Learning about how God sees us

The Roman Catholic author John Powell points out that the baby’s first questions concern, “Who am I?” But the second series of questions are about, “Who are they?” as the baby looks at the crowd around him. And only as he matures does the baby begin asking, “What is life? What is important? What am I to be doing?”

Psalm 8 is an amazing passage, and I want to read it again in your presence if you have your own Bible or the Pew Bible there. You will see the first section, which the Hebrews call the first verse, is a description to the chief musician on the instrument of Gath or Geteth, a psalm of David. “Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth.

You who set your glory above the heavens, out of the mouths of babes and infants, you have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. When I consider your heavens and the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?

For you have made him a little lower than the angels, or a little lower than Elohim. And you have crowned him with glory and honor, and you have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands and have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, even the beast of the field and birds of the air and fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the sea.

Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth.” It’s interesting that John Calvin himself, that great scholar and man whose work has ended in the founding of Presbyterianism around the world, in his Institutes, John Calvin remarks that there can never be a proper knowledge of mankind apart from a knowledge of God.

That when God reveals Himself, He reveals man at the same time, and thus the God who reveals His excellent name and His glory and the vastness of His creation also reveals mankind and His purpose. That is in such contrast to where we stand today. We said last week to you that evangelicals tend to love souls and hate people.

It’s a kind of common thing among us that we can pass by hundreds of people, especially if there are people engaged in activities we don’t particularly approve of. And we see people in the words of the Scripture concerning the healing of Jesus. We see people like that man who was healed of blindness, but only partially healed.

He saw men walking like trees. And only when Jesus touched him a second time did he see men as men. A visiting minister who was in this church many years ago when I spoke from this particular Psalm 8 spoke to me after the service. And he said, “You know, it’s interesting, I was torn apart by the Holy Spirit this morning because what the Word of God was to us in this service was right.”

And then he gave me these words. He said, “I’ve spent a lifetime depreciating mankind, thinking I was doing God a favor. I’ll tell you who depreciates men today, sir. It’s not just evangelicals. The world as a whole depreciates mankind. We are told about the vastness of this creation. How many thousands of miles are within, billions and trillions of miles are within the galaxy.

We’re told that if indeed a light year is 186,000 feet per second, that would mean one beam of light would go around the world seven times in one second. And then we are told that that same light beam will go from the sun to the earth in eight minutes. All the way to the sun and the earth, it would take eight minutes for that same light beam to go.

And then we are told that it takes eight billion light years, eight billion light years to go to the middle of the known universe. And that, of course, is beyond our comprehension. We can’t even begin to understand that. And we come up with words like this, you know, Carl Sagan, who is the great guru of contemporary thinking.

Carl Sagan says, “As long as there have been humans, we’ve searched for a place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find we live on an insignificant planet, on a humdrum star, lost in a galaxy, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the universe, in which there are more galaxies than there are people.”

End of quote. That’s typical. Man is bestial. He is just an occurrence on this isolated planet. Look at those words. Insignificant. Humdrum. Forgotten. It’s a relatively real experience that we are told. It isn’t any wonder why teenagers today are taking their lives, and the greatest number in our history.

In fact, suicide is the number one cause of death or number two behind accidental death among teenagers. It’s no wonder because we constantly are making this. How insignificant is this man in reference to this great vast universe and all the so-called unchangeable and unalterable forces that work around us?

I want you to look at that opening note. I think it’s important. The chief musician upon Gittith, or Gath. Gath, you remember, is the land of Goliath. Gath was the land to which David frequently fled when he was running from Saul. But above that, the word Gath means—and write it in your Bibles—it means “wine press.”

That’s the actual meaning of the word. Gath means wine press. David had experienced a lot of wine presses in his life. In his boyhood, they came in the shape of lions and bears, contempt from his brothers, giants, jealousy, and delay. And of course, when you come to this psalm, you understand that David is really saying something.

He’s saying if you want a new comprehension of God, then surrender your wine press to the Lord. Give God the gas.

Romans 5 is an amazing passage of Scripture. We all love it. It begins with a verb tense that isn’t really made clear even in the modern translations. Having been justified by faith, not hope so, wish so, think so, maybe so. But having been, past tense, finished, I have been justified by faith, never to be called into question again.

And then he goes on to say, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. How many of you this morning have peace with God because you’ve been justified by faith? Let me see your hands. Come on. A little activity here will help your “about to go to sleep” attitude, alright? Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

The second phrase says, having been justified by faith, we have access by grace or by faith into the grace wherein we stand. How many have access to God and into His grace because you’ve been justified by faith? Amen. And the next says, Because we’ve been justified by faith, we hope, or we have a purpose for the glory of God.

