Psalm 8, let us hear now the word of God. To the chief musician on the instrument of Gath, a Psalm of David. Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth, who have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels and you have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. that pass through the paths of the sea. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. This is the very word of God. Amen. You may be seated and let us go to the Lord in prayer once again. Our God and our Father, we thank you for the beauty of your word that reminds us of your glory. And as we think of your glory and creation, the excellence of your name in all the earth, we pray that this message would come through to our hearts and would shape the way that we view you and shape the way that we view ourselves and also the world around us. We pray this in the name of Christ, amen. Well, this evening, as we look at Psalm 8, it brings before us one of the most important questions that every one of us as human beings must know the answer to. And that question is, why do I exist? And we know that the answer to that, if you've memorized your catechism correctly, is what is the chief end of man? Well, the chief end of man, why you exist, is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. We exist to bring glory to God and to delight ourselves in our relationship with God. Now we can also ask a related question, what is the chief end of all other things that exist? We could answer the question, why do I exist? But we could also say, why does everything else exist? And it's actually the same answer. All things exist for the glory of God and to find enjoyment and delight in him. And Psalm 8 reinforces this important truth. What it tells us at the beginning and the end of the Psalm is that God's name is excellent in all the earth. His name is majestic and glorious in all the earth. It is of course excellent objectively, we could say God is excellent no matter whether people recognize him or not, but of course we should recognize God and he aims to make known his name as glorious in the earth. Now I'm going to bring out four particular applications from our psalm this evening and Um, this Psalm is an invitation to worship. First of all, it is an invitation to wonder. It's an invitation to humility and also an invitation to recognize our responsibility as human beings who have been made in his image. It's first of all, an invitation because when David begins, he says, Oh Yahweh, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth? Well, we're supposed to join in with him as he says that and believe it. Secondly, it's a call to wonder because that's one of the things David does in the psalm, isn't it? He, he wonders at how God is so great and has made such a vast creation, but then still cares about us as well. How does, how does he do that? Thirdly, it's a call to humility with the words where he says, what is man? What is man that you are mindful of him? It's important for us to contemplate our smallness. our finiteness as human beings. And fourthly, it's a call to responsibility. We are made in God's image. We are to exercise the dominion mandate. We are to take dominion of this earth for the glory of God. And so it reminds us of that important mandate. And so we'll be thinking of those four points as we proceed through the psalm. So let's begin by looking at how the psalm begins and ends. It begins with, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. And you'll notice that's exactly how David ends as well. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. Now it begins with a sense of exclamation. We are to exuberantly proclaim, joyfully proclaim, God, you are great. You are wondrous. You are excellent. And I would ask each of us tonight to honestly consider the question, am I in awe of God? Do I respond rightly to God's glory that is revealed all around me in the creation? When you look up into the sky and you see the stars at night, when you put on goggles and a snorkel and you go down into a colorful reef, When you stand on top of a Colorado 14 or and you see the vastness of the Rocky Mountains, when you see colorful wildflowers blowing in the breeze, when you see puppies rolling around on the floor playing together, when you see all these things, do you wonder at the glory and the majesty of God and making all of these things? And so, brothers and sisters, we should be faithful, diligent, and excited students of God's creation. Not all of us may be as gifted in understanding the natural sciences. I count myself as one not very gifted in the scientific realm, but I know it is my responsibility to wonder. And thankfully, you don't have to be a PhD or even a master's or even a high school graduate to wonder at the creation that God has made. Kids, of course, are great at naturally wondering at the things that God has made. And if we look around us at all the things that God has made and we find it boring, there's something wrong with us, not something wrong with God's creation. And so we need to frequently give our attention to what God has made around us. And I would encourage us to say, Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth as we behold the wonders of his creation. And so that's how David begins, begins the Psalm. And that's especially important as followers of Christ because you know that the world around us spends its time blaspheming God. The third commandment, you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain, it's constantly being violated around us, either by people not praising God or by actually taking his name in vain. And so how do we combat third commandment violations? Well, we keep the third commandment by hollowing the name of God and by saying it and by saying, God made this. This is a wondrous thing. God is glorious because he has made it. We should speak of God's excellence. We should speak of God's majesty and his beauty and his holiness to one another and to those that are around us. And the fact is, we have a lot of source material to work from, don't we? If we're looking for reasons to speak about the excellence of God, we have source material all around us at all times. Isaac Watts, when he wrote, I Sing the Mighty Power of God, which we'll sing here at the end, it says, there's not a plant