Special!
(Psalm 8)
1. Some people are truly special:
Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A 95-year-old California man known to neighbors as "Bicycle Bob" was treated to a celebration after he logged his 100,000th mile of cycling… he took up cycling when he retired in the 1990s and has been logging his miles ever since.
Mettauer logged his 100,000th mile Tuesday and was treated to a celebration by friends and neighbors at Casa Grande Senior Mobile Estates in Santa Maria.
Mettauer said he rides his bike 9 miles every day, regardless of the weather.
The cycling enthusiast said he plans to take a few days to rest after reaching the 100,000 mile mark, but he has no plans to quit his hobby.
2. The truth is, every person is special for a lot of reasons. I have often been impressed with the depth of each person I have had the privilege of knowing. Some can do crafts, art, music, athletics, writing, reading, gardening – or even been war heroes.
3. Although the Bible tells us that all of us are blighted by sin, it is an amazing thing to be a human being. It is important to appreciate that fact, especially considering the many places in the world where human life is not properly cherished, and even in the best society, many violate the dignity of what it means for each person to be in the image of God.
Pslam 8 is a psalm of praise, although secondarily a psalm of the revelation of God in nature. Much of this psalm praises God for His creation of mankind.
Main idea: If we are so special, how special God must be!
I. The Majesty of God’s NAME (1-2, 9)
A. As a THESIS to evidence (1-2)
God’s Name represents His reputation and character.
His personal Name is Yahweh.
His Name is to be hallowed, even His titles. So we avoid saying “Oh my God” or “Good God.”
We set it apart, and do not use it as we would common speech, reverently.
God’s Name is so powerful that He does not need might men to reinforce it – even children are strong enough.
Matthew 21:15, But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant…
4. The Hebrew word (adir) “majestic” means, “that which is superior to something else, and, therefore, that which is majestic (TWOT, Vo. 1, p. 13). Sometimes used of a mantle or cloak as the outer, superior clothing. God’s Name is clothed with majestic superiority.
B. As a CONCLUSION to draw (9)
II. The Majesty of God’s Creation, Particularly MANKIND (3-8)
A. The creation we OBSERVE (3)
B. The philosophical QUESTION we ask (4)
The fact that we can ask the question, “What is man” sets us above the animal kingdom. Life, animated life, animated life with a spiritual nature.
The ability to discuss things before God sets us above the animal kingdom.
The Psalmist is overwhelmed that God even takes us into account.
According to the BBC, “Today we are fairly confident that the Milky Way is probably between 100,000 and 150,000 light years across. The observable Universe is, of course, much larger. According to current thinking it is about 93 billion light years in diameter…”
According to the European Space Agency, “For the Universe, the galaxies are our small representative volumes, and there are something like 1011?to 1012?stars in our Galaxy, and there are perhaps something like 1011?or 1012?galaxies.
With this simple calculation you get something like 1022?to 1024?stars in the Universe. This is only a rough number, as obviously not all galaxies are the same, just like on a beach the depth of sand will not be the same in different places.
The Psalmist cannot imagine how such a big God could care about us.
Psalm 139:1-4, O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
C. The DIGNITY of being human (5-8).
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” Genesis 1:26
Elohim: God, angels, or both?
D. The Hebrews 2:5-9 MIDRASH
1. The verses: For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
2. The implications:
“Therefore, if the true dignity of the first Adam is strongly set forth, the whole description obviously finds its fullest realization in Jesus Christ” (H.C. Leupold).
By being human, we are in the image of God and a little lower than the angels. Because we are in Christ, we will one day be above the angels in authority.
Hebrews 1:14, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”
I Corinthians 6:3, “Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!”
Jude 1:6, “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—"
III. Conclusion: Man’s dominion over nature is his second job. His first is to GLORIFY God.
Notice that the psalm begins and ends with an emphasis on God’s majesty.
One snowy winter, a man I know pulled out a driver from off the road with his pickup truck. The man never said “thank you,” so he pushed him back in.
Sometimes we are that man, but God doesn’t push us back.
It is easy to be so busy enjoying the blessings God gives us that we forget God or relegate Him to leftover time/energy, which means usually not much at all.
God, instead, needs to be the top priority.
So many Christians can’t seem to find time to come to church or watch on line. We have time to watch movies, but not read our Bibles. We have time to go to sports events, but not to pray. Why is that?
Are you ready to put God first? It is not a big decision, but a decision to make thousands of little decisions.
