Speaker 2: Good morning.
Speaker 2: Please pray with me.
Speaker 2: Almighty God, you have revealed yourself to us through your prophets, through your holy word and through the advent of your perfect son.
Speaker 2: Help us now to see your glory and love through the reading and preaching of your word In Christ, our Savior.
Speaker 2: We pray Amen.
Speaker 2: If you're able, please remain standing for today's scripture reading, which is Psalm 8.
Speaker 2: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Speaker 2: You have set your glory above the heavens.
Speaker 2: Out of the mouths of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemies and the avenger.
Speaker 2: When I look at the heavens, at the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man?
Speaker 2: That you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him.
Speaker 2: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
Speaker 2: You have given him dominion over all things and set 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 seas and whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Speaker 2: Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Speaker 2: This is God's word.
Speaker 2: Thanks, you can be seated.
Speaker 1: Well, good morning.
Speaker 1: My name is Damian, I'm the senior pastor and I'm so grateful that you all are here, and I'm grateful that this morning I get to start a new sermon series in Advent.
Speaker 1: Our sermon series is called SEEK, or it's an acronym that stands for Seeing Everyone Enjoying the King, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna walk through the four chapter story of creation, fall, redemption and consummation as we trace the themes of Advent, and particularly, we're going to do so through the lens of prayer, because all of this series is leading to our Seek First event, which you heard about earlier.
Speaker 1: It was on the slide and you'll hear more about throughout Advent season.
Speaker 1: Whenever we start a new sermon series, there's always hope and anticipation.
Speaker 1: We have a vision of what we want to see happen, and one of the things that we want to see happen in this series Is that all of us would enter into this season.
Speaker 1: We would then travel through this season and then culminate the season with an experience of dependence, maybe even a refreshed sense of dependence upon God in prayer.
Speaker 1: During Advent, of course, ben mentioned that we celebrate the coming of our King, our Lord Jesus Christ, who entered into our world to restore all that has been broken, and one of the unique things about Christianity is its vision of humanity's place and role in creation.
Speaker 1: The Bible teaches that humanity was created with a profound purpose.
Speaker 1: That is a purpose to reflect God's glory, to live in relationship with him and one another and to steward his creation.
Speaker 1: But when we look around, or even when we look within our own hearts, we sense that something is deeply wrong.
Speaker 1: The purpose we were made for feels distant, replaced even with confusion, cynicism and striving.
Speaker 1: Instead of finding our identity in God, we look to created things to define us.
Speaker 1: We look to our work, our relationships, our possessions, even our reputation.
Speaker 1: And when we engage on this search, it often leaves us feeling not secure, but even more unmoored.
Speaker 1: Not secure, but even more unmoored, even more anxious, even more disconnected from God, ourselves and others.
Speaker 1: And this is the very condition Psalm 8 addresses and Advent begins to answer.
Speaker 1: That is, humanity has lost its sense of place and purpose in God's creation.
Speaker 1: We no longer live as God intended.
Speaker 1: Instead, we've sought meaning and worth apart from him, leading to misplaced worship, to misplaced ambition, to broken relationships.
Speaker 1: And yet in Jesus, the King who has come, we find the way back to our true place and purpose.
Speaker 1: So, as we think about that today and this month, today I want to engage Psalm 8 and creation with three questions First, what is our place?
Speaker 1: Second, what is our predicament?
Speaker 1: And third, what is God's plan?
Speaker 1: So first, what is our place?
Speaker 1: If you look with me in Psalm 8, a short psalm of nine verses, a well-known psalm Starting in verse three, the psalmist begins to reflect.
Speaker 1: The psalmist 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?
Speaker 1: What a famous, well-known philosophical question.
Speaker 1: Among all of creation, the only creatures that can ask this question are God's image bearers, dogs and cats.
Speaker 1: As much as you may love them, do not ask this question Rocks, even though they may cry out them.
Speaker 1: Do not ask this question.
Speaker 1: Rocks, even though they may cry out, will not ask this question.
