vast you can't even see the end from the beginning.

When you look at all that, remember how majestic is the one who made those things. And remember at the same time, this towering God that made all that yet still condescends to care about you. A towering God is yet tender. The same God whose fingers paint the stars above will one day wipe away your tears.

Let's pray.