05 Feb Healing Psalms: Self-worth

Psalm 8:1-9

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!

Today we are in the second week of our series, Healing Psalms. The idea behind this series is to explore some common problems people face in their walk with God and show how the Psalmist deals with those problems. Last week, Edrick dealt with the problem of doubt. And today, we will look at the problem of self-worth. What is self-worth? Self-worth is the internal sense of one’s own value and worth as a person. It is what we feel, think, and believe about ourselves. The question of self-worth is a question that everyone must answer. We cannot live without knowing our self-worth. All of us want to feel valued and we want our lives to matter. So, the question is, what is our self-worth? How do we get our self-worth? And our culture is obsessed with it.

If we go online and read articles on self-worth or self-esteem, we will find things like, “Lose weight and you will feel better about yourself. Make more money and you will feel more confident about yourself. Exercise regularly and you will feel good about yourself. Get plastic surgery and….” You know the drill. So, we have all these lists of how to build our self-worth. But the problem is we often don’t think far enough. We don’t ask the question “why.” Why does losing weight make us feel good about ourselves? Why does making more money make us feel more confident about ourselves? Why does this and that make us feel like we matter? We all have things that make us feel like we are somebody. However, not all of us have the right answer. Before we look at the right answer, I want us to look at the wrong answers that the world offers. Timothy Keller writes that there are three wrong premises that the world uses to define self-worth.

The first wrong premise is “I am what I have.” This is the approach that says that the most important thing about us is what we have. What do we want to have? Some want money, some want power, and some want love. Everyone wants a different thing. The point is if we get what we want then we are somebody. If we don’t, then we are nobody. Does this premise work? Think about it. What happens when define our self-worth by how much money we have? We will do everything we can to have as much money as possible. The more money we have, the more valuable we feel. But do you know what happens to us in the process? We lose ourselves. By making money our self-worth, we will have more money, but we will have less of ourselves. All we have to do is look at the life of those who are extremely rich and successful. Get into their lives and we will see lots of brokenness. We will find a broken family, drug and alcohol abuse, messed up kids, etc. And once they get to the very top and taste the emptiness of it, they come out and say, “I regret I did not spend more time with my family. I regret this and that…” What happened? In defining their self-worth by how much they have, they feel less about themselves. It does not work.

The second wrong premise is “I am what I feel.” This is the view that says the most important thing in life is not what we have but what we feel. It is often expressed in something like, “I am tired of doing what other people tell me to do. It is my life. I need to follow my feelings. I need to follow my heart.” Are you familiar with these words? Here is the big problem with this view. Our feeling is very unreliable. It changes all the time. What we feel today is not necessarily what we feel tomorrow. Our feeling changes all the time depending on our circumstances. That is why we should not let children define who they are based on how they feel. If they are boys but they feel like girls, it does not mean they are girls trapped in boys’ bodies. Feeling changes. It is not reliable. And here is another problem with feeling. If I look at my feeling right now, I feel different things at the same time and they are contradictory. Right now, I feel like losing weight. But I also feel like eating KFC. How many of you know that they don’t go together? Yet I feel both. So, the question is, “Which one do I feel like the most?” On Monday I feel like losing weight and that is why I exercised. But on Tuesday I feel like KFC because I already exercised on Monday. Does anyone know what I am talking about? Can we define our self-worth by following our feeling? We can’t. Because feeling changes all the time.

The third wrong premise is “I am whatever I say I am.” This is the most popular premise of our day. It basically believes that there is no absolute right and wrong and we get to define ourselves however we want. For them, self-worth is whatever we want it to be. “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. You are you. You are free to be you.” We all have the freedom to define our own self-worth, and no one can say no to us. It is very appealing. The problem is it is impossible to live this way. Let me give you an example. LGBTQ+ movement. They believe that everyone is equal and free to define themselves however they want. Now, what happens when someone who holds this view encounters a true Christian? Let’s say some of them came to RSI and hear me preach, “Homosexuality is a sin, and you need to repent.” Do you know how they would react? They would say that I am a bigot. They would say my view is wrong and they would oppress me because of it. Do you see what happened? In one sense they hold to the idea of freedom and equality. We can be whoever we want to be. No one can say no to us. Yet they cannot stand me being me. They cannot stand me holding my Christian belief. As soon as they encounter those who disagree with them, their self-worth is threatened, and they attack them. What happened to freedom and equality? It is impossible to live this way.

