The Lord Shows His Excellence In All The Earth

Our weekly work is not simply about earning our pay so that we can cover the bills and fund our hobbies and afford our holidays. We have a job to do, entrusted by God with authority over his creation. God gives us gifts, and God gives us opportunities, and God even gives ambition and resources, so that we would work hard in the world He has made. We serve God by our work as well as by our rest, by work as well as by worship.

It means we should seek to do our tasks with integrity and honour. When we are involved in business, or in education, or in a trade, or in the home—wherever in the creation God calls us to work—we have an opportunity to live out our God-given mandate. It begins with our awareness: “This is a job that I am doing for God.” Yes, whatever that job is: “This is a job I am doing for God.” And it continues with our firm resolve, “Let me do this job, and pursue this project, and answer this calling with diligence, with honesty, with hard work. I want to do it to glorify the LORD who made me.”

That all sounds very positive. And some people have read Psalm 8 and asked why it doesn’t mention sin. Where is the mankind’s fall from glory here? Where is our depravity? But it’s there. In verse 4 David uses a Hebrew word for ‘man’ that emphasizes our smallness, weakness, even our sinfulness. We might translate it, “What are miserable mortals that you are mindful of them?” We are weak. We fail all the time. We don’t deserve our high position—we never have, and we still don’t.

But even after we rebelled against our Creator, God didn’t give up. The Lord had every reason to crush those who bore his image. He could have wiped humanity away and forgotten them, yet God was mindful of us. And this has resulted in God’s excellence shining even more clearly. For the glorious God first stooped down to create us, then He stooped down to save us.

God the LORD even comes to us in his covenant. The LORD God enters into a relationship of love with sinners, and He promises to wash us clean from sin. To believers and their children God shows such grace. This moves us to ask in humble worship, “Who am I, that you are mindful of me?”

God is gracious because from the beginning, He promised a Saviour. The Christ would be born, for a time no more than a simple child, then a man, dying on the cross. How great is God, that He would send his own Son as a mortal man to die for sinners!

That’s what really turns up the volume of praise in this Psalm, when we sing it in the name of Christ. Hebrews 2 tells us about how in Jesus, God ‘visited’ his small planet. He was utterly humbled, for Christ was made like his brothers in every respect, and spent his life among sinners. But in his life and death, Jesus offered everything to God’s glory.

As his reward Jesus received all authority, not just on earth but also in heaven. Hebrews says that because of his perfect sacrifice, all things—angels, principalities, lords and rulers, the whole universe—all things have been placed under him.

Now we’re allowed to share in Christ’s perfect dominion. His triumph over death is our triumph. His rule over Satan is our rule. Through Christ and his Spirit, God is restoring us to what He wants us to be, in righteousness and holiness. God is renewing us so that one day we can reign with him over all.