Amen. Well, please turn me in your Bibles to Psalm 8 now. Psalm 8. Psalm 8 is a wonderful, beautiful psalm that you're probably familiar with. It's a fitting psalm for us to meditate on for a number of reasons today. It's fitting because we have a baptism today, and there's this mention of infants in this text, as we'll see. It's praising God because of majestic name and he places his majestic name upon us in our baptism. It also holds forth in light of the whole scriptures, the hope of the new creation. And as we enter into the new year, we look forward to the new creation that Christ will bring about one day when he returns. But let's. Take a moment now and give our attention in our careful attention to the reading of God's Holy Word from Psalm 8. 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. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. Amen. Thus far, the reading of God's holy word. May He bless our hearts this morning. Well, brothers and sisters in Christ, on October 14th, 2012, a man named Felix Baumgartner landed safely on Earth after a 24-mile skydiving jump from the Earth's stratosphere. Who wants to do that? Not me. He even broke the sound barrier during this jump, reaching top speeds of up to 843 miles per hour. It's quite an impressive feat. What's striking is what he said during his interview following the jump. He asked what it was, what it was like, and instead of immediately, you know, patting himself on the back, saying, well, I made such a great accomplishment, he said that at the upper regions of the atmosphere, he says, when you're up that high, you realize how minuscule you are. I felt so incredibly small and insignificant compared to the expansiveness of space above me in the earth beneath me. And in fact, right before he jumped, he said on the radio. I know the whole world is watching and I wish the whole world could see what I see. Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you really are. And indeed, we are incredibly small compared to the vastness of the universe. As the psalmist marvels in our text, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? Yet God does care for us. He cares for you. And He cares for me. That's psalm 8 in a nutshell. You are incredibly small and God is incredibly big. Yet God cares for you. Psalm 8 is a psalm that really puts us in our place. It's very humbling. Puts us in our place relative to God and relative to the created order. And it humbles us, but then it lifts us up, doesn't it? It lifts us up as we see that God has given us a surprising dignity in creating us in His image and crowning us with glory and honor. And this praise psalm, it takes us in all the directions that worship should take us. It takes us up to meditate on the glory of God the Creator. It takes us back to creation and it points us forward to the new creation that is ours in Christ. It's a beautiful Psalm, and so let's. Meditate on it now and consider with me this theme of how God's majesty is manifested through surprising means how God's majesty is manifested through surprising means, and we'll see this in how he silences his enemies through children. And secondly, how he subdues creation through mankind. And then thirdly, how he saves through Christ. So how he silences, subdues, and saves. So first, notice how he silences the enemy through children. We have these, if you notice, thematic bookends to this psalm in v. 1-9 where you have this repeated refrain and it says, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. And so this psalm begins and it ends with God. The point is that man's role in this world cannot be correctly understood apart from God, His Creator. Now, why is Lord capitalized in one instance and not in the other? Maybe you noticed that, that Lord is capitalized in one spot and then very next spot it's not. Well, as you probably know by now sitting under the preaching in this church enough, Lord, when it's all capitalized in the English translation is the English translators communicating to us that in the Hebrew, this is the divine name for God that was given to Moses at the burning bush. Remember when Moses asked him, Who are you? What is your name? That I might tell the people of Israel when they asked me who sent you to redeem us. And the Lord God in the burning bush says, tell them I am sent you because I am who I am. And this is God's covenantal name revealed to Moses and Israel. It's his personal name for his people that they are to call upon in all their time of need and for redemption. It's His covenantal name for His covenantal people. It's most likely pronounced Yahweh. And it has connotations of eternality and self-sufficiency. He needs nothing. He sustains Himself. He needs nothing in His creation. He is the Great I Am. In His name, Yahweh is superior to all other names because He's the only true and living God. And God's majestic name is revealed. He reveals His majestic name in His mighty works of creation and redemption. These all speak of who He is and glorify His name. And the psalmist goes on to extol Yahweh as Lord, which is a title of respect, which means master or ruler. So the psalmist is more literally saying here is, oh, Yahweh, our ruler. Oh, Yahweh, our ruler. How majestic. Is your name in all the earth? Though God is invisible, the earth declares the glory of our God. As John Calvin once said, the world is a theater of God's glory. But at the same time, God is distinct from his creation and not identified with it as in a pantheistic worldview. which says that everything is God. God is shot through all of us. We're all connected to the divine ladder of being. But the biblical worldview is, no, there's two great realities. Creator and creature. And there's this distinction between the creator and creature that is never bridged. And so notice that David says, you have set your glory above the heavens. And so He's not identified with His creation, even though He displays His glory throughout all the world as a theater of His glory, as Calvin put it. You see, God is the Creator of the vast and glorious universe, and yet earth and heaven cannot contain His majesty. Even so, God displays His glory and strength in this world, and often in very surprising ways, as we see here. Notice the God whose glory is above the heavens, displays His glory and strength not only in the heavens that He has fixed in place, but He also displays His glory in the nursery. Notice verse 2. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger. You see, God is so powerful that even when He uses an infant, His enemies don't stand a chance. He causes His enemies to be silent, to cease, to be still. That's how strong our God is. He demonstrates His awesome power even through the weakest of means. Helpless children and nursing infants. Those who can't do anything for themselves, let alone fight against God's enemies. Yet God can use even them surprising ways. Perhaps an example of this is Moses crying as a baby in the Nile River, whom God raised up to bring his enemies to an end in the Red Sea. Or even more at this time of year, we think of the infant Jesus lying in a manger. And as Luke records in Luke 2, we see Caesar Augustus trying to demonstrate his power in a compelling way by compelling the whole world to be registered But what he didn't realize is that he was ultimately fulfilling God's sovereign purpose and plan to reveal the true sovereign and savior of the world, a nursing baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger in Bethlehem, in a little insignificant town. And this idea of the almighty God displaying his power through even the weakest means is something that David, who wrote this psalm, something that David himself has known from his early years, isn't it? David knew early on that it isn't about who is bigger and stronger. Even if it's a mighty champion like the giant Goliath. It's not about human strength. But whether the Lord is on your side. And if God is on your side, who can be against you? Nothing matches the majestic power of our Almighty God. So even David, when he's a little lad, defeated Goliath, the defiant giant, with a mere slingshot and a stone. This is often God's surprising ways throughout redemptive history. He often displaces power and surprising ways through the weakest of means in order that no one might boast in his presence, but instead proclaim that salvation is of the Lord. As the Apostle Paul learned and taught in second Corinthians 12. When he asked and prayed three times for the thorn in his flesh to be removed and what it Our Lord say to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. But Jesus himself quotes this Psalm in Matthew 21. You may remember when he had entered Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday. It says while he was in the temple healing the blind and the lame, the children came to him and said, Hosanna to the son of David. And this made the chief priests and the teachers of the law indignant. But Jesus replied, quoting Psalm 8, have you never read? From the lips of children and infants, you have ordained praise. These little children rightly confess that Jesus was the Messiah and that salvation was to be found in him. He used them to silence the chief priests and teachers of the law. These little children were better theologians than them. They knew their Bibles better. And so God is stronger than any enemy, whether it's the Pharaoh or Goliath or Caesar or the chief priests and scribes. God is stronger than them all, even through the weakness of a small child or a nursing infant, like baby Justinian and baby Stella in our church. As you look at these little infants today, Think about that. God can use even them to silence His enemies. Even infants bring glory to God's majestic name, both in how He cares for them and in how He uses them to praise His name. It reminds me of a little onesie for a baby that I once saw that said on it, I praise Jesus too. I just can't talk yet. We should have bought that. The beloved God sits enthroned on the praises of his people. Including his covenant children. Let us never think of their presence in corporate worship as insignificant to God. As Jesus said in Mark 9, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Jesus said in Matthew 11 as well. I thank you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Indeed, we all must become like little children, Jesus says, to enter the kingdom. We all must come weak and helpless, trusting only in the power and might of our God to save us through Christ. And so let us praise God for his majestic power as it's displayed in surprising ways, even as he silences the enemy through the weakness of infants and children. And secondly, notice We see how God's majesty is manifested in surprising means in how he subdues creation through mankind and how he subdues creation through mankind. After considering the majesty of God displayed in children on the earth below, the psalmist now looks up as it were. He now draws our attention to God's majesty in the heavens above. In verse three, he says, 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? You see, David was a shepherd and he probably spent many nights under the stars, no doubt. And so he spent many times just looking up at the vastness of the universe, maybe trying to count all the stars Children, have you ever been on a camping trip or been out in a field on a very dark night away from the lights of the city and just looked up and seen all the stars that are up above you? Perhaps you saw a shooting star. Perhaps you found the Big Dipper. Just recently, my daughter and I found Orion very clearly in Orion's belt. We even saw Jupiter, even this morning. As I stood at my kitchen window, we saw Venus shining brightly. Children, did you ever try to count all the stars? You can't count all the stars. Nobody can. There are too many to count. It's almost impossible for anyone not to stand in awe of the immensity of the universe when looking up at the stars. You know, it's estimated that there are 200 to 400 billion stars And that's in the Milky Way alone. If you think that's a lot of stars, that's just one galaxy in the entire universe. The Hubble Space Telescope takes pictures of the universe that are just astonishing. It takes an image of a small portion of the sky for several months. And just one little image yields about 10,000 galaxies. The whole, you know, that's 10,000 galaxies. Now think about that. There's 200 to 400 billion stars just in the Milky Way, one galaxy, but there's 10,000 galaxies. And that's just a small part of the sky. The whole sky contains 12.7 million times more area