or flower below but makes your glories known. And clouds arise and tempests blow by order from your throne while all that borrows life from you is ever in your care and everywhere that we can be you God are present there. And so it says there's nothing that God has created that doesn't in some way or another reveal his glory to us. Now one of the fascinating contrasts found in this psalm, it's designed to show us the massive gap there is between the majesty of God on one hand and then the smallness of man. It's found in verse two and if you look at verse two this is a verse that we like to frequently quote. when we're dealing with loud and crying babies. It's an encouraging verse. It says, out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. Let me explain, I think, what David is doing in this verse. He's saying, God is so great, he has made such a vast creation, and he has this massive cosmos that he has made but he chooses to defeat his enemies by using little babies. He says that's how the enemy and the avenger is silenced is through little children that have no power of their own and we'll talk about how that works in terms of how God does that. Now it's noteworthy that in our psalm that there is already a sense of conflict. It's interesting to me that already here is mentioned the enemy and the avenger. It's interesting that David is praising God for the glory of his creation. Then suddenly he mentions the enemy and the avenger. And you think, well, who are they? Where did, where did they come from? This reminds us that we have to read all of the Bible, but also the Psalm in light of Genesis one and two, the creation, but also Genesis three, the conflict that took place after the fall into sin in the garden. Now David, writing from Psalms 3 to Psalm 7, he speaks about the enemies that are after him. David knew this conflict. If you've ever looked at Psalms 3 to 7, what is David dealing with? He's dealing constantly with enemies that are after him. And so he's still talking about that as you get to Psalm 8. And David is contemplating how amazing a thing it is that God's power is revealed out of the mouth of children, that God uses the praise and the prayers of little children to show forth his strength. in defeating the enemies. Now think about this contrast for a moment. Is the emperor who rules over half the earth and has armies consisting of millions of soldiers and who rebels against God, is he stronger than a little child that says that God is great? Which one's in a stronger position? Well, technically the emperor who has control of half the world with all these armies and power He's in a worse position than the child who acknowledges God to be all powerful and relies on God. That's the reality. The little child who trusts in God and calls upon God is far, far stronger. And though it's true that David was not a baby or a nursing infant when he defeated Goliath, nevertheless David knew something of this. He felt really small probably when he was fighting Goliath. But David knew that God was on his side. And that's all that mattered. Goliath was nothing compared to the power of God. So it is true that one of the valuable applications of this psalm is to remind us of how much we should value the faith of little children. when they praise God, when they acknowledge God. It is a powerful thing for a child to say, God is great and I follow him and I worship him. That is a very serious threat to the devil. And Jesus actually did apply it directly this way in Matthew 21. When Jesus was coming in to Jerusalem in the triumphal entry, the children were saying, Hosanna to the son of David. And the scribes and Pharisees, of course, were not doing that. It says, when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, this is Matthew 21, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant and said to him, do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes, have you never read? Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise. So you see that our Lord Jesus, he did actually apply this to the faith, the piety, the praise of little children. And so I would say an application for us that we need to encourage always, we always need to encourage the faith of young children. The psalm would teach us not to discourage them and say, no, we don't really know whether you have faith, we'll see if it's legitimate, we'll check it out in 15 or 20 years. No, that's gonna encourage them to doubt. Let us encourage their faith. in the praises that they bring to God. And one of the ways in which children are gifted at praising God is they have a natural sense of wonder, don't they? They have a sense of wonder at the creation of God. We've seen this with our children who will often see dandelions, and they're amazed and astounded by the beauty of these little dandelions. And so we should also join them in that sense of wonder and see the glory of God. Now, as we go on here, I want to look at verse four. There is a redemptive history thread underlying David's words, and we should not miss them. In verse four, David says, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him? Now, let me give you a rendering from the Hebrew that's directly reflective of the words that are there. Verse four, it reads, what is Enosh that you are mindful of him and the son of Adam that you visit him? Now, the word Enosh in Hebrew does often mean mankind. It's certainly a fine rendering that verse four says that. But it's noteworthy in the way in which David structures this verse, he says, what is Enosh that you are mindful of him and the son of Adam that you visit him? Well, what line is that if you trace those through? Enosh, Seth, Adam. And that, of course, is the godly line that is found in the book of Genesis. That is exactly how we read it. In fact, if you look back at Genesis 4 verse 26, it says, and as for Seth, to him also a son was born and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. And so I do think that David is making a general statement about how it's a wondrous thing that God is mindful of mankind. But I also think he is referring to this godly line, the line that follows God, that honors him, that continues in opposition to the seat of the serpent, and that seems to be what is referenced there. And it's noteworthy also when you get to Luke 3, the genealogy of Jesus, how does Luke's genealogy end? It says the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. And Jesus, of course, is the fulfillment of that godly line that would bring redemption to pass. And so I also think that what David is doing as he speaks of little children silencing the enemy and the avenger is how it was going to be through a line of children that the evil one would ultimately be defeated. God uses babies who then grow up and become men and fight against Satan. And so there is, I think, a reference also to that here in Psalm 8. So Psalm 8 then is not only a hymn of praise for God's creation, but is a hymn of praise for God's redemption as well, how he's going to bring about redemption here. Now let's look at verses 3 through 4 and think about the application of wonder and humility that comes from this. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man? that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him. Now, as you think about astronomy and the solar system and the planets, there are a few things that God has made better calculated to instill in us a sense of humility as looking at the vast cosmos that is before us. And that's what David is wondering at. David, as far as we know, did not have a telescope. He did not have the Hubble Space Telescope. Nobody had landed on the moon at that time, and yet just looking at the stars with the naked eye, there was already a sense of wonder at how God would make all of these things and yet care for mankind still. If the Milky Way galaxy contains a hundred billion stars, And if there are some two trillion galaxies in the universe, then there might be 200 billion trillion stars. Now we don't really know whether that's the comprehensive number or not. They're ultimately uncountable, but we have observed enough to say that that kind of number is perhaps realistic. That is a very, very big universe. And we are extremely, extremely small. And something to contemplate is that God is bigger. He's vaster than the created universe that we can observe with a telescope. He's bigger than that. And of course he's omnipresent within it. Now in Spurgeon's commentary on the Psalms, the treasury of David, he quotes a professor of that time. His name was Dr. Dick and he was a lecturer on astronomy and he He gave this very wise comment about how we should view astronomy and apply it to ourselves. He said, perhaps there are no rational beings throughout the universe among whom pride would appear more unseemly or incompatible than in man, considering the situation in which he is placed. So he says, it is unseemly, it is insane, we might say, to be proud When you look at the vastness of the creation that is around us, we are so small. How insane is it for man to be arrogant? We are tinier in relation to the cosmos than the tiniest thing that we could find to observe on this created earth. We are so much smaller than even that. The fact that man is proud of anything is both ridiculous and crazy. Rather than giving way to any kind of pride, any sense of superiority, we would do well to regularly remind ourselves of how small we really are. One of the best DVD presentations is, I think it's called The Created Cosmos, it was put out by Answers in Genesis, and I got to see it in their planetarium, which is the best way to view it, rather than on your TV screen. But that documentary does such a good job of starting you on Earth, and then backing you out progressively until you feel absolutely infinitesimal in size. And that's exactly what we should feel like as we look at the cosmos. And so brothers and sisters, we should study astronomy in order to cultivate humility. If you're struggling with humility, study astronomy and consider your smallness. But one of the beautiful things about David's reflection here is We might look at the bigness of the cosmos and just say, okay, well, God surely wouldn't care about little me, would he? And yet David is saying, you are mindful of mankind. He's reflecting on God caring about mankind, caring about the creation that he has made. And so it's good for us to not only look through the telescope to see the bigness of the cosmos to make us feel small, It's also good to look through the microscope at times and see how God even cares for the smallest of things in his creation as well. And he cares for us also. And so next, what David does is he reiterates what we call the dominion mandate of Genesis chapter one, verses five through six. I'll read those again. For you have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet. So on one hand, we are very small, but God has made us to have glory and honor. What a gift he has given to mankind that we're small, but we are reflectors of his glory in the creation. Now, one of the ways that we reflect God's glory and his image is that we take dominion over his creation. And the reason that this reflects his image is that God is the governor of all things, right? He has dominion over all things. He has chosen to give us a little sliver of something to have dominion over this earth. He's given us this earth to take control of, to reign over for his glory, to honor him in and to work within his creation in a way that he is honored. Now, as we think about the dominion mandate, we might be very aware of how people have misused their power in the earth. And the dominion mandate, though it has not been canceled by the fallen to sin, our ability as human beings to carry out that dominion mandate, rightly, it's been damaged by our sin. You might think of the Tower of Babel as an example of the failure of mankind to fulfill the dominion mandate. Rather than being fruitful and multiplying and then subduing the entire earth, what did they do? They gathered together as one and they tried to build a tower up to heaven to make a name glorious for themselves. They rebelled against the dominion mandate that God had made, that God had given them. Now there's a sense in which the dominion mandate still is being carried out in mankind. You think about cultures being built. Great feats of architecture or economy, art, music, technology, all these things can be used for good dominion. They can be used to bring glory to God or they can be used for rebellion. Now all of these productions of human culture, they remind us that mankind