Finding Who You Are in Who God Is (Psalm 8)
Do you ever think that maybe Galileo and Copernicus got it wrong, that our solar system doesn’t really revolve around the sun? Because on some days it seems like the universe just revolves around ... you? Now let’s be honest. We all have our moments of self-centeredness, right? Or on the other hand, maybe you have times when you wonder if you really matter to God at all! Maybe you think God gave up on you long ago. Either way, today’s psalm calls us to adjust our perspective as we examine the worth of a human being in the eyes of our Creator. Please listen to Psalm 8:
1 LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
There are a lot of self-help books out today that will recommend how to build your self-esteem. Let’s find our true self-esteem in what God thinks about us. We can do that as we walk with the psalm writer David through four seemingly contradictory statements about God and us. First, consider that...
1. God is really something!
David starts and ends his psalm with the same exact words. Verses 1 and 9 read,
“LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
Or if you ever remember Sandi Patty or Michael W. Smith’s version, you have to sing it... [singing the tune]
Now the first three words here sound repetitive, like why is David saying “Lord” twice? It’s a weird translation device you find in most English language Bibles. You’ll notice one “Lord” is in all caps and one is not. There’s an important reason for that. The all-capitalized “L-O-R-D” is the Hebrew word from which we get “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.” We don’t know exactly how to say it today, because the original Hebrew scribes didn’t record vowels, just the consonants. So we have this “Tetragrammaton” (I learned that in seminary!) of four Hebrew letters: Y-H-W-H. It’s the actual name for God. It’s the same name God gave Moses at the burning bush, when Moses asked, “Who shall I say sent me?” God replied, “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” That’s the rough meaning of “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.” God is the great “I am,” the absolutely existing one. He always has been and always will be. He never changes. He is not created. He just...is.
The second word for “Lord” only capitalizes the “L” and translates the Hebrew word, “Adonai,” which means the “master” or “boss” or “ruler.” So the first “LORD” is a name and the second “Lord” is a title. David is saying, “Yahweh, you are our Master.” God is over all, and as such, his name—his character, his being—deserves to be praised and worshiped across the entire earth. God, this one true God Yahweh, this God is really something! He is majestic. His majesty fills the entire earth!
Now if you think of yourself relative to this amazing God of all creation, it might be comparing a grape to the sun! And so you might think, #2...
2. Compared to God, we are nothing.
David writes in verses 3 and 4, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”
You can picture the sheep-herder David gazing at the night sky as he writes these words and takes in the absolute glory of the heavens. Indeed, the universe is an amazing creation. Consider the sheer size of it: The earth is about 8,000 miles in diameter. For comparison sake, if the earth were the size of a grape, then our star, the sun, would be about the size of a giant beach ball. One of the largest stars in the galaxy, Canis Majoris, could hold over 2,000 beach balls, or 2,000 of our suns within it!
As David poetically wrote, God’s fingers put the stars in place. Do you think this little anthropomorphism is a comment on the size of God? (I’ve been wanting to use that word all week! “Anthropomorphism” is when we attribute human traits to God.) So if God put Canis Majoris in place with his finger, how big does that make our God? Which reminds me of a little chorus:
“Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above. With wisdom, power, and love. Our God is an awesome God.”
Sometimes we might feel really small in the universe, like an ant must feel when a human towers over an ant hill. We consider this amazing creation, and we might feel quite powerless compared to the complexity of it all. And yet ... consider #3,
3. Yet God says we are really something!
Let’s rehearse: God is really something. We’re really not. Yet, God’s response is, “No, people, you really are something, because I say you are, and that makes it true!” David reflects on this assigned worth to humanity in verses 5 and 6:
5 You have made [humans] a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet...
And he goes in verses 7 and 8 to define what everything is: we are in charge of all the creation. Have we always done a good job of taking care of everything? No, we haven’t. Yet, we should. That’s part of our assigned role. And it’s indicative of the importance God assigns to us humans. We are in charge of his creation. Here we are looting and fighting, and oppressing, and trying to control each other. And God says, “Hey, get along, because I need you to take care of my world!” The whole world is our playground, and our farm, and our garden, and our neighborhood, our community: an awesome responsibility which indicates a great trust. Apparently, God think we’re pretty important. He says we’re right up there next to the angels.
But lest we get an inflated sense of self-importance, we also learn, #4 ...
4. In our weakness, God is magnified.
David tucks in verse 2, which reads, “Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.” We see a couple of things here. First, we see that God has enemies, people and angels who do not praise God, who do not give credit to God for the glory of the universe, but instead want to take it for themselves. They want to praise themselves.
But then David says a curious thing: He says God uses the praise of children and infants to silence them. How much could children add to the fight? Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? Infants are pretty helpless creatures. Yet, a recurring theme in scripture is that God likes to use the weak to overcome the strong. John McArthur writes about this verse, “The introductory irony about infants sets the stage for a contrast between the dependent and the foolishly self-sufficient.” [Let me repeat that.]
The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians about how God refused to take away his thorn in the flesh, but Paul grew to be satisfied, knowing that in his own weakness, God’s strength would shine through. Paul put it like this: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). The God of the Bible likes to wage war with choirs in the front lines. He likes to take down giants with a kid’s slingshot. This way God gets all the glory. And we get the thrill of experiencing an all-mighty God working through us.
Jesus chose to quote verse 2 on the first Palm Sunday. As he was entering Jerusalem, some children began joining their parents in worshiping him as the “Son of David,” a title for the long-awaited Messiah. Some of the religious leaders complained, saying, “Don’t you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus first replied with a simple, “Yes.” In other words, “Yes, I hear them, and I am not going to correct them, because they are right. I am the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Then he went on to quote the Greek version of this verse, which ended the discussion. Which, interestingly enough, fulfilled the verse itself, that the enemies of God were silenced by the praise of children and infants. Jesus, along with the children, fulfilled scripture that day.
Next time you pass by the self-help section in Barnes & Noble, don’t buy into the world’s theories on self-esteem: “I am good because of what I’ve done.” Or, “If I just tell myself I’m good, then I am.” These theories don’t hold water over time. You are good because God declares you good. He has made you a little lower than the angels. He has appointed you to take care of his world. And he wants to use you for his holy work. Why? Because God is majestic! His majesty fills the earth. Let’s pray about it together:
Thank you, Yahweh, our Lord and Master, for filling the earth with your glory. From a simple sunrise to a starry night, we see your expressive signature written across the creation. Next to you, we are nothing. We’re like the petals of a cut flower, all dried up before long. Yet, you say no! You assign us worth, great worth, just a little lower than the angels. You make every human being in your own image, with the stamp of the Creator imprinted on them. When we’re feeling down, please lift us up. When we’re weak, be our strength. When we’re self-centered, correct our vision and help us to be God-centered again. For your glory and our good, amen!