How many of you can say, “That’s my desire, to glorify God”? Having been justified by faith, I wish to glorify God. And the next phrase says, And having been justified by faith, we glory in tribulation. How many glory in tribulation? I mean, it sounds masochistic and stupid.

To say, the word tribulation in Philipsis in Greek means pressure. Whoopee, here comes more pressure. I’m so delighted. Here’s another wine press. Come right on in. Not likely. We love peace. We love access. We love to say we want God’s glory, but we don’t like the pressure. And, by the way, it would be masochistic if you stopped there anyway because it says this.

It says we glory in tribulation knowing that pressure produces eupomine in Greek, courage. It produces standing under, which is what the Greek means. It produces fortitude. Pressure produces fortitude, and fortitude produces dokimi, character, proven character. Tested character. And dhokimi produces hope that will never be ashamed.

The stock market can fall, everything else can go wrong, but a believer who has that kind of hope will never be ashamed, and the Holy Ghost is poured out upon his life, Paul says. Why? Because he’s embraced the process, glory in tribulations, knowing what tribulation David’s wine press brought him to grips with God and man, and there was a truth that pervaded the purpose.

And he walks out. As we see, it’s at night because there’s no mention of the star in the psalm. As we said last week, he walks out into the starry night, and he says, “Oh, Yahweh! Oh, Jehovah, who is the governor or the ruler?” Two different words, not the same word as in our translations. “Oh, Jehovah, who is the ruler?”

“How excellent, how omnipotent is your power in all the earth. When I consider, when I see this, I am brought to wonder.” But then it comes to these words, “What is man, that you’re mindful of him?” You know, it’s almost better to be a Carl Sagan lady. It’s almost better to take a kind of snide, cynical attitude.

“Man’s an insignificant flea. We’re on a forgotten planet. We’re in an isolated part. What does it matter anyway? Do what you want. Life is a limited thing. You’re not going anywhere. Nothing really matters. You’re insignificant.” It’s almost better to be that way. It’s almost kind of self-proving that whatever you do doesn’t count, however you want to conduct yourself doesn’t matter.

But you see, true wine presses demand answers. What’s life about? Is there purpose after death? I like what the WAGs say today, is there life after birth? It isn’t a question of “is there life after death.” Is there life after birth? Is there meaning and value? I probably have every record Barbra Streisand has ever recorded, and I think the thing that attracts me to her is her marvelous voice in terms of control, but I think the thing that has attracted me to Barbra Streisand over the years is that she tends to select songs that speak truths.

Years ago, a song that she sang came into my spirit and heart. “Where am I going,” the song words say. “Where am I going, and why do I care?” And no matter where I run, I meet myself there. And looking inside me, what do I see? Anger, hope, and doubt. What am I all about, and where am I going? The fact is that wherever you push in this thing, sir, you’re there.

That’s why divorce is stupid because you leave the wrong person behind.

I mean, let’s face it. You’re there. What’s inside you is the issue. And I began this message last week by asking you to understand two very important premises. First, Psalm 8: this process of surrendering to the wine press is based on the fact that in that moment there can be recognition. David says, “When I consider,” in other words, I have the capability of surrendering this experience in such a way.

I have the capability of recognizing what’s going on, of seeing greatness and power, and even understanding beyond what David understood in the magnanimity of this whole universe and the galaxies that outstretch galaxies, how huge it is. But I can recognize. Secondly, I ask you to understand the truth of Revelation.

God says it in His Word that He reveals truth through His creation. Psalm 19 says there’s not a speech or a tongue or a tribe in which this truth is not known. And that day unto day, art of speech and night unto night showeth mysteries. And here’s this truth of revelation. I don’t care what you say about men, lady.

I don’t care how disgusted you are at the obnoxious and perverse ways that men can live. I’ve got news for you. There is a rumor in every human spirit, however crushed and broken it is, and it’s the rumor that connects them to the fact they were meant to be something else. That’s why no man is ever satisfied in a pig’s pen.

He’s not a pig. He wasn’t created to be in that place. And there is within him this ongoing revelation. In fact, God says in Romans 1, and we looked at that passage last week, this is the reason why the Bible says that man is without excuse. Man is without excuse because however he’s turned the volume down, the receiver is still emanating the truth of revelation of God.