These are the three main premises of self-worth that the world offers. I am what I have; I am what I feel; I am whatever I say I am. Yet none of them works. It might work for a season, but it does not work consistently and coherently. Which means that our self-worth will continue to fluctuate. And there is a common thread that all three premises have. It’s this. They all tell us to find our self-worth by looking at ourselves. I don’t know about you but when I look at myself, when I discover who I really am and what I’m really like, it doesn’t actually fill me with joy and excitement. It actually fills me more with disappointment and concern because no one lies to me, hurts me, and disappoints me more than me. Looking at myself to find my self-worth only leads me to despair. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Listen. We might be stubborn and persistent. We might do things that are contrary to what people around us believe. But we do so hoping that when people see what we see, we will have their approval. No one can validate themselves. All of us are longing for someone to tell us, “What you are doing out there is great. I am proud of you. Well done.” All of us need outside approval. That is why the Bible gives us a radically different answer.

Psalm 8 is written by King David. It is a psalm of praise celebrating the majesty of God. And at the same time, this psalm deals with the question of self-worth. But it answers the question of self-worth by looking at God instead of ourselves. Here is what we must understand. The Bible glued the worth of self to the worth of God. We will only know our true self-worth to the degree we know the majesty of God. We can only know who we are when we know who God is. The more we see the worth of God, the more we see our worth. This is the Christian answer to the most fundamental question of human existence. Who we are is determined by who God is. And all our problem in life is rooted in not knowing who God is or forgetting who God is.

So, Psalm 8 answers the question of self-worth in three parts. The majesty of God; The frailty of humans; The glory of humans.

The majesty of God

Psalm 8:1-3 – 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,

This Psalm begins and ends with, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” What is interesting is that David uses two different Hebrew words for “Lord”. The first LORD, the one in small caps, is the actual name of God. When Moses encountered God in the burning bush, Moses asked God for His name. And God replied, “I am who I am,” which is later known as YHWH. It means that God is bigger than the present, the past, and the future. It means that God never ceases to be and God cannot be measured with time because He lives outside of time. He has no beginning, and He has no end. He depends on nothing and everything else depends on Him. And the second Lord comes from the word Adonai which means ruler or king. So, David is saying, “O YHWH, our King, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” There is not a millimetre on the earth where God’s name is not majestic. He is greater, wiser, more beautiful, and more wonderful than everything everywhere. He has no competitors. And this great God is not a distant God somewhere out there in the universe. David says that this great and awesome God is our God. We are in an intimate relationship with Him. How amazing is that? This is the main point of the whole psalm. David invites us not only to know God’s majestic name but also to join him in praising God’s majestic name.

David then goes on to say, “You have set your glory above the heavens.” This is a common experience that we share with David. Have you ever looked at the night skies and seen the moons and stars, and thought to yourself, “There is no way all of these happened by accident. There must be an artist who painted this beautiful scenery. There must be God.”? This is what David experiences. The heavens with everything in it testify of the glory of the artist. The heavens declare the glory of God. But he does not stop there. Notice what David says in verse 3. Psalm 8:3 – When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place. This is really cool. When David looks at the heavens, David does not say that the heavens, the moon, and the stars are the work of God’s arm. David says they are the work of God’s fingers. Think about it. At the time of David, he has no concept of how big the universe is. He can only see what is visible with human eyes. If we say to him, “What do you think about the Milky Way?” he would reply, “The what? There is a way that is filled with milk?” He does not know a fraction of what we know today. And if David is amazed by God for the little he knows, how much more for us? If our galaxy, the Milky Way, is the size of Australia, then our solar system would be the size of a cup of water. The earth would be the size of a speck of dust barely visible. And it would take another million years to invent the microscope that can detect us. And today we know that our galaxy is just one of the billion galaxies out there. The universe is far bigger than what our minds can comprehend. Yet God created all of that with His fingers. Fingers! Creating the universe is like a child’s play to God. He did not even break a sweat. If God’s fingers can do that, how big is God?

