Summer in the Psalms (3)
Notes
Transcript
What is man?
What is man?
To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
In September 1977, Nasa launched Voyager 1 to study the outer solar system. On February 14, 1990, after completing its primary mission and preparing to leave the solar system, NASA engineers turned its camera around and took a final picture of earth from a distance of almost 4 billion miles before it left the solar system for good. The picture is called “A Pale Blue dot” because that is all earth looks like from that distance.
The astronomer and writer, Carl Sagan, in a speech he gave at Cornell University in 1994, described the lesson he took from the picture:
“If you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.”
Carl Sagan compared himself to the size of the universe and suddenly felt small. He was right. We are small. But he was only half right. There is more to the story than that. Sagan’s statement about insignificance was motivated by the tendency we all have to spend most of our time thinking more highly of ourselves and our abilities than we ought.
It is true, we are not as big or important as we think we are. But that does not mean our lives are meaningless. We ought to ask ourselves how we can possibly matter in a universe so vast. Psalm 8 attacks this question head on. It humbles us by making us consider our insignificance in the grand scheme of things. It then shows us that our significance is not found in who we are on our own, but who we are because of what God has done.
Verse 1-2: Who God Is
The Psalmist does not just see the earth’s grandeur, he sees it for what it is - a revelation of the grandeur of God. There is a problem with the punctuation in the original Hebrew which makes these verses look different in various translations. The best translation is something like: “Your splendor above the heavens is praised by infants and babes. You have established power because of your foes to make the enemy and the vengeful cease.” The point is that the power and majesty of God is so obvious in the universe, even a baby could see it.”
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the size of the universe?
Verse 3-4: Who Man Is
The Psalmist then moves from considering God to considering himself. When he looks at how big and powerful the world is, he realizes how big God (the heavens are a work of His finger), is but also how small man is. Against such grandeur, man shrinks to insignificance. Man alone in the universe is nothing. When considered against the backdrop of a universe so vast, it is impossible to think that anything we do matters at all. The Psalmist summarizes in two verses the exact sentiments of Carl Sagan. Fortunately, he doesn’t stop where Sagan did. [ 10 ]
Have you ever felt insignificant in the overall scheme of things?
Verse 5-8: Who Man is Because of God
I am so glad the Psalm doesn’t end in verse 4. Verse 5 begins with words of contrast “yet you.” Man, by himself is an insignificant animal on an insignificant planet orbiting an insignificant star on the outer edge of an insignificant galaxy. Nobody knows we are here. Nobody cares - “yet you.” Our significance is found not in who we are by ourselves, but in who God has made us to be. Verses 5-8 contain four sentences with God as the subject. They show us what God did for us. They show us the significance God bestows on us.
God Gives Us Value: “You made him a little lower than God” – According to a recent study, the chemicals in the human body are worth about $3.50. As matter of fact, a human is not worth very much. But that is not all a man is. We, of all animals, are more than animals. God created us in His image and because of this a human life has value. He made us just a little lower than him. Other animals look down at the earth and their food and feel content; we look up to the heavens and see God. The reason is because He made us to be close to him.
God Gives Us Honor: “You crowned him with glory and majesty” – We look at the universe and see the glory and majesty of God. The Psalmist says that God has crowned us with the same majesty. When we consider the universe, we see the greatness of God. If we would learn to look at man this way, we would be equally amazed at what man is able to do and how radically different God made him. Not that man is perfect or even good most of the time, but he is startlingly different and amazing.
God Gives Us Work: “You make him to rule over the works of your hand” – God made us in his image, He made us amazing, He also made us useful. It’s important to realize that we were made for meaningful labor. Genesis says God created man and put him in a garden that was evidently unfinished. Even before the fall, there was work to do to. This is a part of the image of God and the glory of God on us. He invites us to collaborate with Him.
God Gives Us Responsibility: “You have put all things under his feet” – God did not just give us work, He gave us responsibility. We are in charge - we have power to do great good or great evil. That is the basic story of human history. People using this power for both purposes. But since our power comes from God, we need to see ourselves as working for Him. We do not just have power and authority over the world, we have responsibility for it. We have to learn to exercise our authority as an act of stewardship.
APPLICATION POINTS
1. See Yourself as God Does: You are neither the center of everything nor the pointless afterthought of a blind universe. You have glory, honor, significance, and a role to play in the world but you are not the source of any of it. Two verses from the New Testament help us manage a proper balance between these two extremes.
2. The Answer to Arrogance is Gratitude to God: To the self-centered side of all of us, Paul has this to say in
For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
Everything that you have, you got from somewhere else. Even everything you have earned by your own skill, hard work, and intelligence. You did not do anything to get the brain, brawn, or opportunities you have had in life. You may have been a good steward of what you have been given, but you were given a lot to start with. Therefore, see yourself as a steward, entrusted by God with everything you have, including your body. Glorify God with everything He has given you. Use it all well. But above all be grateful to God for it.
3. The Answer to Isolation is the Love of God: To the side of us that often feels alone and lost in the cosmos and in a sea of billions of people, Jesus himself says in
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
God is not some disengaged and detached leader. He created this vast universe and He is acquainted with every detail about it. We can draw comfort from the fact that even when we feel most alone, God sees, God knows, God cares. We are not forgotten.