Speaker 1: This is a unique human question.
Speaker 1: And the psalmist answers his own question, verse five.
Speaker 1: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
Speaker 1: You've given him dominion over the works of your hands.
Speaker 1: 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 sea.
Speaker 1: You see, we see a couple of things here.
Speaker 1: We see that humanity was created to reflect God's image by stewarding creation.
Speaker 1: And what we find is this is a callback to, of course, the creation of human beings in Genesis 1.
Speaker 1: And we find this unique combination of both priesthood and kingship, or worship and rule, and most famously here people will go to Psalm 8 and Genesis 1 to show this.
Speaker 1: It shows up in the question what is man that you are mindful of him?
Speaker 1: This reminds us of Genesis 1, let us make man in our image, let them have dominion.
Speaker 1: You see, what I want us to see in this point, what is our place?
Speaker 1: That is our place in God's creation is we have not only a place but a purpose, and it's grounded in relationship, a rightly ordered relationship, where we are under God as priests and we are over creation as kings.
Speaker 1: This is the rightly ordered relationship as God has designed it.
Speaker 1: This is our place.
Speaker 1: As Christopher Wright says, the rightful place of humanity is under God and over creation, serving and ruling.
Speaker 1: As simple as this may be, as obvious as this may be to us as Christians who have heard this before, this has profound implications for our lives today.
Speaker 1: If I just take three brief categories.
Speaker 1: If we think psychologically, what would happen to us and to all who understood that this is our place, that we were meant to be under God and then ruling over creation to the glory of God?
Speaker 1: Well, psychologically, our sense of worth would come from our status that is given to us as image bearers, not our status before others or our status because of performance, because anything else besides a status that is given to you from outside is fragile.
Speaker 1: Right, if you put your status or your identity in your bank account and it changes, you no longer have status or an identity, or in your job title, or in a relationship, or in the neighborhood you might live in, or the city, the state, the country that you live in.
Speaker 1: Anything that you place your identity in that's not the one given to you by God is fragile.
Speaker 1: But imagine psychologically if we could receive again our place in God's creation.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be fragile but we would be secure, as God longs for us to be.
Speaker 1: If we think sociologically, that is just in our relationship, we would see that our role is communal, that we are to love one another by reflecting God's relational nature.
Speaker 1: We're created to be in interdependent relationships, but if we put our place and find our place in any fragile thing, we end up not finding interdependent relationships but rather living completely in a space of comparison, because, remember, we would be fragile and we're always looking for one up in a space of comparison.
Speaker 1: Because, remember, we would be fragile and we're always looking for one up in a relationship or one more thing to put a notch in our belt or a bullet point on our resume, as opposed to looking around and seeing that we are created by God in his image to serve and to love others.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine a world if that were the case?
Speaker 1: And then, of course, it has massive spiritual implications.
Speaker 1: That is to say, for us to truly know our place, for us to truly embrace our place, to know ourselves, we must first know God.
Speaker 1: We must know who God is.
Speaker 1: We must know who God has made us.
Speaker 1: God reveals himself to us is.
Speaker 1: We must know who God has made us.
Speaker 1: God reveals himself to us.
Speaker 1: But when we think about receiving our place, and in these three categories of psychological, sociological and even spiritual.
Speaker 1: I thought about the dynamic of a compass, you know, like an actual compass that you use to find what direction you're looking at.
Speaker 1: You're like why is he going into detail in a compass?
Speaker 1: When's the last time you used a compass?
Speaker 1: Just trying to make sure that you know what one is.
Speaker 1: By the way, there is also a compass on your phone.
Speaker 1: I used it the other day actually.
Speaker 1: But imagine a compass.
Speaker 1: Imagine a real compass.
Speaker 1: How it works.
Speaker 1: It's designed where To point which way North exactly but if it's cracked or magnetized to another force, it may say north, but it leads you astray.
Speaker 1: It will lead you in a false north, not a true north.