But I wanted to talk to you this morning about a third principle. And this principle is the word reality. Now, none of these three words are specifically in Psalm 8, but they’re all in Psalm 8. Psalm 8, in Calvin’s understanding and in my understanding, is the primary commentary on Genesis 1 that exists.

And I’ve said to you, so many Christians are hung up in their theology. Their idea of man starts with the fall, with Genesis 3. They don’t understand that God begins with Genesis 1. God begins with creation, breathing into man’s nostrils the breath of life, so that man is walking around with a part of the borrowed nature of God within himself, that sixth sense, that constant understanding.

The first reality that we need to look at is the fact of God’s specific activity in bringing man to the position he is. God chose that. Sir, I didn’t. I don’t think it’s a good idea, frankly. I’ve got a lot of things to tell God about in eternity. It’ll take me a few hours to straighten out heaven, but I’ve already got some plans, and so do you.

The constant key that demands turning is in verse 5. And you need to understand this. It needs to be as critical in your understanding as anything that comes from the Bible. Christians who don’t get this in their mind are just living on an arbitrary, man-made theological understanding. The first thing you need to hear in the reality is the fact of God’s placing this man in a position. Verse 5 says, “You’ve made men a little lower than the angels.” Again, I remind you and underline it this morning. The word is Elohim. It is sometimes translated angels, but it is the word primarily used to translate God, the name of God Himself. The Moffat translation reads, perhaps the most realistic, “You have made man just a little lower than divinity.”

The word “little” is interesting too because, in the context, I am told by those who seem to understand the language (Hebrew) better than I do, that “little” perhaps is a description not of “little lower” as though it’s an adjective, but it may be a time frame. In other words, for a little or for a short while, you have placed man.

With this tremendous power but in a place of limitation, for a little while, you have made him lower than divine. And verse 6 goes on to make it even more clear. You have crowned him. The actual word is you have beset or surrounded him with dignity, with glory, and with authority. You have crowned him with glory and with honor.

And the passage says you have put all things under him, you’ve brought him into a position of dominion. Now, you see, in some of your minds, you dismiss it like that. Well, that’s obviously not man. Man obviously isn’t in control. Nothing about man you should crown with dignity and with honor.

Look at what man has done. Look at what He’s doing today. Look at His capacity for evil and wrong. But here is Almighty God declaring in the Spirit that He has chosen this God who can make galaxies so huge that we can’t even begin to understand the amount of time, the trillions of light-years to get even to the edge of this.

A created process that God declares that He has created man to be in this unique place of dignity and honor and purpose. In fact, if I were to use the words here, made just for a little time lower than the fulfillment of divine purpose of God Himself, I remember a story I heard years ago of a census taker.

We’ve all gone through this recently, one way or another. And this census taker came upon an Irish woman. I suppose the reason I love this, my mother having been Irish, I know the sharp tongue of the Irish woman. And he said, “Lady, I’m taking a census, what’s your name and how many children do you have?” And she began, “Well, let’s see, there’s Marcy, and there’s Michael, and there’s Dougie, and there’s Amy, and Patrick, and, and finally the census taker said, ‘Never mind the names, just give me the numbers!'”

And she straightened up and said, “I’ll have you know, we haven’t gone to numbering yet.”

Is man a name or number? I remember when I went to school, there was a kind of joke, and that was, uh, the computers were just coming in. And we were given cards, and some of you who’ve gone to college registration know what I’m talking about. Now it’s a real science, and you’re given a whole packet of these cards.

And there was a little statement around, because on the cards, it would say, “Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate,” you know. And so there was a statement that came out, “I am a freshman. Do not fold, mutilate, or spindle,” you know. Are we really valuable? Do we really count? What is man? A little lower than, crowned with, created in the image of.

And some of you get restless at this point, and you’re kind of tugging on the sleeve saying, “come on, let’s get on to sin. Let’s, let’s talk about why man isn’t that way.” There are a lot of us who have to have a second touch from Jesus to understand man and to speak to God’s purpose in man. In fact, I remember hearing a story of an old Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland weaver who obviously was about crushed beneath all the forces that seemed to be against his soul.

And he prayed, and it was recorded in a spiritual diary I saw many years ago, “Oh Lord,” he prayed, “help me to have a high opinion of myself.” I want you to understand whether you do it in the name of Evangelical theology or whether you do it in the name of the kind of anonymity that’s a part of this world philosophy of cynicism versus man.

When you depreciate man’s value, you lower his potential to be what he is intended to be. It is God who would say to every man, as Jesus would to every person, “You are touchable. You are valuable. You have infinite worth.” It was Jesus who did the unthinkable when he embraced the leper and reached his hand out to touch them.

