Our scripture for today is Psalms 8 to the choir master according to the Giddet, 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 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 moons 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 the million over the works of your hands. You have put all of things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beast of the field, and the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the past of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and the hearing of his words. Around the world, day Christians recognize today as Palm Sunday. You can see I have my palm right here. I hope you have yours too. Probably not. We don't have any at the church because there's nobody here. And yet this is Palm Sunday. And in the book, the final days of Jesus, Andreas Katsenberger and Justin Taylor, suggests that Jesus entered into Jerusalem on Sunday, March 29, AD 33. Indeed that would have been this past week. When he entered into Jerusalem, that was the first Palm Sunday. It is called Palm Sunday because when Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem the week of his crucifixion, a great crowd gathered around him and a great crowd met him and greeted him. And John chapter 12 and verse 13 reminds us that the crowd was waving palm branches, palm branches before Jesus and they were shouting, Hosanna. Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel. When Jesus came into Jerusalem, Jerusalem was buzzing. Jesus had indeed himself called the stern. It was already past over a week and according to the historian Josephus, the population of Jerusalem doing Passover week could swell to well over a million people. And many of these people, many of those who had come that day were gathered around Jesus as he was walking into Jerusalem and they were gathered around him praising God and anticipating great things from Jesus. And Jesus did not disappoint with the huge crowds following him and the crowd swelling around him. Jesus immediately went to the temple the Bible tells us. And upon arriving at the temple, he saw that there were those there who were using the temple for their own personal and financial gain and they were taking advantage, they were taking advantage of the poor and the disadvantaged. And seeing this, Jesus overturned the tables and all the money that was on it and drove out these money-grubbing profiteers. But that wasn't all. Not only did Jesus drive out the money-grubbing profiteers from the temple and as amazing as that was, perhaps the most amazing thing that he did that day, the Bible tells us that he right there began to heal the sick. He began to make whole be afflicted. And Matthew chapter 21 and verse 14, the Bible tells us that he gave sight to the blind and that he made the lane to walk again. And so marvelous and so wonderful were these things that Jesus was doing. The Bible says that the children began to praise him and Matthew chapter 21 and verse 15, singing Hosanna to the son of David. The children began to praise him. How amazing this was, how marvelous this was, those who were the least of them gave the loudest praise. Those who were supposed to be seen and not heard gave the loudest shout. Those who supposedly knew the least spoke and praised the best. Now the Bible doesn't want us to miss that point, beloved because upon hearing the children give praise to Christ and acknowledge him as the son of David. The Bible says that when the temple and the religious leaders heard this, they were indignant. They couldn't believe, they couldn't believe the ignorance of these children. Hatton, they learned anything in the catechism class. Hatton, their parents taught them anything about the coming Messiah. How dare they call this Jesus of Nazareth the son of David but Jesus hearing their indignation replied to them and said that it is not the children who are ignorant. It is not the children who haven't learned. It is you and Jesus said to them in Matthew chapter 21 and verse 16, haven't you read Psalm 8 out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies? You have ordained praise. Beloved Jesus reminded them that the praise of the saints on Palm Sunday is reflective of the praise of the saints in Psalm 8. The glory given to Jesus on Palm Sunday is the glory given to God in Psalm 8, like those gathered with Jesus on that first Palm Sunday. This Palm Sunday, Psalm 8 reminds us and teaches us two important truths that we want to reflect on together. When we worship the one true God as those children did, we sing God's glory and we share in God's glory. We sing God's glory. Like those gathered around Jesus on that first Palm Sunday. Psalm 8 begins with the enthronement of God singing his glory and the power in verse 1. Oh Lord, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. When we sing God's glory like this, Beloved, it reminds us of a couple of things. It should remind us, first of all, that praise is communal. Praise is collective. Notice how the psalm begins. He says, this is our God. Oh Lord, our God. This is our God. This is our song. Some songs and some psalms are more personal than others. Some are more individualistic than others. Psalm 23 and verse 1 begins, right? The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. But this is not the case with Psalm 8, Beloved, but in Psalm 8, we are reminded that the Lord is our Lord. He is our God together. Yes, yes, indeed. God does enter into personal relationships and he makes relationship with each of us as his children. And as the Bible says, he knows each of us by name. And yet, it is important to remember, Beloved, that that personal relationship that you have with God is to be expressed in corporate collective faith. Our Lord, our God. I'm just to give you your name in all ear. One of the dangers of our current isolation and social distancing is that we forget or lose sight of the truth that we are called to worship together. You may engage in private worship, Beloved. But private worship is not the highest calling. It is the saints of God and praise together. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, our Father, when we sing, we sing our Lord. When we sing of His glory, Beloved, it is to remind us that this is a collective communal praise. But it is not just a collective and communal praise. It is also a universal. It is a worldwide praise. Notice again, it says, oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name where? In all the earth. With a manifestation of God's glory and majesty, Beloved, it is not constrained to one location, to one country, or to one people. In the Amaya chapter 9 and verse 6, the Bible says, you are the Lord, you alone, you have made heaven and the heaven of heaven with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. And you preserve them, all of them and the host of heaven worships you. Wherever the sun shines by day or the moon by night, there God is to be praised. Wherever there are clouds in the sky by day and there are stars in the sky by night, there the name of the Lord is to be praised. Wherever there are babies born and life continues, there the name of the Lord is great and greatly to be praised. Beloved, we are reminded every day, you turn on the news and every day you and I are reminded that the coronavirus is not a local sickness. It is not an Atlanta or New York sickness. It is not just a United States or China problem. It is a worldwide issue. And I don't know about you, but isn't it good to know that we have a worldwide God? He is not just God in Georgia. He is not just God in America. He is Lord of all the earth. And that's why we can sing. He's got the whole world, even now, beloved, even today, no matter what you think may be gripping the world right now. The world is ultimately in the grip of God. He's got the whole world in His hands. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name. In all we worship the one and true God. We sing of God's glory, but we also share in God's glory. We share in His glory.
When we sing of His glory and majesty, it not only reminds us of who God is and what God means to us, but it should always, it should also remind us of who we are and what we mean to Him.
Psalm 8, verse 3 and 4 says, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them and human beings that you care for them? I don't know about you, beloved, but I think you would think that the God who made the heavens, God who made the sun and the moon and the stars, the God who established the laws of the universe and the laws that govern the expense of the entire universe, this God would have little time
for trivial matters of the human life. If you think about it, just think about it for a moment, the grand and the greatness of the universe over which God rules and reigns. And when you think about the vastness of the universe, to which we still have no way of comprehending the vastness of the vastness of what matter is some microscopic virus in the grand scheme of the vastness of all God's creation. What does it matter? This little virus, this little virus has interrupted life as we know it on earth and the world and all of its best scientists are confounded by something so small that's left us every day, not just washing our heads but ringing our heads in frustration. And we wonder and we wonder every day when would we ever reach the end of it? But when you think about it and the grand scheme of who God is and all that God has created, just the beginning of time, what should it matter to God who has created worlds upon worlds?
What should one life or better yet even a thousand lives matter to God who has created hundreds of billions of lives to look and think about the vastness and scope of creation is to be reminded of the humility of our littleness and relative insignificance. And thus, if we are honest, we are left to ask the question that the Psalmist asks when he considered all those things. What is mankind that God is mindful of us and human beings that God would even care and yet to love it? This is the blessed, unique revelation of Christianity. Is that this God who has created all things from time beginning and has determined the ends of all things and time ends? This God cares for you. God cares. God cares. To ask the question, what is mankind that God is mindful is to stop and be amazed at the answer that the Bible gives? Is that this God cares? He cares for you. You realize that the creation account in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2, I mean chapter 1 and chapter 2, as grand as it is, is not really an account about the stars and the clouds. It is not really about the birds and the beasts, but the centerpiece of all creation is the creation of man and woman. The centerpiece of God's grand design is the creation of humanity. The stars are grand, beloved, and they are beautiful, but only humanity is made in the image of God. And therefore, only we reflect his being and thus, we have the most significance he cares. This is why, beloved, you can dismiss the foolishness that you were created in the image of apes or that you evolved from some tadpole or mudfish, but remember what the Bible says in Psalm 139 and verse 14, you were fearfully and wonderfully made. Why? Because God cares. And because God cares, your life matters. Every life matters. It matters if you get sick. It matters if you contract a virus. It matters if you fall ill. It matters who dies because it matters to God. God cares. He cares for you. He cares for all excretion. He cares for the flowers and the trees. He cares for the birds and the bees. The Matthew 10 and 31 tells us that he cares for nothing as much as he cares for you. He cares. He cares. You do realize, beloved, that Christ didn't walk into Jerusalem to save the birds and the bees. He didn't die on a cross to save the fish in the sea. He died to save those created in the image of God. He died because God cares. Because God is mindful of you and of me. And the God who cares is also the God who shares. Because he cares. He shares. He shares himself with us. Psalm 8 and verse 5 and 6, you have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands. You have put everything under their feet. He shares. He shares. He shares with us his glory. Not that we are worthy of praise because we are not. But he shares with us his image. He shares with us his likeness. He allows us like no other part of creation to enter into relationship with him and to experience the blessedness of being his people.