Speaker 1: And this is what happens if we don't know our place, if our place is either cracked that is our sense of place or if our true north is magnetized to something that's actually not true north.
Speaker 1: What ends up happening is, while we think our compass is functioning, we're not correctly aligned with, in this case, of course, the truth of God and who we are.
Speaker 1: How are we oriented in the world Without him?
Speaker 1: We are lost.
Speaker 1: We're chasing false identities and for some reason, as I was thinking about this, I thought about what is our proclivity?
Speaker 1: What is our proclivity?
Speaker 1: And I just thought.
Speaker 1: Imagine you're lost in the woods.
Speaker 1: Imagine you're lost in the woods and you don't have a compass.
Speaker 1: But you realize you have a cell phone and you pull out the cell phone hoping that it has a signal.
Speaker 1: And it does have a signal.
Speaker 1: But imagine, instead of opening the Maps app and finding where you are to orient yourself, or making a phone call to ask for help, you end up getting on YouTube watching videos on how to make a DIY compass from things you can find in the woods.
Speaker 1: How foolish would that be?
Speaker 1: And yet, so often that's exactly what we do.
Speaker 1: Rather than receiving reorientation from God's word and by his spirit that reminds us of our place, reminds us of the relationship that we have to live under him and over creation, serving and ruling with him, we instead DIY it.
Speaker 1: We have everything we need, but we try to create our own life in our own way, by ourselves.
Speaker 1: And in fact, this actually leads to our second point, which is what is our predicament?
Speaker 1: Why do we do this?
Speaker 1: If we have a place that's dignified and God-given, why do we live as though we don't?
Speaker 1: Well, actually, the writer of the Hebrews picking up on this exact Psalm gives us a clue, or at least tells us that our sense that Psalm 8 is not fully true in our experience, that we are in fact right in recognizing that right, while Psalm 8 is meant to be our place in the world, we don't experience things this way, right, very often.
Speaker 1: If you want to turn to Hebrews 2, you can.
Speaker 1: If not, I'll read it Hebrews, chapter 2, verse 8.
Speaker 1: It's going to sound very familiar.
Speaker 1: I'll start in verse 6.
Speaker 1: The writer of the Hebrews is quoting Psalm 8, and this is what he quotes.
Speaker 1: What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?
Speaker 1: You made him for a little while lower than the angels.
Speaker 1: You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.
Speaker 1: Now, remember who is the psalmist talking about.
Speaker 1: The psalmist is talking about you and me, men and women created in the image of God.
Speaker 1: And Psalm 8 is written after the fall.
Speaker 1: It's written after the fall of humankind, and yet the psalm testifies to our place, but verse 9 testifies to our predicament.
Speaker 1: Now, in putting everything in subjection to him.
Speaker 1: By the way, him is mankind.
Speaker 1: He God left nothing outside his control.
Speaker 1: At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.
Speaker 1: So you see, here's the predicament.
Speaker 1: We've been given this scope of responsibility, but the way we experience it remains filled with a gap.
Speaker 1: We don't actually feel the place that God has given us.
Speaker 1: We don't experience the world so often that way.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 1: Well, it's because of sin.
Speaker 1: Sin has caused humanity to abdicate its priestly and kingly roles, leading to idolatry and to alienation.
Speaker 1: Remember, we said in Psalm 8, our place, that is, humanity's place and purpose, is grounded relationship under God as priests and over creation as kings.
Speaker 1: But the reason we experience verse 9 in this gap is because, instead of living under God and over creation, we've reversed the order, placing ourselves above God and enslaving ourselves to creation.
Speaker 1: Instead of ruling over creation, we often find ourselves ruled by it, seeking identity, worth and security in created things.
Speaker 1: Instead of ruling over creation, we are ruled by it.
Speaker 1: This is what Paul says in Romans 1.
Speaker 1: Paul says for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.
Speaker 1: But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Speaker 1: Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Speaker 1: So, although we have a place that's God-given, we've rejected it and now we have found ourselves in a predicament, and this predicament is a disruption of that rightful place.