And look at verse 2. Psalm 8:2 – Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. Apparently, this great and awesome God has enemies. So, how does He deal with them? David says that God silenced his enemies through the babbling and chatter of babies and infants. What kind of God deals with His enemies by saying, “Let the babies babble?” Parents, let’s say someone breaks into your house late at night while you are at home. Do you tell your two years old to deal with it? “El, can you cry as loud as you can, so he might get panic and leave?” No, you don’t. Babies and infants cannot do anything. What comes out of their mouth is simply noises. But that’s what God is doing. He is using the weakness of babies and infants to silence His enemies. That’s how majestic God’s name is. And this is the pattern that we see all over the Bible. God reveals His majestic name by using weak people to do His great works. Do you know why? Because when we see babies defeat Thanos, there is no doubt at all who gets the glory. When God uses weak people to do great and mighty things, God makes His name majestic because there is no doubt it is His power that does the works. God makes His name majestic through the weakness of the weak.

Let me give you one quick implication of this truth. If what David says about God is true, if God created this ever-expanding universe simply with His fingers, then we don’t mess with Him. We can’t live however we want because we have to honour this great Creator who created us and everything else. If God created us, it means that He owns us, and we must listen to Him. It means that we can only find our reason for existence, our purpose in life, and our self-worth in God. On the other hand, if we remove God from the equation, if David looks at the heavens and says, “I see the vastness of the heaven, I look at the moon and the stars, and everything is an accident,” do you know what it means? It means there is no reason and purpose to creation. In that case, you and I are simply a piece of junk. We are simply products of accidents. We are just a combination of molecules that happened to come together in a certain way. We have no purpose, and we have no value. Something only has value if it can be used, if it has a design, and if it fulfils a purpose. If we are products of accidents, it means we have no significance and no self-worth. It does not matter if we live a good life or become serial killers. In the word of Linkin Park, “I tried so hard and got so far. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter.” Nothing we do makes any difference. Nothing we do counts. There is no meaning in life. And let me tell you, no one can live this way. Even those who rejected the existence of God still try to find meaning in life. They want their lives to matter. But there’s no basis for saying that we matter. Unless there is a creator God. The good news is David says that there is a creator God. We can see His fingerprints in creation. The universe is not a product of accident. God has set everything in their place. Therefore, we can find our self-worth in Him.

The frailty of humans

Psalm 8:3-4 – 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?

So, David looks at the skies. He stares at the vastness of what lies above him. And David feels what we feel when we do the same thing. David feels dwarfed and insignificant. “Who am I? I am small. I am insignificant. I am nothing.” None of us can look at the heavens and say in our right mind, “Geez. This galaxy is so lucky to have a person like me. I am so awesome.” When we see the greatness of God in creation, we find ourselves extremely small. The point is clear. God is infinitely great, and we are far smaller than a speck of dust in comparison. And we must embrace this truth. Because unless we acknowledge our smallness, we will not be amazed by God’s greatness. Get this. The bigger we see God, the smaller we see ourselves. And maybe the reason we think we are big is we do not see that God is big. We think we are more than who we really are. So, David reminds us that we are very tiny. We are less than a speck of dust. But David does not stop there. Yes, we are small and insignificant. But this is what blows David’s mind. The God of the universe is not simply aware of our existence; He is mindful of us, and He cares for us. The God who made the universe with His fingers focuses His attention on us. We are the object of God’s attention. And here is why we must embrace our smallness. The more we see our smallness, the more we can see how big, how good, and how caring God is toward us.

Do you know that all of us have a strong desire to be noticed? Parents, you see this in your kid all the time. “Daddy, watch this. Mommy, watch this. I am going to make a big jump into the pool.” So, you look at them making that jump into the pool. Then they say again, “Daddy, watch this. Mommy, watch this. I am going to make a big jump into the pool.” So, you look at them again thinking that they would make a different jump. But it is the same jump. And they say again, “Daddy, watch this. Mommy, watch this…” And it is the exact same jump for the eighth time. “Daddy, watch this. Mommy, watch this…” And you are very tempted to say, “How much affirmation do you need? I have seen that same jump ten times.” But of course, you don’t say that. Instead, you say, “Oh wow, that’s amazing. Keep it up.” while checking your Instagram. Children want attention. And we assume they will eventually grow out of it. But they don’t.

