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Oct 01, 2017

No Greater Compliment

No Greater Compliment

Passage: Psalms 8:1-9

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Psalms

The world is ablaze with fierce assertions and defenses of identity. Implicit within those claims is the assumption of a thing we call dignity: an inherent and irrevocable worth each person possesses. Most of the time, though, dignity is assumed rather than substantiated. Some even discard the notion entirely. The Story we’re in proclaims our dignity, but it also grounds it. Psalm 8 champions that case for dignity. We’ll hear how the Psalmist grounds our identity, outlines its primary expression, but then also hints at where its fullness is found.

The world is ablaze with fierce assertions and defenses of identity. Implicit within those claims is the assumption of a thing we call dignity: an inherent and irrevocable worth each person possesses. Most of the time, though, dignity is assumed rather than substantiated.  Some even discard the notion entirely. The Story we’re in proclaims our dignity, but it also grounds it. Psalm 8 champions that case for dignity. We’ll hear how the Psalmist grounds our identity, outlines its primary expression, but then also hints at where its fullness is found.

Order of Worship

Call To Worship: Colossians 1:15-20 ESV
Reading: Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 1
Central Text: Psalm 8:1-9 ESV
Sermon Title: No Greater Compliment
Response: Philippians 2:5 ESV
Benediction: Colossians 1:11-14 ESV

10.01.17 Lyrics

10.01.17 Slides

Illustrations

Ira Glass - Golden Rule

Sunset Limited - Personal

Knickers for New Life Update

Readings & Scripture

Call To Worship: Colossians 1:15-20 ESV
LEADER: 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

ALL: 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Reading: Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 1

What is thy only comfort in life and death?

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him

Central Text: Psalm 8:1-9 ESV
TO THE CHOIRMASTER: ACCORDING TO THE GITTITH. A PSALM OF DAVID.

1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Response: Philippians 2:5 ESV
LEADER: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

ALL: 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Benediction: Colossians 1:11-14 ESV
LEADER: 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

ALL; 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Post-Service Text: Psalm 3-4 ESV
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Related Scriptures:

Jeremiah 2:11 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. 12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Hebrews 2:5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 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.

Job 42:1-6 ESV 1 Then Job answered the Lord and said: 2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Discussion Questions & Applications:

  1. How would you answer the question posed to Ira Glass about why one treats another with respect?
  2. What does Scripture mean by the “glory” of God? Why does that even matter?
  3. What does grounding our dignity in the glory of God provide that grounding it in anything else doesn’t?
  4. How do people typically express their sense of dignity? What forms does that expression take? Why might stewardship be a healthy way of manifesting our dignity?
  5. How does Jesus complete our sense of worth? How does He and His work keep us from turning our stewardship into just another way of trying to prove ourselves?

Quotes

  • Our age has lost its sense of the numinous, for it has lost its sense of the sacred. - Louis Markos
  • Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly their destinies, as what they do. - Victor Hugo, of M. Myriel, in Les Miserables
  • The things I loved were very frail, very fragile. I didn't know that. I thought they were indestructible. They weren't. - From Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited
  • There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. - C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
  • In the light of Christianity’s absolute law of charity, we came to see what formerly we could not: the autistic or Down syndrome or otherwise disabled child, for instance, for whom the world can remain a perpetual perplexity, which can too often cause pain but perhaps only vaguely and fleetingly charm or delight; the derelict or wretched or broken man or woman who has wasted his or her life away; the homeless, the utterly impoverished, the diseased, the mentally ill, the physically disabled; exiles, refugees, fugitives; even criminals and reprobates. To reject, turn away from, or kill any or all of them would be, in a very real sense, the most purely practical of impulses. To be able, however, to see in them not only something of worth but indeed something potentially godlike, to be cherished and adored, is the rarest and most enoblingly unrealistic capacity ever bred within human souls. - David Bentley Hart
  • “Creation is the result of the laughter of the Trinity” - Sacred Romance

Sermons/Resources:

Alan Jacobs: Hating your Neighbor will make you dumb. A review by Stephen Backhouse

The Dying Art of Disagreement, Bret Stephens, NYT

Maker of Heaven and Earth - Timothy J. Kelle; Psalm 8:1-9

Media & Songs

10.01.17 Album