Speaker 1: Instead of worshiping the creator, we worship idols.
Speaker 1: Instead of stewarding the creation, we exploit it and are exploited by it.
Speaker 1: We now, as allegedly Kierkegaard said, although I could not find where he said it we mortgage ourselves to others.
Speaker 1: And here's the full quote, again allegedly of Kierkegaard.
Speaker 1: Whoever said it, it's good, so listen up.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 1: In fact, what is called the secular mentality consists simply of those who mortgage themselves to the world.
Speaker 1: They use their talents to amass wealth and carry on enterprises.
Speaker 1: They try to make a name for themselves, but themselves they have not become.
Speaker 1: Spiritually speaking, they have no self, no self with which they can venture anything, no self before God.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 1: This is so powerful to me.
Speaker 1: Think about mortgaging yourself, thinking you're secure, thinking you're in control, when in fact you have no self because you're mortgaging it away.
Speaker 1: You're using the very talents that you have and, rather than submitting to God and ruling over creation with him and for him, instead we're amassing our own kingdom and wealth, and in the very desire to find ourselves, to exalt ourselves, we actually diminish ourselves and lose ourselves.
Speaker 1: This is an incredible insight, whoever said it?
Speaker 1: Because idolatry dehumanizes us.
Speaker 1: This is our predicament.
Speaker 1: We were made with honor and glory and we've exchanged that because we've exchanged God and we've put ourselves above God.
Speaker 1: And we've exchanged that because we've exchanged God and we've put ourselves above God and we've actually submitted to creation.
Speaker 1: I think, just three quick things that in our culture I experienced in my own heart, and I imagine you experienced too, to get concrete, about ways in which we actually have put ourselves above God and submitted ourselves under creation, have put ourselves above God and submitted ourselves under creation Career, status and possessions.
Speaker 1: So first, workism, the workism trap, where we define self-worth by career achievements and this leads, of course, to burnout, to strained relationships and the reduction of a person's value to their economic productivity.
Speaker 1: What about the comparison game?
Speaker 1: This is the status game where we're constantly seeking approval.
Speaker 1: Could be through social media likes, it could be through appearances, exclusive networks, but all of these things create insecurity, they create envy and they create comparison, all from a very fragile sense of self.
Speaker 1: And then, finally, possessions the consumerism mindset, where we find our identity in the things we own, the things we have control over, the things we have at our disposal the latest gadgets, cars, homes all of these things can create endless striving and discontentment.
Speaker 1: This is just a small example of the predicament that we find ourselves in having given up our place for something way less, way more diminishing.
Speaker 1: You see, when we were under God and over creation, we received everything as a gift.
Speaker 1: Just imagine living your life.
Speaker 1: Everything is a gift, because you deserve nothing.
Speaker 1: Everything is gratuitous.
Speaker 1: It's overwhelming.
Speaker 1: It's again, lord, I get this breath Again.
Speaker 1: I get to wake up Again.
Speaker 1: I get to wake up next to my spouse or smile at my children or my nieces or my nephews or my aunts and uncles.
Speaker 1: This is a gift.
Speaker 1: It's all gratitude.
Speaker 1: At this point, that's the life.
Speaker 1: When we live under God and over creation, we are, first and foremost, receivers in a place of privilege, and this makes our primary disposition to the world one of thanksgiving and one of praise, which we just experienced.
Speaker 1: However, praise, of course, is important because it redirects our hearts to either God or whatever we praise.
Speaker 1: And if our praise is directed to God, as it should be in a world of grace and gift, it restores our identity as his priests and his kings that Psalm 8 talks about.
Speaker 1: Of course, psalm 8 starts and ends with praise oh Lord, oh Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth?
Speaker 1: You see, humanity's primary role as priests is to worship the creator and our role as kings is to rule in service to him, all out of gratitude.
Speaker 1: But when we reverse this, when we reverse this order and put ourselves under creation, the paradigm changes.