How do I know? Because we don’t. We all have the desire to be noticed. We all want attention. If we can’t get good attention, we’ll do something bad to get attention. We need to know that we are in someone’s mind. That someone is mindful of us, someone cares for us. There is no worse feeling than leaving for Indonesia for a few weeks and realising that no one in RSI missed me. “Who needs Yosi? We have Edrick. He preaches shorter.” I might as well move to Indonesia for good. And this is what blows David’s mind. Listen. Our spouse might not notice us. Our lover might not remember us. Our parents, our friends, and our church might forget us. But the greatest being in the Universe does not. We might be smaller than a speck of dust, but His mind is filled with us. God thinks of us. God gazes at us. God smiles at the thought of us. We are precious in His eyes. And we are not only in His mind, but He also cares for us. If I can put it in different words, God does not only think we are precious, but He buys us flowers to express it. And don’t think that we must have been so great and that’s why God takes notice of us. No. We are extremely small, and God is infinitely great. It is the great mystery of the universe that the great God of the universe loves us so greatly.

The glory of humans

Psalm 8:5-9 – 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!

So, follow the sequence. First, David says that God is so great, and the heavens declare His glory. He is greater than our greatest imagination. In comparison to Him, we are almost non-existence. Yet He is mindful of us, and He cares for us. But that’s not the end. David goes on to say that this great God has made us the apex of creation. He has made us a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned us with glory and honour. What does it mean? It means that we are elevated to positions of royalty. God gave us dominion over the works of His hands, over the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea. Does it sound familiar to you? It should. This is Ps Sem’s favourite verse. Genesis 1:27-28 – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This is what theologians called Imago Dei. It means we are created in the image of God. God makes us the head chief of all creation. We are to rule and have dominion as God’s representative. So here is the truth about us. God has made us for Him and God has made the rest of creation for us. We are given dominion and we are to exercise that dominion over the rest of creation. Yet at the same time, we are accountable to God in the way we use our dominion. We are to image God in the way we exercise our dominion.

So here is what Psalm 8 tell us about our self-worth. We are very precious and glorious. We are extremely valuable. But we are not precious and glorious because we are. We are very small, but someone thinks we are precious. Someone crowned us with glory and honour. Someone gives us dominion. Someone makes us the apex of creation. Someone created us in His image. And this destroys the world’s concept of self-worth. We must get this. Our self-worth does not begin with “I” but “God.” We are not what we have. We are not what we feel. We are not whatever we say we are. We are who God says we are. That’s where we find our self-worth.

Many implications can be drawn from Imago Dei. Let me just give you three. Firstly, psychological implications. No matter what the assessment of our own heart, no matter what the evaluation of others, there is a rock-solid objective significance and glory about us. We are infinitely valuable to God no matter who we are or what we have done or how we are living our lives right now. The world tells us that we have worth as long as we perform well. But the Bible tells us that we have worth because we are made in the image of God. Therefore, we can stop looking for affirmation from others. God takes notice of us. He thinks of us, and He cares for us. If the God of the universe values us, who cares about what others think? We are not valuable because we have many followers on Instagram. We can have 4000 followers, or we can have four: Dad, mom, big brother, and little sister. Our value does not depend on how many people like us. Our value does not depend on our education. Our value does not depend on our appearance. We can be tall, not so tall, not so short, or semapai (semeter tak sampai). We can be a preacher, a cleaner, a chef, a taxi driver, a student, or unemployed. None of it determines our self-worth. Our self-worth is built on the unchanging fact that we are created in God’s image.

Secondly, social implications. The idea that everyone is made in the image of God has enormous social implications. It means that there are no ordinary people. There should not be any caste system, any class system, or racism. One person is not more valuable than others. It does not matter how rich we are or how poor we are. The poorest beggar on the street is every bit as valuable as the richest person in the palace. Everyone is created in God’s image and every individual is valuable. As much as our value is not defined by anything we do, others’ value is not defined by what they do. They are the reflection of God’s image as much as we are. Therefore we should respect and honour each other, looking at everything through God’s lens. We no longer value people based on their backgrounds or our preferences. The child of a prostitute is as valuable as the child of a king. All people from all nations from all classes from all backgrounds are precious in the eyes of God.

