The Dignity of Man:
When we are tempted to think more or less of ourselves than we should,
we are to think of how great God is and that we are made in His image.
Here's Gene:
Now if you look at the title that you have there in your Bible.
In the Life Essentials Study Bible which is
man's title. It's not a part of Holy Scripture. But
the title reads "God's Glory, Man's
Dignity." "God's Glory, Man's Dignity."
And I think that the editors
captured the essence, really, of Psalm 8.
And the psalm begins--
the psalm of David-- begins with God's glory.
And it ends with God's glory. Look at verse 1:
"Yahweh, our Lord,
how magnificent is Your name
throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens
with Your majesty." And when I see that
word "majesty," it just popped off the page.
And I couldn't help but think of
Jack Hayford, well-known pastor--
great musician as well. He was in England
and he was traveling. And it happened to be during the
25th anniversary of the coronation of
Queen Elisabeth. And of course, there was all this
pomp and all this circumstance. And as they were driving, he and his wife together,
Jack was motivated
to pen some words and some music.
And he told his wife to write down the words.
And then to write down some of the music. He actually dictated the music.
And he says he didn't finish the song until later.
But basically, he was inspired with these words
as he compared the majesty of Jesus Christ
with the majesty of human beings.
And this is what he wrote. You know the words, I'm sure: "Majesty,
worship His
Majesty. Unto Jesus,
be all glory, power and praise.
Majesty, Kingdom authority,
flows from His throne." Not the throne of man.
But from God's throne.
"Unto His own, His anthem
raise. So exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus.
Magnify, come glorify
Christ Jesus the King. Majesty, worship
His Majesty. Jesus who died,
now glorified, King of all kings."
And in a sense, David is capturing that right at the beginning
of this psalm when he says, "You have covered the heavens
with Your majesty." And then at the end of the psalm
he actually, in verse 9,
repeats that phrase "Yahweh,
our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout
the earth." In other words, God's glory
is like bookends, as it were, to this psalm. But here's a marvelous,
amazing observation. Look at the centerpiece
of God's creation and God's glory.
The centerpiece in the psalm, beginning with verse 3:
"When I observe Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars,
which You set in place, what is man
that You remember him," ...
"Man." That's mankind. Now, he goes on to say,
... "the son of man, that You look after him?
"You made him [a] little less than God
and crowned him with glory and honor."
That does not refer to Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ was not lower than God. He was God.
What he's talking about is mankind.
Right here in the centerpiece of what God
is and who He is. Now,
obviously, he's not saying that man is omniscient,
that man has power like God has. I mean,
in no way do we measure up
to who God is. But what David is saying is,
we're made in His image. We are made in His image to reflect
His image. And look at Psalm 8:6 to 8, continuing,
"You made him lord over the works of Your hands;" ...
This demonstrates that he'stalking about
mankind. He's talking about Adam
and those who follow. Because this sounds like Genesis
when God gave them the authority over animal life.
"You made him lord over the works of Your hands;
You put everything under his feet: all the sheep and
oxen, as well as the animals in the wild,
the birds in the sky [and] the fish of the sea
that past through the currents of the sea[s]."
What he is saying is, man was created
and given authority and given glory because
of the image of God. You see,
God created the animals. But they were simply
"body beings," "physical beings."
But man was created in the image of God.
Not only with a body made from the dust
of the earth, but God breathed into mankind.
And man became what? A living soul.
And there's a difference. And if you want to check that out,
I'd encourage you, sometime when you see a newborn
who is about three to four months old.
And as they're beginning to develop
and you walk up softly to that little being,
and you begin to talk to them. Now remember, they have no verbal skills.
But you look right into their eyes and you talk to them
softly and that's when they'll smile.
And they smile when they connect with your eyes.
Check it out. That's what I call "soul
to soul" communication. You are communicating
with the image of God. That's the difference.
And so here we have a tremendous tribute
to man. But you know what happened.
Sin entered the world. It impacted
the glory of man. And we have, now, the capacity--
because of sin--to degenerate.
Now, God didn't destroy totally--sin didn't destroy,
completely, the image of God.
It didn't destroy it completely, just as God didn't destroy
the earth. Thorns and thistles
came about. And thorns and thistles came about in our lives with the capacity
to degenerate. And Paul captures that in Romans:
the incredible power to degenerate
and to soil the image of God in us. "For though
they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God
or show gratitude. Instead their thinking became
nonsense [and] their senseless minds were darkened.
Claiming to be wise they became" ... What?
... "Fools." This is deterioration. This is because of sin.
... [and] exchanged the glory, [the glory]
of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed
animals, and reptiles."
You see, because of sin, this happened.
But here's the good news.
Inspite of the fact that man deteriorates. And by the way, that's a picture
of humanity in different eras. It happened during the time
of Noah. Before the time of Noah. After the time of Noah.
It happened during the time of Abraham, happened during the
Babylonian period, the Assyrian period, the Greek period,
the Roman period when Paul wrote those words.
This is a cycle that has been true ever since man
sinned again God. But here's the good news.
And we find this in
2 Corinthians 5:17. "Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ," ... Now what we have here,
as you'll see, is supernatural restoration
in Jesus Christ. "If anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation; old things have passed away, [and]
look, new things have come." In other words,
Jesus Christ gave his life to restore us
and to restore His image in us, in order that we might reflect who Jesus Christ
really is.
And we have that capacity to more and more
become like Christ until we're ultimately
in His presence and transformed into
His image. So, think about this question:
When we tend to feel bad about ourselves" ...
Can you identify with that? You know, that's part of the sin
affect. Even though we're believers.
When we tend to feel bad about ourselves because of our human weaknesses, ...
And we all have them. We can all identify with that. ... "How should this psalm
and who we are in [our] Lord Jesus Christ help us to correct
a bad self image?
My good friend, Elizabeth Baker, sort of accumulated
some things that I think we need to remind ourselves of
on a regular basis. She called the book "Who am I?"
And let me just share a few of those thoughts. She said this,
quoting Scripture: "I'm acceptable because I am Christ's friend.
I've been justified. I'm joined to the Lord
and I am one spirit with Him. I'm a member of Christ's body.
I have been made righteous." Not because of anything I've done,
but by faith. "I've been adapted as God's child.
I'm a child of God. I have direct access to God through His Holy Spirit.
And through Jesus, I'm in God's family.
I am a fellow citizen with the rest of the
Saints. I can approach God with boldness and confidence. I've been redeemed.
I've been forgiven of all my sins. I'm complete in Christ.
I'm a child of God. I'm assured that all things work together for good."
See these are all statements of who we are in Christ.
"I cannot be separated from the love of God."
Think about that. "I am free from any condemning charges against me.
I've been established, anointed, sealed by God. I've been given the Holy Spirit
as a pledge, guaranteeing my inheritance.
I've been delivered from the domain of darkness [and] transfered to the Kingdom of
Christ.
[I'm] hidden with Christ in God and I am confident"... Get this. I love this
from Paul's letter to the Philippians. "I'm confident
that the good work that God has begun in me will
be completed."
So here's the principal. Think about it.
When we are tempted to think more or less of ourselves
than we should, we are to think of how great God is
and that we are made in His image.
And we can go ahead and add to that by saying, "In Christ
we have all of these wonderful promises."