God's Glory in Creation, Man's Importance to God

Intro.

I don’t know about you, but when I get out in nature where I can see wildlife, the sky, the stars, the moon, hear the birds and streams, and feel polluted air blowing on me, that is when I’m in my element to meditate on the creative work and the love of God. Thankfully, even in town He provides me with snippets of these things to remind and help me to think on His majesty.

Recently I saw a wild turkey, and I know they’re everywhere, but I haven’t seen a wild turkey since I was a little boy. It was a cool light.

I get to watch cardinals, robins, sparrows, and squirrels dance around my yard every day! Yes, I know that squirrels are sometimes a nuisance, but they’re just so cute and fun to watch I can’t help but love them!

Recently we had the Aurora Borealis pay southern Illinois a visit, and that was truly magnificent, was it not?

I get a fairly good view of the stars in the comfortable night air from my from porch when I go out at night.

Tell me, what things for you, as far as nature goes, brings you to a true appreciation and recognition of God’s majesty?

So many things serve to remind us of it, not even to speak of all the complexities in the universe that God created in perfection. In our Psalm this evening, David proclaims that the name of God is majestic in all the earth, that creation itself is covered in His own majesty.

Psalm 8:1 CSB

Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty.

Now for something to be majestic or to have majesty, that is, according to Webster, that it has beauty and splendor! And our God is full of beauty, isn’t He?

As David writes here that the heavens are covered in His majesty, he says they are covered in His beauty and splendor and Glory! They reflect these attributes of God!

I think the first word, translated as majestic in the first line, probably feeds into that meaning as well but it also can carry with it the connotation of nobility and authority.

Psalm 8:2 ASV

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength, Because of thine adversaries, That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

Here David proclaims that even from the mouths of infants and children He has established strength!

Even these most helpless of human beings (as the word refers to children only up to three years old) proclaim and praise the power of God!

How can we know that it speaks of praise? Mat. 21.14-16

Matthew 21:14–16 CSB

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read: You have prepared praise from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?”

Inasmuch as David was speaking a truth about the majesty of God in creation, he was also delivering a prophecy about this moment that children would proclaim the power of our Lord!

Psalm 8:3–8 CSB

When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him? You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler 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 of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas.

What a statement this is, too! We turn from the glory of God seen in Creation to the importance and glory God has given to mankind!

He says, “All these amazing and wonderful things which you have created and You care for us in such a way? You think of us particularly in the midst of all this? And even gave us authority over Your animals?” He’s marveling at the way God loves mankind and how gracious and kind He is to us even from the very beginning! What was mankind’s first command?

To keep the land and care for the animals! God from the beginning gave mankind responsibility and more higher status than anything else in all creation!

What else is happening in this text? Does anyone know where else we see this very psalm referenced?

Hebrews 2:5–8 CSB

For he has not subjected to angels the world to come that we are talking about. But someone somewhere has testified: What is man that you remember him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him lower than the angels for a short time; you crowned him with glory and honor and subjected everything under his feet. For in subjecting everything to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him.

Once again, we see David being in awe of God at a truth which is universal in nature, yet is also a prophecy of Christ and His own glory and majesty!

Now, tell me why you think there are minor word differences between the Psalm and NT quotation?

The NT readings are from the Greek translation of the OT called the Septuagint. In no way does it break the context or meaning of the OT passage, or else the Spirit of God would not have inspired it. It simply provides a different English translation.

So, tell me, is our God majestic? Is His majesty found in all His creation? YES!!!

Now, tell me where YOU can find the majesty of God… I want you to look in these places to find His majesty and be in awe of Your God and Lord. Let us His people be stricken with the depth and magnitude of His beauty, power, and even His kindness in it all that He created us as special!