I Stand In Awe, God Cares
For Me
“Psalms that Make Me Psing” Series
A Message
by Jim Hammond from Psalm 8
In
Disney's animated movie Toy Story, Woody (a plush toy cowboy)
confronts Buzz Lightyear (a toy astronaut) with the fact that he is only
an action figure and not really a space hero. Early in the movie Woody
shouts, "You're not a space ranger! You're an action figure—a child's
plaything."
Only after failing to fly, Buzz realizes the truth of Woody's statement.
Grief-stricken and disillusioned, Buzz hangs his head in resignation,
declaring, "I'm just a stupid, little, insignificant toy."
Woody later seeks to comfort his friend by underscoring the love of the
boy who owns them both. "You must not be thinking clearly. Look, over in
that house, there's a kid who thinks you're the greatest, and it's not
because you're a space ranger; it's because you're his."
As
Buzz lifts his foot, he sees a label affixed to the bottom of his little
shoe. There in black permanent ink is the name of the little boy to whom
he belongs. Seeing the image of his owner, Buzz breaks into a smile and
takes on a new determination.
Elapsed time: 00:56:54 to 00:59:31
Content: Rated G
Citation:
Toy Story (Disney,
1995), rated G, directed by John Lasseter; submitted by Greg
Asimakoupoulos
Focus:
I’m significant because the Almighty cares for me, calls me his own, and
calls me to significance.
I. O LORD, I Stand In Awe…
Psalm 8:1-9
For the director of music. According to
gittith. A psalm of David.
O Lord,
our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
A. Your Glory Is Far Above My Comprehension
You have set your glory above the
heavens.
As
well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to
comprehend the Eternal God.
Citation:
Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
Christian History, no. 29.
B. Yet Within Reach Of My Praises
2From the lips of children and
infants you have ordained praise
One afternoon my 5-year-old daughter, Faith, and
her preschool brother, Alfred, were doing "homework." Alfred had a habit
of saying phrases like "I can't" or "I don't know how."
This particular afternoon, Faith responded with a
Bible verse she had learned at school: "I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me."
Alfred replied, "Then you do it."
Michelle Baldwin, Brooklyn, NY, Today's Christian Woman, "Heart to Heart."
1. My Praises Silence Your Enemies
because of your enemies, to silence the
foe and the avenger.
God has always used the weak to confound
the strength of his enemies. When we worship the Almighty, weak as we
are, the foe and the avenger is defeated, as strong as he is.
·
David has first hand
experience of how God uses mere children to silence the avenging foe.
David was but a child when he silenced Goliath.
·
God uses broken things. Broken soil to produce a
crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread
to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume.
It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.
-- Vance Havner, Christian Reader, Vol. 32, no. 4.
If you think you are too small to be effective,
you have never been in bed with a mosquito.
Betty Reese. Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 2.
NOTICE SOMETHING HERE ABOUT
THIS TEXT: WHO IS MIGHTIER? The Child or the Avenger?
The difference between
Children, in this verse, and enemies, or the foe, or avenger, is that
Children are stronger. How are they stronger, they know how to depend.
Praising God is a way of depending on God. We are the ones who wear the
name of our God and exult in the Name of our God.
C. When I Consider Your Handiwork…
3When I consider your heavens, the
work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
William Beebe wrote, “At Sagamore Hill, Theodore
Roosevelt and I used to play a little game together. After an evening of
talk, we would go out on the lawn and search the skies until we found the
faint spot of light-mist beyond the lower left-hand corner of the Great
Square of Pegasus. Then one or the other of us would recite: "That is the
Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of
a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one billion suns, each larger
than our sun."
Then Roosevelt would grin and say: "Now I think we
are small enough! Let's go to bed."
William Beebe in Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 3.
Lately, I’ve been
spending time painting. Painting is a way for me to consider God’s
handiwork. In a painting I’m creating. But not in the original sense. I
am copying the creator. I look at his handiwork. I study it. I consider
how light, which he made falls on objects, which he has made, and I try to
put down in two dimensions, what he puts down in three dimensions out of
nothing. The more I consider his creation, the more I’m amazed.
