Jesus throughout the Scriptures: Psalms 1 (4)
Pray Psalm 8.1, 2.
O 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.
Sing Psalm 8.1, 2.
(Aurelia: The Church’s One Foundation)
O LORD our Lord how great is Your Name in all the earth!
The heav’ns display Your glory, and tell Your wondrous worth!
From babes and nursing infants, LORD, let Your strength increase,
’til all Your foes surrender, and all their boasting cease.
Read Psalm 8; meditate on verse 4.
Preparation
1. To what do the heavens bear witness?
2. Why did God make people?
Meditation
What a privilege, blessing, and charge are granted us as the image-bearers of God! Not only may we discern the glory of God in great things—the heavens—and small—a nursing infant, but God deigns to visit us every day (Job 7.17, 18) and, by His Word and Spirit, to remind us of our charge—to exercise dominion in His Name—and equip us for each day’s work.
But now, the writer of Hebrews observed, we do not yet see our charge being fully accomplished (Heb. 8. 9). As true as that was toward the end of the first century, it’s just as true in ours. The task seems impossible. People and their cultures and societies nurse at the breast of God’s common grace, then go their way to deny, reject, and scorn Him and His salvation. And we in the Church have become content with a Gospel that is true but narrow, confined merely to whatever we choose to do in or through our church.
But “all things” is bigger than that. It includes all our relationships, roles, and responsibilities; and in the larger scenario, all of creation, culture, and society. All things. God calls us, every believer in Jesus, to extend the rule of His righteousness, peace, and joy throughout our Personal Mission Field, our community, and our world, that the reality of the Kingdom, coming on earth as it is in heaven, may be increasingly known.
But now, though we do not yet see this happening, we do not despair, because we see Jesus. We gaze, with the eyes of faith, upon His beauty and goodness. We bask in His truth. We seek to be transformed into His image. And, as we do, He makes us more like Himself and gives us the power of His living Word and Holy Spirit to restore the reconciled world for God’s glory.
Psalm 8 presents a great privilege and an impossible task. It leaves us crying out, “O God, visit us to help us fulfill our charge!” And He is pleased to satisfy that deep longing by sending Jesus and His Kingdom.
Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
In the superscription for Psalm 8, David noted that the instrument he used to accompany his song was from Gath—plundered, no doubt, from his enemies (1 Sam. 17.4). So, the psalm starts on a victorious note.
But then he asks us to ponder an existential question, stated thus:
“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?” (Ps. 8.3, 4).
“LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him?
Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow” (Ps. 144.3, 4).
“What is man, that You should exalt him,
that You should set Your heart on him,
that You should visit him every morning,
and test him every moment?” (Job 7.17, 18).
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights,
with Whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Of His Own will He brought us forth by the word of truth,
that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (Jms. 1.17, 18).
Jesus is The Good and Perfect Gift. God sent Him for us.
We are the beneficiaries of His Gift.
Our only response then, to the question at hand–why?
Why would God create us, love us, be mindful of us, and set His heart on us?
Silence.
We cannot answer why God created man,
nor why He made covenants with man,
nor why He chose to forgive and save man.
We can only respond as David did:
O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your Name in all the earth!” (Ps. 8.1, 9)
But then there is this amazing truth:
Jesus said,
“You did not choose Me,
but I chose you
and appointed you
that you should go and bear fruit,
and that your fruit should remain…” (Jn. 15.16).
Playing some tunes on an instrument of Gath.
Victorious in Him.
“How excellent is Your Name in all the earth!” Jesus.
Reflection
1. What do you do during your visits with the Lord each day? What is God’s purpose for these visits?
2. What does it mean for you to “have dominion” in your Personal Mission Field?
3. Jesus has appointed you to bear fruit. Which fruit?
In Hebrews 2:6-8, the apostle, to prove the sovereign dominion of Christ, shows he is that Man, that Son of man, here spoken of, whom God has made to have dominion over the works of his hands. The greatest favor ever showed to the human race, and the greatest honor ever put upon human nature, were exemplified in the Lord Jesus. Matthew Henry (1662-1714), Commentary on Psalm 8
Pray Psalm 8.3-9.
What has God given you to do today? Offer it to Him in prayer, asking that He will glorify Himself in all your work, and that you will know Him present with you, to strengthen and bless you.
Sing Psalm 8.3-9.
(Aurelia: The Church’s One Foundation)
When I regard the heavens, the work of Your own hand,
the moon and stars which all in their courses You command,
then what am I, O Savior, that You take thought of me,
or I should know Your favor and thus delivered be?
Yet we in Your own image with glory have been crowned,
to worship and to serve You throughout creation ‘round.
These works that sing Your glory in our poor hands are placed,
that we may rule before You to magnify Your grace.
Let every beast and creature, in sky or sea or field,
in our hands bring You glory as we Your favor wield.
Let all things sing Your praises, let all declare Your worth!
O LORD our Lord how great is Your Name in all the earth!
T. M. and Susie Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.