Speaker 1: It's no longer one of gratitude and thanksgiving, no longer one of gift and gratitude, but rather, when we worship created things, it changes the paradigm from praise and thanksgiving, no longer one of gift and gratitude, but rather, when we worship created things, it changes the paradigm from praise and thanksgiving to producing and consuming.
Speaker 1: This is what Christopher Watkin calls the market paradigm, where we've gone from a market economy to a market society.
Speaker 1: And this is what he says, quote the market paradigm constructs us as producers and consumers of tradable commodities, each with its calculable price.
Speaker 1: This is, after all, how many religions in the world work.
Speaker 1: Human beings are in a bartering relationship with the gods.
Speaker 1: First I offer a sacrifice that the God desires, and then I can hope to receive that God's help as a consequence.
Speaker 1: What do we do we trade, end quote.
Speaker 1: Listen, in this paradigm that this predicament puts us in, without reorientation, that is, the paradigm of producing and commodification, not praise and thanksgiving, in this paradigm we don't seek God.
Speaker 1: This is why the psalmist says and Paul later quotes the psalmist in saying no one seeks after God.
Speaker 1: You might think well, that's an overstatement.
Speaker 1: No, in this paradigm of the marketplace, we don't seek God.
Speaker 1: We do seek goods.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, maybe we seek God, but we seek God for his goods, and that's an altogether different thing.
Speaker 1: But to seek God for God is what we want to think about in this Advent series.
Speaker 1: You see, we don't want to seek God for his goods, but when we receive everything as gift from God, we seek God.
Speaker 1: Yes, god the one who gives, but God himself, the one who created us.
Speaker 1: You see, if we change the paradigm away from praise and thanksgiving, it distorts our understanding of God and of ourselves.
Speaker 1: So we've been given this great place, a privileged place, a place of praise and honor, a place of priesthood and kingship.
Speaker 1: But we've given that up and find ourselves in quite the predicament where we no longer see things as gifts, but rather we seek things and goods as gain.
Speaker 1: And it puts us in a place of comparison and it puts us in a place of striving, and it puts us in a place of false worship.
Speaker 1: So if this is true which it is what is God's plan?
Speaker 1: What is God's plan?
Speaker 1: This is my final point.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to Hebrews 2.
Speaker 1: Again, right after, the writer of the Hebrews quotes Psalm 8.
Speaker 1: At present, we do not see everything in subjection to mankind.
Speaker 1: But what do we see?
Speaker 1: You know, we could fill this in Based on what I've said.
Speaker 1: We could say what we see is striving, what we see is the gap, what we see is cynicism.
Speaker 1: All those things could be true, but the writer of the Hebrews wants to point our eyes somewhere else.
Speaker 1: At this point, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who, for a little while, was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that, by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: What is God's plan?
Speaker 1: The writer of the Hebrew says we do not now see all things under humanity's feet Psalm 8, but Hebrews 2, but we see Jesus.
Speaker 1: Jesus the true King, who fulfilled humanity's purpose by living in perfect submission under God and ruled perfectly over creation.
Speaker 1: How, in service and love.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the true king.
Speaker 1: Jesus fulfilled humanity's purpose by living in perfect submission under God and ruling over creation.
Speaker 1: And how did he do this?
Speaker 1: He did this by what we're celebrating this season by his incarnation, by his death and resurrection.
Speaker 1: Jesus bridges the gap that we find in Psalm 8, and the writer of the Hebrews points out he bridges this gap that something is true about humanity, but because of sin, it hasn't come true.
Speaker 1: But what is God's plan?
Speaker 1: God's plan is to bridge the gap by redeeming humanity's place and purpose in his creation through his son.
Speaker 1: As one author said, in Christ redeemed, humanity is restored to their original status and role under God and over creation, serving and ruling.
Speaker 1: So what does this look like in our lives?
Speaker 1: Well, briefly, it looks like us reclaiming our priesthood.
Speaker 1: And so think about this.
Speaker 1: Let Advent, let this season, rekindle your sense of awe and worship, to reorient and redirect your praise, moving from idols to God, not what he gives, but to him himself.