And it is incumbent upon us to understand God’s purposes. We build great pumps, we build great telephone systems, but we’ll never build a pump like this one in the heart that pumps 280,000 tons of blood a year. We couldn’t build a pump like that. If you tried to create a human brain, even with technology and all the miniaturization that’s going on in the microchip industry, you couldn’t create, in this building or ten buildings this size, a computer that could carry on the capacities that this little brain in the cranium of your head can carry on.

God’s great beginning with us, and sometimes the understanding comes in the wine press. Sure, man is a mixture, from birth to death, a little bit of heaven and a little bit of earth. But God wants you to understand that reality. And, of course, the second reality is man’s purpose: God’s purpose, God’s positioning of man, God’s purpose for man, which is for him to take authority.

God clearly wants you to understand that this creation of God is meant to be in charge. You’re not meant to be a slave; you’re meant to be a master. You’re not meant to be the tail; you’re meant to be the head. You’re not meant to be tossed about like a cork in an ocean; you’re meant to be in charge.

You’re meant to be at the tiller, determining the direction. And God wants you to understand that’s what He thinks of you. Although obviously, another part of the reality in this area is the clear understanding that the New Testament brings us from this passage. Psalm 8 demands a lot of attention.

It’s used almost ten times, probably ten times if you include the six times I believe it’s referred to in the book of Revelation. Certainly, the key to Christology is the understanding of Psalm 8 that’s given to us in Hebrews chapter 2. In that passage, Psalm 8 is quoted, and many scholars say, “Well, obviously it’s Jesus he’s talking about.”

Jesus is the man who’s truly created with all things under his feet. No, that isn’t what the passage says at all. It says this, and dear friend, it says that Jesus, Jesus, the perfect Son of God who lived every day of His life in perfect relationship with the Father, had to be made like His brethren in all things.

And one of the things He had to be made like His brethren was the broken expectation of being a man in a state of unfulfilled expectations. A man made. That’s why the passage says, “But we do not see all things under man’s feet.” The passage says in Hebrews 2, quoting Psalm 8, “We do not see this yet.”

We don’t see man in charge. We see just the opposite. But the next verse says, “But we see Jesus, who was made like His brethren, a little lower than the angels.” And it repeats the phrase. In other words, Jesus was made in this fashion, this difference between intention, this brokenness of expectation. Jesus had to identify with that.

And He did. Jesus was made like His brethren. Of course, there’s a third reality. Call it man’s profligacy, if you wish, or man’s perversion. We don’t see man in charge. I think one of the saddest places in the Bible, and you may have your own opinion, is in the book of Genesis when God the Father, who had walked with Adam and Eve every day of their lives (I don’t understand all this because I don’t believe in a God who’s anthropomorphic, a God who has fingers and toes), but all I know is that the Bible says God walked with them in the cool of the day, and they had fellowship.

God showed up on time, but man was gone. Where was he? He was hiding. He had broken his purpose. He had disobeyed the law. He saw himself without the glory of God upon him, without the purpose upon him. He saw himself in this capacity. It’s really an example of how man has seen himself from that point on. Here I am with all this capacity, but not clothed in God’s purpose.

So what does God do? Does He say, “Well, it’s time to end this thing. This experiment sure didn’t work”? No, the Bible says God walks through the garden saying, “Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?” God is probably the last Christian who sought out people with that spirit. We like so much to see them pegged and put in their places. Here’s a God in the midst of this horrendous failure who seeks for Him. And of course, when He finds him, He makes a provision, and that’s the ending of the story.

Redemption, isn’t it? That’s the last part of this. We recognize we have revelation. We see reality, but we see redemption. And the whole world speaks about this hope. All of you remember the story of Pinocchio. We heard it from the time we were kids. Pinocchio tells a lie, and this sculptor, this wood creator, makes this marionette who comes alive in the magical way that children’s nursery rhymes can do those things.

But this particular marionette now, boy, every time he lies, what happens? His nose gets longer. Now, thankfully, that is not a genetic expression of God on behalf of how truthful we are. Some of us would be in real trouble. Some of you would be real deceivers. But the point is, that’s the way we’re saying it, you know, the nose gets longer and longer. Well, that’s interesting, but that doesn’t do it for me. Balzac is closer to me in the picture of mankind because Balzac’s story is this: every time a man yields to the devil’s voice and does something that’s at odds with his true purpose, he becomes smaller, he shrinks, he shrivels. And each time falseness comes into his life, he becomes less. That’s the picture to me, Balzac’s picture, not Pinocchio. Because that’s the way I see this. That’s the way I believe the Bible says it. That man, out of sync, shrinks. He becomes smaller and smaller in the purpose that God has.