Thirdly, spiritual implications. Think about it. We are made to image the glory of God and the beauty of God. We are not lightbulbs. We are mirrors. A mirror cannot produce its own light and beauty. Light and beauty are not inherent in the mirror. A mirror is only filled with light and beauty if it faces something with it. It doesn’t matter how hard we stare at a mirror, a mirror cannot changed Mr Bean into Brad Pitt. I love the way John Piper describes it. “Man is given the exalted status of image-bearer, not so he would become arrogant and autonomous, but so he would reflect the glory of his Maker.” Do you know what that means? It means we will never get a sense of our worth on our own. We will never get a sense of our value just by looking inside and saying, “I know I am great. I know I am great. I know I am great.” We cannot generate value on our own. We will never have worth unless we are facing someone who is giving us worth. Somebody has to say to us, “You are great. You are valuable. You are precious.” Something outside of us has to give it to us. We can’t generate it from within. And here lies the problem. Our problem is we are looking at the wrong things to give us self-worth. We look to romance, spouse, family, money, success, status, achievement, etc. And none of it can give us what we need because we are created to image the glory of God. If we build our self-worth on how well we do financially, what happens when we do poorly? We are not just unhappy. We lose our worth. If we build our self-worth by how much we are loved by someone we love, what happens if we break up? We are not just sad. We lose our worth. Whatever it is that we build our self-worth on but God, is extremely fragile. Only God can give us our true self-worth because we are made in the image of God.

Can you see how this Psalm answers the question of self-worth in a different way than we expected? We want to generate worth on our own. We want to matter simply because we matter. But this is not how the Bible answers the question of self-worth. The Bible answers the question of self-worth by pointing us to who God is. It is not about who we are but who God is. The more majestic God is in our mind, the more we see His greatness, the more we see our self-worth. Our self-worth is tied up to the revelation of who God is. This is how we find our self-worth.

However, we can’t stop at Psalm 8. Because if we do, we will run into a problem. Psalm 8 tells us the glory of humans. It is extremely glorious. Here lies the problem. When we look at ourselves, we don’t see it. Rather than reflecting God’s image, we often make a mess of God’s image. We fail to bear His image. We fail to reflect His glory. When we look at our society today, it does not look like the picture we are given in Psalm 8. Not only do we witness humanity’s evil nature every day on the news, but we also witness the destructive power of creation. Hurricanes, storms, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes. We are supposed to subdue lions. But what do we do if we meet a lion out of its cage? Do we exercise our dominion over that lion? “Lion, I command you not to eat me. Sit still and be a good cat.” No, we don’t. We run. What happened? The fall happened. The sin of Adam and Eve has turned the creation upside down. Rather than having dominion over creation, we are controlled by creation. Rather than reflect God’s glory, we lived for our own glory. The image of God in us is tainted and twisted. So, how do we restore it? Not just by going home and saying, “I must seek and reflect the glory of God.” That’s an abstraction. It won’t do a thing to our self-worth. Here is the secret to the glory of God.

Hebrews 2:6-9 – 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.

Don’t miss it. Psalm 8 is about us. Yet Hebrews 2 changes Psalm 8 from speaking about us to Jesus. Jesus is the perfect image of God. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. But then Jesus came to us. And for a little while he was made a little lower than the angels. He became just like us. He lived the life we should have lived, and he died the death we should have died. And right now, we have yet to see everything under his control. But even though we have yet to see everything in subjection to Jesus, Jesus is already crowned with glory and honour. He is already seated on the throne waiting for the day when he will make everything right. The world that we see right now is still a mess. But not for long. The king is already on his throne. And he will come again to restore everything that is broken.

So, Psalm 8 is first and foremost about Jesus. But it is also about us. Jesus is the fulfilment of everything Psalm 8 speaks about. And when we see Jesus losing his glory for us, when we see Jesus losing his beauty for us, we see the most glorious thing in the universe. And it will turn our hearts to him. The ultimate glory is to see Jesus losing his glory for us so that we could have it. When we see that, Jesus becomes our glory. So, when we look at our self-worth, we not only see what is visible with our physical eyes. We see with the eyes of faith. We see that we are broken. We see that we are small. Yet at the same time, we see that Jesus is mindful of us. Jesus cares for us. And because of Jesus, we are crowned with glory and honour. We are adopted into the family of God. We don’t need other people to tell us we are somebody because Jesus already tells us that we are somebody. We know whose we are. We belong to Jesus. And he paid the infinite cost to make us his. He died on the cross to pay for our sins and tell us how precious we are to him. That is our self-worth. We are worth the cross to Jesus. Let’s pray.

Discussion guide:

1. What struck you the most from this sermon?
2. Out of the three wrong premises for self-worth, which one do you relate the most with? Why?
3. Why is it important to know God’s greatness in defining our self-worth?
4. Why is it important to know our smallness in defining our self-worth?
5. Out of the three implications of Imago Dei, which one stands out the most for you? Why?
6. How does the gospel cure the problem of self-worth?