Speaker 1: Reclaim our kingship, our other role.
Speaker 1: What would this be?
Speaker 1: Well, to live as God's stewards, caring for all that he's given us, to care for all the work of our hands that we would do it not for ourselves but for our neighbors and to his glory, that we would use our gifts not to amass our own kingdoms, but rather in living in his kingdom to serve those he's given us to serve, rather, in living in his kingdom to serve those he's given us to serve.
Speaker 1: Redeeming our priesthood, redeeming our kingship, is possible because of what Jesus has done.
Speaker 1: And so, if I just put it in three words, I would say first, worship.
Speaker 1: I'm inviting you to worship in this season.
Speaker 1: Make this Advent time where you will praise God for his majesty and reflect on his work in this season.
Speaker 1: Make this Advent time where you will praise God for his majesty and reflect on his work in restoring humanity, where we will seek him in prayer.
Speaker 1: Worship, repent is the second word that I would say.
Speaker 1: As you worship, you will notice that the gap is closing because of God's goodness, but it's still not closed.
Speaker 1: And so we identify areas where we've abdicated our priestly or kingly roles, where we've sought identity and worth and idols.
Speaker 1: We turn from that and we turn to the living God, the God who makes promises to us but, more importantly than that, the God who keeps his promises to us.
Speaker 1: And then, finally, we hope.
Speaker 1: This is a season of hope where we trust in Christ, who not only redeems us but empowers us to live as his priests and kings, preparing for his coming when he will make all things new.
Speaker 1: And so, as we conclude today this opening sermon in our series, today, this opening sermon in our series, let us not miss the reality that Psalm 8 itself is a prayer.
Speaker 1: What we see in Psalm 8, who is the psalmist talking to you, verse 5, yet you have made man a little lower than the heavenly beings.
Speaker 1: This is a prayer.
Speaker 1: It's a conversation with the creator who made all things, a conversation with the one who crowned humanity with glory and redeems us through Christ.
Speaker 1: Prayer is how we realign our hearts with God's vision of creation and humanity, rediscovering our place under him and our purpose in reflecting his glory over all creation.
Speaker 1: And when we see, of course, the vastness of his creation and the mission we've been given, prayer becomes the natural response Prayers of wonder and gratitude and worship.
Speaker 1: And so, this Advent, as we journey through this series called Seek, let prayer fuel us, helping us see the King more clearly and enjoying his presence and kingdom already here and anticipating his kingdom yet to fully come.
Speaker 1: And Psalm 8 invites us into this posture as it begins and ends with O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Speaker 1: Let us, this season, carry this prayerful lens with us, culminating in our seek first event where, together, we will seek God's kingdom first, through prayer and worship, as we look forward to the fulfillment of his purposes in creation and in us.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, father, we do pause to thank you for the place that we have in your creation, the place we have in your redemption.
Speaker 1: And, lord Jesus, we praise you that you have bridged the gap.
Speaker 1: You have brought the redemption that we could not earn.
Speaker 1: You have brought reconciliation that we could not buy, and so we receive all things today as a gift.
Speaker 1: We reject a market paradigm where we are what we can produce and what we can consume, but rather we turn back to you, the one who gives, the one who gives freely, because he has all things.
Speaker 1: We receive you, lord Jesus, this morning, and it's in your name we pray Amen.
Speaker 1: Morning, and it's in your name we pray Amen Now.
Speaker 1: Every week, after the sermon, we take just a few moments to reflect in a prayer of response, and so oftentimes we'll offer a prompt, but of course you can reflect on whatever comes to your mind.
Speaker 1: But here is the prompt I want you to reflect prayerfully on in these next moments.
Speaker 1: Where is God calling you this morning to turn from a paradigm of production to one of receiving his gifts?
Speaker 1: Maybe it looks like repenting of life as gain and receiving it as gift again With open hands.
Speaker 1: Reflect, ask the Holy Spirit, show where you need to receive again his goodness and gifts.