Man, through transgression, fell. Man tumbles from dominion. He loses his freedom. Jesus said he becomes a servant of sin. In fact, in John 8, Jesus said if you serve sin, if you sin, you serve sin. That’s just the way it is. You can’t stay in dominion. If you’re a sinning person, you’ve become a slave.

And again, in Balzac’s image, you’ve diminished this purpose. And we walk around inside this, you see, inside this miniaturization is this throbbing purpose saying you are made just a little lower than God, you are crowned with glory and honor, you’re meant to be in dominion, and yet here’s this shrinking, shrinking, shriveling purpose.

And it’s that expectation that we find impossible to live with. Something’s wrong. Everything in man’s spirit attests to it. Something’s wrong. We’re out of sync. I have a friend who used to make this statement. He eventually wrote a book on the subject. He said, whatever man is, whatever you say about man, he is not what he was meant to be.

Whatever you say about him, he’s not what he was meant to be. Psalm 8 is meant to tell us that God wants to shake in us a sense of our prerequisite understandings. He wants to give us a new sense of knowledge and recognition, and primary to that is a sense of our worth. Haven’t asked for yet. I don’t think man gets better by being told he was this ever.

I remember standing one Friday evening on Polk Street in San Francisco when a truckload of Christian young people came through with speakers, saying through loudspeakers, “All faggots are going to hell!” And as I stood there, looking at the thriving activity on Polk Street, I thought, “That’s a really salvation-oriented message.”

I’m sure there’ll be a great altar call, and yet in our own kind of institutional way, that’s exactly what we do, both in ourselves and for others. God says, “Lift to me the winepress and allow that expectation to grow within you. Allow it to be understood. Yes, you’re in the in-between time.”

All that is the expectation has not been fulfilled, but as you look to Jesus, you see the perfect man who breaks through the barrier and goes on into the purpose that man was created for, who goes on into the Holy of Holies, and in his humanity breaks through the barrier.

That’s why the writer to the Hebrews loves one term for Jesus. He is the author, or in Greek, he’s the archegos. He’s the one who goes before us. And again, in the writer to the Hebrews, we don’t see it yet, but we see Jesus. That’s the starting point, my good friend. You can sit around slobbering all you want in your drink about how imperfect you are and how sinful you are, or how imperfect man is and how sinful he is, and indeed, he is.

You don’t have to wait too long to get confirmation of that. Or you can begin to see God’s perspective through Jesus Christ, and it begins to make you a responsible person because God’s creative and God’s redemptive purpose combine. You are twice bought, you are twice paid for, and the purpose of God is to get up and begin acting like a son.

Let’s pray together.

Father, with a sense of understanding toward your purpose, we come to the end of the service, knowing that we all deal with so many messages that have come to us from so many people over so many years, and yet your message to us is the infinite value of this human being standing under the metagalaxies of eternity, and yet standing as one in whom you, Father God, have chosen to invest dignity and power and authority. You speak to that within us and say, “Son, daughter, stand up. Accept my redemption, accept my purpose. Allow me to bring you toward my ultimates and not just the immediacies that you’re involved with. Let me show you my dream for you. Let me set you on the course of my purpose for you.”

Father, grant that word to be established in us, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Would you stand with me, please?

This afternoon, we’ve had a full time of honoring one another and singing God’s praise. But what purpose do we come to if God does not, by His Spirit, change us? What purpose if somehow or other there isn’t something born deeply within my spirit that makes me different? And while you stand where you are standing this morning, I want to ask you a question.

What would God’s Holy Spirit speak directly to you about this morning? What would He be saying to you about yourself, about your friends, about your neighbor, about this world? Go back by the work of the Spirit and reread these words and let God do something in that unique sense of revelation, that unique sense of recognition, and in that unique sense of redemption.

Would you just take the hands of the person beside you, please? Father, we establish the Word. We seal the process. By your Spirit, we take this moment to open our hearts to you, and in a day in which so many depreciate this humankind, and in a day when the evidence seems that he has lost his value and purpose, Lord, would you speak to us individually that we are not servants but sons, that you have called us to a higher glory than the muddling of this earth and the muddling about its activities?

And would you not only speak to us about that in ourselves, but would you also share that secret with us about our brothers and sisters? We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless you. You are dismissed.