than one of those images. To observe the entire sky would take almost a million years of uninterrupted observing. And so we learn from looking at the night sky. I mean, even David knew this before all the technology that we have today. We look up at the night sky that there's a vast number of stars and an unknown universe beyond our reach. And it is no wonder that even when the psalmist looked at the sky with his naked eye, he felt small and insignificant compared to the immensity of the universe. And if we are small in comparison to the universe, Then how much smaller are we in comparison to God who created it all? As the psalmist says, you catch this in verse three. It's all the work of his fingers. As it were, children, when God created the universe, it was as if he was finger painting. It was effortless, like it is for you to paint a little picture with your finger. We are infinitesimally small in comparison to God. We are smaller than ants. We are like microscopic organisms on a grain of sand in comparison to God. Even smaller than that. In the words of Calvin, not John Calvin, but Calvin, the great theologian from Calvin and Hobbes, as he looked up at the night sky, he yelled out, I am significant. and then said to himself, screamed a speck of dust. And not only are we small in comparison to the universe, we are frail and temporary in comparison to the permanence of the moon and the stars. Man is here today and gone tomorrow. But the moon and stars are, as the psalmist puts it in v. 3, they are set in place. They are fixed and do not change. Right? The same moon that David looked at is the same moon that you and I look at today. And yet, David is no longer with us. But the moon and stars are established forever as faithful witnesses in the skies, which is what God often compares His covenant promises to. Just as the sun and moon and stars endure up above, so surely He promises us that His covenantal promises endure forever. And so as David reflects on the immensity and permanence of the universe, he can't help but feel small and insignificant in comparison to the eternal God who is above the heavens. And so he asks in verse four, what is man? What is man that you are mindful of him? The son of man that you care for him. Remember this. question and this perspective from Psalm 8, the next time you are feeling like God must explain everything to you or do everything your way. Beloved, who are we in comparison to the immense and eternal and infinite and majestic God? We are but his tiny, temporary, finite creatures, even tainted by sin. We are here today and gone tomorrow. And yet the amazing thing is that God is mindful of us and surprisingly bestows on us an elevated dignity and worth within the created order. Just when he can't feel any smaller and just when we can't feel any smaller in this psalm, notice David exclaims in verse 5. Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. Amazing, isn't it? God's glory is above the heavens and yet here he crowns us. The specks of dust, as it were, with his glory and honor. What an amazing thing to say about man. And these words in the verses that follow bring us back to the beginning of time when God created man in his image as his king on Earth under God's ultimate kingship. Man is God's vice regent. His official administrative deputy, as we see in Genesis 1. Verse 5 in our text says that God made man just a little lower than the heavenly beings. Now this phrase heavenly beings, it could be translated as God as the ESV footnotes. But either way, the idea is that even though the glory of God is so far above the heavens, man has been given such dignity and honor that it can be said that he is just a little below God's kingly glory in his royal courtroom of angels where he rules over all things. Indeed, everything the psalmist says on the earth has been placed under man's feet in subjection to him. David's remembering here man's original place in God's universe. Though frail and weak, God originally created man and woman in his image and gave them dominion over all of creation. As he puts it here in verse six, notice, you have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You 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 sea. In other words, all fur, fowl and fish are under man's dominion. So just as God displays his majesty and rule through weak and small children, here we see that he also displays his majesty through a seemingly weak and insignificant humanity who are to rule over this entire earth. This was our original purpose in this world, to be stewards of God's good creation and to reflect the glory of God, who is the king over all things. And so the psalm ends by praising God. Oh, Lord Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth? We see that God displays his majesty through surprising means. in this psalm, in how he silences the enemy through the weakness of children, in how he subdues creation through mankind, who is created in his image. But third and finally, we see even more, his majesty is displayed in the most surprising way in how he saves us through Christ. So notice our third point then, how he saves through Christ. You know, as we read this psalm, we might think to ourselves, wow, that sounds so good. What happened? I just don't see it. We don't see, do we, all things in subjection to man. Right? Bears maul us. When we were living in San Diego, there was a shark attack at one point. Just watch certain shows on the animal planet and you'll soon begin to doubt if any of this is true. Shows like I Shouldn't Be Alive or Untamed and Uncut seem to be evidence otherwise. Or just ask your local farmers about the insects and the gophers and the beavers who mess up their crops. Don't even get them started on the weather. And so we read this and we think, what happened? What in the world happened? Because this is not our experience. Well, we know what happened, don't we? Genesis 3 happened. Adam, who was our covenant head and represented the entire human race, willfully forfeited the glory and honor that he was crowned with when he couldn't accept his place in God's world. A little lower than God wasn't enough for Adam. And so he sinned and deprived himself and all his descendants of the blessings that he was given in the garden. And as a result, his guilt was imputed to us. We ourselves are guilty in Adam and have become corrupt in nature, and all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And so we have to struggle to live out our purpose in God's world under the effects of the curse of the fall. The created order has been frustrated so that we often feel like the preacher of Ecclesiastes. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Or as the Hebrew word puts it, Hevel. Hevel. It's like a breath. It's short-lived. There's a bentness and brokenness to this world. But lest we despair of all hope, we must remember our second Adam. We must remember our second Adam. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, in Adam, all die. And in the spirit of Pippin from the Lord of the Rings, we have to say, yes, but what about second Adam? It's a Lord of the Rings joke for those who've seen that. The hobbits enjoy a second breakfast and they've only had their first breakfast. Not only is God majestic and works through surprising means in creation, he also does this in our redemption and our recreation in Christ. What the first Adam failed to do, the last Adam, Jesus Christ did for us who believe. We who are frail and die have been given new and permanent life in him. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15, the first Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit. For as an Adam all dies, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. for this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body must put on immortality and thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's our hope is in the second Adam, our final Adam, the last Adam. And this is where the author of Hebrews points us as the author of Hebrews reflects on Psalm 8 and shows us how Christ fulfills this song and gives us hope. Hebrews 2 says this, verse 5, Now 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've crowned Him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under His feet. He says it has been said somewhere. Where is that somewhere? You know it, don't you? Psalm 8. Now I'm putting everything, he says, in subjection to him that is man. He left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him that is man. We do not see everything in subjection to man, but we see him. Who is him that we see? Well, it's Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels. Namely, Jesus. His name given at His birth that emphasizes His humanity. We see 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. For it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Because you see, he had to suffer and die to redeem us from all of our sins and misery. the Son of God, the eternal Son of God, who created the vastness of the universe, whose name is majestic in all the earth, whose glory is above the heavens, stooped, humbled himself, did not count equality with God as something to be grasped, but came into this world, became a little infant in a manger. And they grew up to be a man. He took on our frail human nature that was subject to death. and ultimately went to the cross to pay the debt of all of our sins. He took the curse upon himself that you and I deserve, the wrath of God, and bore it all in his body on the tree, so that a great exchange has taken place, that he who knew no sin became sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And through Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, he brings many sons to glory. The author of Hebrews says, you and me who trust in him alone for salvation. He brings us into the glories of a new creation that is no longer subject to sin and death and sorrow, suffering. With no chance of a second fall confirmed forever in a state of righteousness and blessedness. And so when you are struggling with doubts and despair in this world, even now, as you reflect back on 2023 and look forward to 2024, look to Jesus and the inheritance that awaits you in the new heavens and new earth. As the advent Carol Joy to the world puts it, one of my favorite lines, no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. He's going to fix everything. It is certain. As Paul puts it in Romans 8, for I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved. So you see, we walk by faith. In this present evil age, we walk by faith and not by sight. But one day we will walk by sight when Jesus returns. And so beloved with this song, we can truly praise God not only for our creation, but even more for the new creation in Christ and say, Oh Lord, our Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How majestic is your name in all the earth? And not only does he promise you this new creation in his word, He also confirms it to you and your children in the sign and seal of baptism as we see today. What a marvelous thing that are trying God places his majestic name upon us and our children in our baptism is a visible sign and seal of the promise of forgiveness of sins and a new creation in Christ. And so, beloved, as we witness the baptism of Justinian in a moment, let each of us remember our own baptism and let us rest and rejoice in Christ, our second and final Adam. And let us walk in newness of life, looking forward to the glories of the new creation that await us when Christ returns. Amen. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word to us. We thank You that even though we do not yet see all things in subjection to man, that we see Christ, who was for a little while made lower than the angels, that He was made like us in every way, yet without sin, that He still continues in His human nature, yet also true God at Your right hand, exalted, and reigning and ruling over all things for the sake of his church. We thank you that he paid the debt of all our sins and earned for us the glories of the new creation. We thank you that he will one day come again and wipe away all tears from our eyes and right every wrong. And then we will be brought into that new creation of glory where we will be co-heirs with Christ and truly live out our purpose for which you created us in the beginning. We thank you for the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Help us to head into the new year with this hope on our hearts and to share this hope with others. We pray, Lord Jesus, quickly come. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.