God is an artist of
unimaginable proportions. He made from nothing. He created without a
mold. He had no models or references. It is a challenge for me to look
at a photograph, which is a two dimensional summary of the real thing, and
from that summary to replicate it into another summary with paint and
paper. From one photograph, it is difficult for me to even change the
time of day with the lighting falling in different places effectively.
God paints an ever changing sunset each evening.
Better yet, God made
you. Then after he made you, he broke the mold. You are an original.
You are signed by the master. There is no one like you.
Take time to consider his
handiwork. Get out and enjoy his creation. Stop and pause long enough to
ponder it. Study it. We need not be afraid of true science. True
science expands God’s glory. Consider his handiwork. Something else
happens besides just wonder, inspiration, and awe, when you take the time
to ponder God’s design. He doesn’t just have a design for the entire
universe. He has a design for you and me.
II. I Stand In Awe Of Your Purpose For Me
4what is man that you are mindful
of him, the son of man that you care for him?
God has us on his mind.
He is mindful of us. He thinks about us. He is focused on us. He cares
for us. Compared to the universe we are so small and insignificant. The
vastness of God’s creation speaks of the vastness of God, and to think
that He thinks about us totally amazed David.
We may be small, but we
are not insignificant in God’s eyes. He made us. Do you ever wonder why
some pieces of art are worth so much? It has to do with the Name of the
Artist on it. When the piece is an original, with a famous artist’s name
on it, the piece cannot be replaced, so the value is tremendous. So it is
with us.
This Psalm begins with
the signature of God, and the wonder of his creation.
“O Lord, our Lord, How
Majestic is Your Name in all the Earth!”
The question remains, he
made you but have you been redeemed so that His Name remains. Our value
drops when we have to be separated out from the Name of God. In the end
He will only be keeping those who have been verified and signed by his
Son. And that name will be signed in his blood.
A. You Have Honored Me with a Trust
5You made him a little lower than
the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
Virtually every one of us in this room is the result
of an educational system that has drip by drip, like dropping water on
stone, made an impression on our lives as to who we are. Very few of us,
naturally speaking, think of ourselves as a little lower than the angels.
We almost all think of ourselves as a little
higher than the animals. That is, we have in our mind a mental picture of
something we've seen in any natural history museum: an ascendancy of
primates, little jumping creatures, eventually humped over with knuckles
dragging, and finally standing erect. When we see the final "naked ape"
embarrassingly like us, we say, "This is my heritage. This is where I came
from." We think of ourselves as a little higher than the animals.
I wouldn't debate the fact that as human beings we
are mammals. We carry on the mammalian kind of processes: ingestion,
digestion, absorption, assimilation, respiration, excretion, secretion,
motion, sensitivity, and reproduction. We do these things without
consciously thinking about them, just like all the other animals.
The central statement of Scripture about mankind
is that we have been imputed or infused by God with a nature that is not a
little higher than the animals, but one that is, in this poetic
terminology, a little lower than the angels.
-- Jay Kesler, "Lost in Space," Preaching Today,
Tape No. 85.
RE: Psalm 8:5 My will is my glory; it is also
what gives me the most trouble.
Eugene Peterson in Leadership, Vol. 9, no. 4.
The phrase “You made him
a little lower than the heavenly beings” is a little misleading in
English. It doesn’t quite get across forcefully David’s amazement. The
word translated here “heavenly beings” is “Elohim”, which can be
translated “God”.
God has made us a little
lower than himself, but higher than the rest of creation. That is what is
so amazing to David as he contemplates the night sky, and the glory of
Creation.
The reason some
translations translate “Elohim” here as “heavenly beings” is that the
Septuagint, translated it as “angels” when translating from the Hebrew to
the Greek. Yet, scripture speaks of humankind as being crowned with more
authority and glory than Angels. Humans will be the ones who will judge
the angels (1 Corinthians 6:3). That is part of the reason, the pride of
Satan, that humans have become such targets of a prideful enemy whose
primary purpose was to serve man, but he’d rather be ruler himself, so he
is busy subjugating man to serve him. That is the downfall of Satan and
all the demons that have fallen with him.
The Glory and Honor we
will have is higher than the glory and honor Angels have.
B. You Have Entrusted Me With …
6You made him ruler over the works
of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
7all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
8the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9O Lord,
our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the
earth!
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