Psalm 8

When people hear that Melanie and I lived in Colorado for a number of years, they always ask if we miss it; and I always reply, “every day.” And it is true, I miss Colorado every day. And it has nothing to do with my love for Georgia or the life that we’ve built here. It has everything to do with the mountains. I miss the mountains. I miss their granduer and glory. I miss stumbling upon a vista that quiets my entire being and fills my soul with awe and wonder. You know, the mountains of North Georgia are stunning, but the Rocky Mountains are majestic; and when I say that I miss Colorado every day, what I miss is living in a place that is surrounded by majesty.

I will always cherish the time that we spent out West, but it wasn’t all glory and wonder. Melanie and I spent many of our weekends hiking out in the mountains, ten to eleven thousand feet above sea level, often in pretty remote places. And one thing I’ll never forget about those glorious hikes, is the revolting stench of the bathrooms that so frequently sat at the trailheads. Ya’ll, some of these were so bad, your best bet was to suck in a big gulp of air before opening that door, and trying your best to do your business as fast as you possibly could. Mouth breathing offered very little relief, it was so bad.

And sometimes the contrast really got to me. Here we were surrounded by glory and majesty, and lingering on the alpine air, was the stench of humanity. The glory of the mountains really highlighted the inglorious nature of being human.

In Psalm 8, David writes about a similar experience. He steps outside and looks up at the night sky - a night sky that had no light pollution. Have any of you been to a designated Dark Sky Sanctuary? There are places in the US that are intentionally sheltered from artificial light sources, so as to offer a natural view of the night sky. Grand Canyon National Park is one such place, and it’s hard to put into words what it’s like to see the fullness of the heavens…This is what David was marveling at in the beginning of Psalm 8. And the glory of the scene gives birth to introspection, because he likewise sees the gap in glory between the heavens and mankind, and so David poses the question that plagues so many of our hearts, in verse 4: “What is man that you are mindful of him? In light of the glories of the sun and moon, the billions upon billions of stars, of what value is a single man or woman or child? Of what value are we?”

The question of personal value is a defining question for us. What is our worth? How do we evaluate it? And is the metric that we are using reliable? What is our value based on? Tragically, these questions of self-worth often become lifelong questions, where year after year, season after season, we’re uncertain whether our life is of any value , and if so how much; because we don’t know what to base our value on. Right now in our community and in communities across the country, we’re seeing record numbers of teenagers and young people who are struggling with this question of personal value and worth.

Psalm 8 enters into this struggle with a message of hope and encouragement. In a world that is constantly questioning a person’s self-worth, Psalm 8 teaches us that our value as a human being is secured by God himself, for he has made us the royalty of his creation.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Let’s dive into the text. Look with me at verses 1-4.

1 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?

The situation is exactly what we said before: David is praising God because of the beauty that he sees in what God has created. But there’s a nagging question in the back of David’s mind as he gazes at the splendor of the night sky. Some of you know exactly what David feels, because you’ve had a similar experience. You’ve been in the presence of something or someone awesome, and it has made you question or wonder about your significance in the world.

Here, David feels small and insignificant, which prompts him to ask the question in verse 4. Now, most people believe that David is reflecting on the story of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2. If you remember, in that story, God creates the celestial bodies above with all their glory and sets them in the heavens to rule over the day and night skies, and then way down below, he creates people...out of dirt. So David’s question in verse 4 is essentially, “Why does God care so much about his dirt people?”

Valid question, and important question! Let’s take a look at how he answers:

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.

Why does God care so much about his dirt people? Because, he has crowned them with glory and honor, and put all things under their feet. You want to talk about value and worth and significance? David says that God has given his dirt people rulership over all the works of his hands.

In the first stanza of Psalm 8, God is portrayed as the Creator King. His name fills all the earth, his glory is established in the heavens. He stills the enemy and avenger and sets the moon and stars in their appointed places. He is the King. But now, in this second stanza, that royalty is extended from God to humanity. God rules the world through the people that he made out of the dirt. And this shouldn’t surprise, because it’s stated quite plainly on the very first page of the Bible, using many of the same words and phrases as in Psalm 8.

Genesis 1:26:

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

From the very beginning, God chose to elevate his little dirt creatures to be the royalty of his creation, giving them the majestic task of being his image in the world, and ruling all the works of his hands.

And it is important that we note, who exactly does the elevating; because we live in a culture that teaches us that at every step that we must prove our value and worth. Again and again. It’s up to us to continually secure our significance in the world. But according to Psalm 8, who secures our royal status? It’s the Lord. “You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings. You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion. You have put all things under his feet. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength.” Our royal status - our value and worth is secured by God himself. Nothing can be more stable or reliable than that.

And it’s a good thing, too, that our value is secured by God and not ourselves. Because if it were up to us, we’d be lost for sure. Because even though God has sought to crown us with glory and honor, we’ve thrown that crown into the garbage time and time again, haven’t we? Rather than finding our value and worth in the Lord, we’ve searched for it in all kinds of other places like our jobs or relationships. We’ve opted out of our place of honor as God’s royal representative in favor of representing ourselves and our own kingdoms in the world. We were tasked with tending the garden, but in many ways we’ve trampled it instead.

Which leads us to Jesus. In every place that you and I failed to live into God’s design for humanity, Jesus succeeded. In every moment that you and I cast aside our call to be God’s royal representative, Jesus stayed true. Where we were unfaithful, Jesus was faithful to the end. He perfectly embodied what it means to be human, and because of this, he is elevated and given full authority over all creation, just like what we see in Psalm 8.

As Paul writes in Philippians,

9 Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus, then, is the true fulfillment of Psalm 8. He shows us what it means to be human. But he does more than just serve as a positive example for us to emulate. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus mends our wayward hearts so that more and more we seek to live into our lofty position as God’s royal representatives on earth and join Christ in making all things new.

Without fail, there will come a time when you will question your value and worth. Our culture is exceedingly adept at bringing that into doubt. But the hope that is imbedded in Psalm 8 and fulfilled once-and-for all in Jesus is an anchor and refuge for when those days of struggle come. Your value is secured by God himself, for you are the royalty of his creation - and that reality is being reaffirmed and actualized daily through the Holy Spirit working in your heart. A work that is promised to be carried to completion when Jesus returns to make all things new.