Regardless of what some people may think, he doesn't call the dolls and cats his children. That is what he calls us when he cares especially for. He shares his glory. But not only does he share his glory, he shares his dignity. You are created in the image of God. And because you are created in the image of God, you have honor. You have dignity. You mean something. No matter how far you have fallen to God, you mean something. Christ came to redeem you. You are not an animal. You are not a thing. Christ shed his own blood for you. In God, you are somebody.
In his giving you life. And that life has meaning. That life has purpose. That life has dignity. I remember speaking out of conference years ago. And one of the other speakers was a lady. She was a few years older than me. And she walked with a cane. And even though she walked with a cane, she walked with purpose. And I was struck by how much dignity she carried in her gate. And how she walked with her head held up with a smile and a joy on her face. She dressed and she spoke with confidence. And as she walked up front to begin to speak, I couldn't wait to hear what she had to say. And when I heard her, I was amazed at her story. And I began to understand life. She had been a prostitute. She had been a drug addict. She had lived on the streets where she had been abused and used. She had been lost and lonely until she met Jesus. And Jesus not only saved her soul, but Jesus restored her humanity. Jesus not only gave her life, but he also gave her dignity again. No matter. No matter how far you have fallen, no matter how hard you have fallen to God, you mean something because he has shared and shared with us his dignity, his purpose, his meaning. He shares with us, his glory, he shares with us his dignity, he shares with us his dominion. God has dominion over all things. And he has the Bible says here in Psalm 8, he has in turn now giving us dominion over our world. Now unfortunately beloved for some people, dominion through the years has meant dominion. And they have taken this idea of dominion and have dominated whether it is dominating other nations or other peoples or whether it is just dominating people in your own sphere of influence at work or at home. They have taken this idea of dominion to mean dominion. But I am sorry. It is only in a sinful and fallen world where sinful and fallen minds does dominion mean dominates. In the Bible, dominion means care. It means responsibility to care, protect, and provide. Adam and Eve, the Bible says we're giving dominion in the garden. And you know what it tells them to do in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 15, they were to care for and to cultivate the garden. And human beings rightly share and God's dominion when we share in his care and his care for our world and his care for each other. When we realize that dominion means care, then we realize that dominion means service. Christ had all dominion. And yet the Bible says in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 8 that he humbled himself and it came to humanity as humanity. He humbled himself and it came to humanity as humanity.
It says in Mark chapter 10 and verse 45, not to be served but to serve and to give of his life.
When the Lord, our Lord, has given us dominion. He has given us the right and the privilege to care and to serve, to protect and to provide so that we might reflect the image of God that has been restored and redeemed in us. O Lord, O Lord, how majestic is your name in all year. Some it ends like it begins, right, giving praise and glory to God in all year. You know when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, the crowds in Jerusalem on that first palm Sunday were doing the very same thing.
They were giving praise and giving glory to Christ. And when the crowds shouted loud and as the praise began to rise, the religious leaders approached Jesus and they told Jesus, Jesus, do you hear what they're saying? You need to review them. You need to stop them. You need to hush their praise. And Jesus told them in Luke 19 and 40 that if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. Well, beloved, I don't know about you and I hope it's true of you, but we don't need stones to be praising God in our place. It is our pleasure and it is our privilege to join with the angels and to join with the saints everywhere this palm Sunday singing, O Lord, O Lord, how majestic is your name in all year. Let the rocks keep silent. Let the saints praise.