is fundamentally different than the animals of this earth. All the other creatures are different than us. It's quite obvious if you look at human culture. To this date, no concertos have been composed by whales. Never seen that happen. No skyscrapers have been built by monkeys, have they? And no cars have been built by fish. It's never happened. And it's important that we recognize this. This is actually one of the confusions of our modern generation is the attempt to break down the distinction between mankind and all the other creatures of this earth. There is an attempt to actually make it equivalent that to kill a pig is the same as killing a human being, or perhaps a human being is of even lesser value. There are people out there that suggest such a horrific ethical conclusion. Well, you can only come to such confusion by disregarding the clear teaching of the Word of God as well as disregarding history itself that shows us that mankind is different. Recently, there was a movement reported Particularly in the region of Australia and New Zealand, there's an attempt to recognize the personhood of whales. That is their goal, is we need to recognize whales as persons and respect them as persons, in the same sense, I guess, as we would recognize the personhood of a human being. But it's noteworthy that to this date, no whales have appeared in court to plead their personhood. I think that should be evident to all of us. as an indication that their personhood is not the same as ours. They are not persons in the same sense that human beings are. They are animals to be taken dominion of and taken care of for the glory of God. And so the dominion mandate then is something that we are called to rightly execute. We are to exercise ourselves in godly dominion taking of this earth. But how will that happen if sin has so affected us? How will we be able to take dominion? Well, the answer, of course, is found in the words of the scripture reading, which we read earlier. Hebrews 2 tells us, how does the dominion mandate get restored? And it is restored through the redemption of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Let us read Hebrews 2, 5 through 9 once again. It says, for he has not put the world to come of which we speak in subjection to angels, but one testified in a certain place saying, what is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under your feet. And then it says for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But he says, but now we do not yet see all things put under him. And what he's saying is, as we look around, this isn't very good dominion taking. There's a lot of chaos in the world that mankind has not done a good job of subduing the earth. But then he says, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. And so he's saying that Jesus is the man who fulfilled the dominion mandate in one sense by overcoming the opposition of sin and death through his redemption and enables us then to begin to fulfill the dominion mandate as we were designed to do, which is to bring glory to God in all that we do in life. And we can only do that as Jesus restores us in knowledge and righteousness and holiness, as he redeems us from our sins and sets us on the right path to do his will in the creation that around us. Now, what an amazing thing it is that God would give us the privilege of ruling over his creation. We always do it under his lordship. He's always supreme above us, but he has made this creation to be taken control of for his glory. And we do this as we do the will of Christ. And the song that is sung in Revelation five tells us that Christ is redeeming people from all over the earth to bring glory and praise and honor to God, which is the very purpose for which all this had been done at the beginning. Revelation five nine, it says, you are worthy to take the scroll to open its seals for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth. And so you see the promise of redemption is that we're going to reign. We're going to reign over this creation and we're going to subdue it for the glory of God. And we're going to bring honor to his name for all of eternity. This is what Jesus has done. And so it's very important, brothers and sisters, that we read Psalm 8. in light of the redemption of Christ. It is a messianic psalm in one sense because the son of man, Jesus, was the one that restored what has been so broken in God's creation and restores us to worship and to the honor of God. So what is our mission in the earth? As we come back to that beginning question that I asked at the beginning, why do we exist? Why do I exist? I exist to be used as an instrument in God's hand to restore his honor and praise in the earth. And it is for all of us to use the gifts and talents we have to use our voices, to use our hands, to bring glory to God and all that we do. That's the aim of the Christian life, that God would be glorified in us. If we live for ourselves and we ignore our chief end, then we dishonor God and we hurt ourselves because we were not made to glorify ourselves. But if we live for God under the Lordship of Christ, redeemed from our sins and set free to serve God, we fulfill the purpose for which we were made. And as we do that, we'll begin to experience the joy that David was expressing at the beginning of the psalm. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. And we'll be able to say that from a heart of sincere gratitude and joy because we have experienced the redemption of the son of man who has set us back into the position that we were to occupy from the beginning. And so let us give thanks to God for our time in the psalm that we might learn this life of worship as well. Let's pray. Oh God and Father, we praise you as a God, the God excellent over all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. We have seen the wonders that are all around us. And we confess that many times we have fallen short giving glory to your name. And we have not wondered as we should, we have not been humble as we should be. But we ask that through the teaching of the psalm that you might teach us the right way of thinking, the right life of worship, and that we might through the redemption of Jesus become those that glorify you in all that we do. We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen.