Psalm 8:1-9; A Psalm of Wonder

Jason Sterling June 22, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin

Thank you for listening! Please visit us at www.faith-pca.org.

Episode Transcript

Jason Sterling (00:00):
If you have a copy of God's Word, turn with me
.
Psalm chapter 8 this morning.
We're continuing our journeythis summer through various
psalms.
In the last three weeks we havebeen looking at psalms of
lament.
Thought we would change thepace a little bit this morning
and look at this Psalm 8, whichis a psalm of wonder and a psalm

(00:23):
of praise.
This is one of the most belovedand recognizable passages in
the book of Psalms.
I think you'll see what I meanas we read.
Follow along with me.
This is God's word.
Oh Lord, our Lord, how majesticis your name in all the earth.
You have set your glory abovethe heavens.

(00:44):
Out of the mouths of babies andinfants.
You have established strengthbecause of your foes to steal
the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens,the work of your fingers, the
moon and the stars which youhave set in place, what is man?
That you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you care

(01:06):
for him.
Yet you have made him a littlelower than the angels and
crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominionover the works of your hands.
You have put all things underhis feet, all sheep and oxen and
also the beast of the field,the birds of the heavens and the

(01:27):
fish of the sea, whateverpasses along the paths of the
seas.
Oh Lord, our Lord, how majesticis your name in all the earth.
Let's pray and ask for God'shelp this morning.
Let's pray together, father,please come Anytime we open up
the Scriptures.
We need the Spirit to come andteach us and to correct and show

(01:54):
us Jesus, make our hearts alive, and so that's what I'm asking
that you would give us ears tohear and hearts to receive your
word, this word that you havefor us on this morning.
Be with the one who preaches.
Help me, give me boldness, butalso great humility as I open up
the Bible this morning.
Please be near to us In Jesus'name.

(02:17):
Amen.
King David in Psalm 8, he'sstanding outside on a clear
night and he is looking up atthe moon and the stars.
And as he studies this vastcreation of God and as he
studies the night sky, david isstruck by a question that many

(02:43):
of us have asked, or perhapsyou're even asking this morning
In this vast world, in this vastand magnificent universe, do I
really matter?
Maybe you have felt that sameoverwhelming smallness that

(03:06):
David has felt in this psalm.
Perhaps it hit you when youwere scrolling through social
media and you were comparingyour life to everyone else's
highlight reel around you else'shighlight reel around you.

(03:30):
Or maybe it hit you in thehospital waiting room or at a
graveside when you wereconfronted with your own
mortality and the fragility oflife.
That's when it often hits me.
As a pastor, I'm in and aroundlots of suffering and it seems
like weekly I come home to mywife, susie, and I just simply
say life is so fragile.
Maybe you have felt thatsmallness when you realized that

(03:55):
your greatest achievement inlife quickly fades from the
memory and in a short no oneremembers, nor do they really
care.
For example, who can rememberthe Super Bowl champions from

(04:15):
two or three years ago?
Maybe you can, but oftentimeseven accomplishments that are
watched and viewed by millionsquickly fade and are forgotten.
You might have felt thatsmallness when you're staring at
a stack of bills and everyonearound you seems to be doing

(04:38):
just fine and completely hasthings figured out.
Or maybe it comes when you areoverwhelmed by parenting and the
task ahead, and we could go onand on and on.
One of the deepest cries ofevery human heart is do I matter
?

(05:00):
David answers that question inthis psalm, and his answer will
transform how we see ourselves,transform how we see our purpose
and our place in God's world.
In order for us to betransformed, we need to consider
three things we see from thispassage.

(05:23):
Consider three things we seefrom this passage God's majesty,
the first thing we need toconsider.
Secondly, our place in creationand then, lastly, consider our
calling.
So, consider God's majesty,consider our place in God's
world, in creation, and lastly,consider our calling.

(05:45):
Let's jump into that.
Let's look at our first headingconsider God's majesty.
Look at verse one.
Notice how, david you probablypicked up on this when we were
reading but he structures thisPsalm with bookends that talk
about the greatness of God ohLord, our Lord, how majestic is
your name in all the earth?

(06:05):
And then he describes God'sglory as being set above the
heavens.
And so every time you go outand you look up, you are seeing
an intentional display of God'smajesty and glory.
Look at verse three glory.

(06:28):
Look at verse three.
When I look, the newinternational version says
consider.
So when I consider your heavens, the work look this is an
amazing verse the work of yourfingers, the moon and the stars
which you have set in place.
So think about the word let'sjust walk through this.
Notice the word when.
And so David is describing aspecific moment when he slows
down and he stops.

(06:49):
And he doesn't just look up andglance at the sky above, he
looks up and contemplates it.
There's deep contemplation.
Think about the word consider,gaze intently to examine
carefully something.
And so David isn't just lookingup and going, oh well, that's

(07:14):
great, that's beautiful.
No, he stops.
He is meditating on thevastness of God's world and the
vastness of God's creation.
And notice what captures him.
You see it in the verse thework of God's fingers.
Think about the work and theprecision work of fingers.

(07:39):
Think about a skilled surgeondoing a very difficult surgery.
Or think about an artist whouses their fingers and their
hands to create very finedetails in a painting or in a
drawing or sketch of some sort.
David looks up at the moon andthe stars and he sees them as

(08:05):
the delicate finger work of God.
Verse 3 again, look at the endSet in place.
Every star has been set inplace with divine intention.
Nothing is random, everythingis deliberately positioned in

(08:29):
God's world and in his universe.
And that leads David to thisprofound question.
Look at verse four.
What is mankind?
What is man?
That you are mindful of him?
Important to note.
He's not asking if God cares.
He knows God cares.
That is assumed.
But he is astounded in thismoment and amazed in this moment

(08:57):
at why the creator of this vastworld would think about and
consider and be mindful offragile, small, mortal human
beings like us.
Think about this the neareststar to us is 4.2 light years

(09:24):
away.
Let me put that in perspective.
If you were to get in your car,set the cruise at 75, whatever
highway speed you go and you didnot stop, it would take you 30
million years to get to thenearest star.
Years to get to the neareststar.

(09:52):
It's estimated that in ourgalaxy there is over a hundred
billion stars and yet this God,who set each of those in place
with his fingers, knows you byname and is mindful of you
personally.
I feel like stopping the service.
Let's do the benediction, chris, come up and let's fall down on

(10:15):
our face and let's worship,because that is amazing and it
should stop us.
Notice the progression God'sgreatness leads to contemplation
.
The contemplation you see ithere leads to perspective, and
that perspective leads to thisfundamental question about our

(10:37):
place in the world.
David is not having a crisis offaith.
He's having a moment of clarity.
And in that moment of clarityit doesn't paralyze David and he
doesn't go whoa pitiful me.
It drives him up to God, notaway from God.

(10:59):
And so when you're lying awakeat 2 am and you're worried about
your children and you'reworried about your health and
you're worried about yourfinances and you're worried
about your relationship statusand you're worried about your
future, consider this.

(11:20):
Consider Psalm 8, that the onewho put the stars in place is
mindful of you.
When you feel small, when youfeel invisible and forgotten, in
whatever context that is foryou, walk outside on a clear

(11:42):
night and look up If there aretoo many lights around you.
Drive outside of Birmingham ona clear night and look up If
there are too many lights aroundyou.
Drive outside of Birmingham,lay down, look up in content,
don't glance.
Don't glance.
Consider and contemplate thecreation of God and remember

(12:04):
that the God who put the starsin place knows your name and he
cares for you and knows andcares about the details of your
life.
The question is not whether ornot you will feel small in this
world.
Of course you will.
We all have those feelings whenwe're overwhelmed by life or
whatever the circumstances mightbe.
The question is what do you dowith that feeling?

(12:27):
Will you let it drive you todespair, or will you let it
drive you up, drive you to lookup at the God who is mindful of
you?
Secondly, let's consider ourplace in creation.
It gets even better, believe itor not.
Look at verse five.

(12:48):
Yet you have made him humanbeings, a little lower than the
heavenly beings.
Follow the footnote If you havethe ESV, the English Standard
Version, and you'll see there alittle lower another way to
translate it is than God andcrowned him with glory and honor

(13:12):
.
This is a stunning reversalthat changes absolutely
everything in our lives, if wecan grab hold of this inside of
our hearts.
He's contemplating how fragilelife is in God's vast creation,
and fragile we are.
And then he starts talkingabout our unique position in

(13:34):
creation as human beings.
Our elevated position increation as human beings, a
little higher than the animalsbut lower than God, echoes, of
course, of Genesis, chapter 1.
Human beings, the pinnacle ofcreation, made in the image of
God, reflecting the glory of Godin ways that other parts of

(13:55):
creation?
Do not.
But here's what really got methis week.
But here's what really got methis week.
Did you notice the coronationlanguage in the second part of
the verse?
God has crowned humanity withhis own glory and honor, and

(14:22):
this isn't an earned crown.
This isn't an earned dignityand glory.
It is bestowed upon us by God.
You did not crown of glory andhonor on your head.

(14:47):
One of my favorite books ofrecent years is Theo of Golden.
If you've been around me anylength of time, you've probably
heard me talk about this book.
It's a book by Alan Levi andit's a story about an
86-year-old man who leaves hissophisticated life in New York
City and moves to this smallsouthern town in Georgia and he

(15:09):
walks into a coffee shop and hesees 92 portraits of people in
the town and in the communityand something moves him and he
decides that these portraitsneed to go to their owner.
They need to go to the owner ofthe portraits or whoever the

(15:30):
portrait is.
Whoever I think you get thepicture.
Whoever that picture is ofneeds to go to that person.
And so he decides to take thenext year and he writes a note
and he reaches out to thisperson and he meets them and he
gives them the portrait andstarts to get to know these

(15:51):
people on a deep friendshiplevel.
He befriends an eccentric,homeless woman named Ellen, and
he befriends a young cellist, anartist, a barista, a store
owner, a custodian, a lawyer anda high school student.
He wants them to know theirbeauty and their dignity and

(16:14):
their potential.
Theo sees far more in them thanthey see in themselves and you
know what starts to happen theentire city is transformed.
When people begin to seethemselves, through Theo's eyes,
as worthy of their portraitsbeing painted, as worthy of

(16:37):
being known, as worthy of beingcelebrated, it changes
everything.
They start to treat one anotherdifferently and they start to
recognize the inherent dignityin their neighbors that they had
previously overlooked.
That is exactly what happens ifwe grasp Psalm 8.

(17:08):
If we grasp Psalm 8.
That's what happens if wespecifically grasp verse 5.
When you start to understandthat, by the grace of God, god
has bestowed on you his gloryand honor, it changes you, not
only how you view yourself, butalso the way you treat the other
people around you.
You see, this verse addresses,and this Psalm addresses, the

(17:30):
fundamental question that everyperson asks do I matter?
And David notice where he goeslooking for the answer.
And David notice where he goeslooking for the answer.
He doesn't go down here, hedoesn't go to human achievement
and he had lots of humanachievement.
He doesn't go outside ofhimself, he doesn't go to the

(17:55):
culture, he looks up to God andhe lets God tell him who he is.
And, friends, the fact that Godhas crowned you and given you,
made in the image of God, gloryand honor and dignity.
It addresses both pride anddespair.

(18:17):
If you struggle with feelingsof a poor self-image or if you
are always full of shame andfeeling worthless.
We remember that God, the Godof the universe, he has crowned
you with his glory and honor.

(18:38):
You matter not because of whatyou have accomplished, or what
you accomplish or don'taccomplish, or what your grade
point average is, or how goodyou are morally, or how many
followers you have on socialmedia and whether you're an
influencer or not.
You matter because God says youmatter.
He tells you who you arebecause God says you matter.

(19:05):
He tells you who you are, andmaybe this morning you're a
person that tends to strugglewith pride.
Well, remember that your crownand your glory is bestowed.
It is not earned All the thingsthat you have achieved.
Whatever they are, they aregifts from Almighty God.

(19:27):
Because you are crowned withglory and honor, you can hold
your head high without beingarrogant, and you can bow your
head low without falling intodespair.
Because God says you are royaland you wear a crown without

(19:47):
falling into despair.
Because God says you are royaland you wear a crown, it has
profound, profound implications,too, on how we treat one
another.
And this is when it gets tough,because if God crowns you, we
normally like that.
But it also means God hascrowned others as well.
God has crowned the person inyour workplace or in your school

(20:09):
, or in your family, or in yourchurch or in your neighborhood.
He has crowned the ones thatannoy you and whose views you
despise.
He's given them the same gloryand honor that he's given you.

(20:29):
And think about Theo.
When we begin to see others asworthy of being known and
celebrated and having theirportraits painted, it changes
everything.
I mean, just think about thatwith me for a second and think
about our world.
What would happen if we startedto see all the people around us

(20:51):
as people who have beenbestowed with the crown of glory
and honor just by being humanDoesn't mean you agree with them
about everything.
But if we saw them as humanbeings, created in the image of
God, bearing his image andstarting to recognize God's

(21:12):
glory in people that we tend tooverlook, friends, that would
change our world.
It would change ourneighborhoods and our schools
and our churches and our citiesand our country.
Remember when you wonder, do Imatter?
You know what your heart'scrying out for.

(21:32):
Your heart's crying out for God.
He is the only one that cananswer that question
definitively.
If you look down here for theanswer to that question, it will
destroy you.
If you look to this world andyour accomplishments and the

(21:53):
culture to tell you who you areand to validate you, it will
destroy you.
God made you and he gets totell you who you are, and so
look up and be reminded of whoyou are, that you wear a crown,
and let God answer that questionin your life.

(22:14):
Lastly, consider our calling.
Look at verses six through 8.
David declares that God hasgiven humanity dominion over his
creation.
So another clear allusion toGenesis, chapter 1.
The word dominion here gets atthis idea of care and

(22:36):
stewardship and wisdom andcareful rule.
And so God has put humanity andwe know this from the creation
account in Genesis 1, has puthumanity in charge of caring for
and stewarding creation.
How are we doing?
How are we doing with that?

(23:00):
Well, you start reading theBible and look around.
We have failed, haven't we?
Miserably, as stewards of God'screation?
Think about it this way Pretendyou're going out of town for a
couple of weeks, let's say on atrip.
You get your neighbor over, yousay I need you to take care of

(23:21):
my home and you tell them whereeverything is.
You tell them exactly whatneeds to be done.
You give them a key to yourplace.
You leave.
You come back in two weeks andyou pull up to the driveway and
you say something's not right.
The windows are broken out,your door's left wide open.
The place is a disaster.
The pets are starving becausethey've not been fed, your

(23:44):
garden is trampled, your flowershave not been watered.
They are dying.
Your neighbor, we could say,has failed in the stewardship of
your home.
That is humanity's story.
That is our story with creation.
God entrusted us with hisbeautiful world and we have left

(24:08):
it a mess of our mentally,morally, economically,
technologically, relationally.
We have been terrible stewards.
We have served and used ourdominion to dominate rather than
serve, to exploit rather thancultivate, to take rather than

(24:35):
give.
That's the bad news.
The good news is, the gospeltransforms everything, and you
know how?
In Hebrews, chapter 2, verses 6through 9.
And if you have your Bible open, please turn there, if not
write it down, look this uplater, because it reveals that

(24:58):
this psalm ultimately points toJesus Christ.
The author of Hebrews quotesPsalm 8 and then makes this
critical observation Listen, inputting everything under them,
humanity, god has left nothingthat is not subject to them.

(25:19):
And yet, at the present time,we do not see everything subject
to them.
And yet, at the present time,we do not see everything subject
to them.
In other words, at the presenttime, we look around and it's a
mess.
And this psalm has promisedcomplete dominion, but we see,
in reality we fail to achieve it.
Then comes the gospel.

(25:41):
If you keep reading in Hebrews,chapter 2, listen to this.
I love this, but we do seeJesus.
But we do see Jesus, who madehimself a little lower than the
angels for a little while.
Listen, not crowned with gloryand honor, but with death.

(26:05):
Isn't that astounding?
The hymn in Psalm 8 isultimately not about humanity in
.
It is about Jesus, the perfecthuman, who succeeded where we
have failed.

(26:26):
How did Jesus accomplishdominion over creation?
His life Think about the lifeof Jesus.
He demonstrated perfectdominion with his acts of
restoration and service, ratherthan personal power.
He calmed the storm.
Why?
To bring peace.
He fed the hungry, he healedthe sick.

(26:48):
Why To restore and healcreation.
We also see it in his dominion,his ultimate expression,
through his death, throughmaking himself a little lower
than the angels for a littlewhile, by hanging from a cross,

(27:09):
and he shatters death's holdover humanity.
How, through his resurrection,he ascends into heaven.
He sits at the right hand ofGod, the Father Almighty, now
ruling over creation.
And right now, romans 8 says allof creation is groaning and
waiting for Jesus, our King, toreturn and finally and fully

(27:35):
bring perfect peace to thisworld and perfect dominion to
this world over creation, theway God intended it.
Last question so what do we dountil then?
We don't just say well,whatever, right, no.
Through the power of the HolySpirit, we live out our callings

(27:57):
as redeemed stewards.
As redeemed stewards, god hasredeemed us, not just our souls,
yes, but also our calling.
We're not just saved fromsomething, we're saved to

(28:17):
something and for something, andthat something is to be
caretakers of creation, the wayGod intended us to be.
And so now this is anothersermon, but let me give you a
couple of takeaways and ways toapply this.

(28:43):
Now, united to him, we can beginto exercise dominion as
stewards and serve, rather thanexploit, everything God has
given you, has been placed underyou and under your care to
steward.
And of course we naturally goto the environment.
Of course that's part of this,but it's way broader than that.
It means stewarding your gifts,the gifts that God has given

(29:07):
you.
And so that gets at your workand what God's called you to do.
It gets at how you treat youremployees.
Are you a good steward of thepeople that God has placed under
you?
It gets at the stewardship ofyour family and the stewardship
of your wealth and your money.
And it gets at the stewardshipand how we care for our

(29:30):
neighborhoods and how we carefor the neighbors around us See
how extensive.
And it gets at how we stewardand use our words, and we could
go on and on.
We are called to be different,to be the kind of stewards who
point people to the perfectsteward, jesus Christ, who is

(29:52):
making all things new.
And so, as we close the nexttime, you feel overwhelmed and
you feel small and you wonder inthis vast universe, do you
really matter and does Godreally care?

(30:16):
Do what David did and look upand consider God's glory and
majesty that he has displayed increation.
Consider the crown of glory andhonor that he has placed on
your head and, lastly, consideryour sacred calling that God has
given human beings to stewardthis world with wisdom and care

(30:40):
and love.
Let's pray, father, thank youthat you are mindful of us.
And, holy Spirit, I pray thatwe would live believing that
this week, that you have crownedus and made us in the end, to

(31:02):
the image of God, which is anamazing thing, and I pray that,
through your spirit, you wouldhelp us to see others that way.
And then, lastly, would youhelp us?
It's hard.
We need you, holy Spirit, tohelp us be good stewards of all
that you have given us.
So would you help us in ourlittle corner of this vast world

(31:23):
that you have put us over?
Help us to be good stewards ofit.
We ask these things in Jesus'name, amen.