There is in the Holy Scriptures a book that is different from all other books in the Bible in that this book contains only prayers. We continue our study of the Old Testament book of Psalms.

From the days of Jesus Christians have used this book as a book for daily prayer - they have learned to pray and ordered their prayers by praying psalms themselves everyday. Even today one may buy any number of books concerning the practice of praying the Psalms. For Christians interested in learning better to pray and how to pray and for what to pray, it is a good habit to read and then to pray the Psalms daily. I recommend it.

Many churches read or sing the Psalms every Sunday or even daily in succession. At the beginning of their worship on Sundays, one of the elders of the Petrovsky church always reads one of the Psalms. This, too, is a good practice because only in this way do Christians appropriate the divine prayer book.

Today’s Psalm I have selected for our reading and praying is Psalm number 8...

1
The Hebrew actually reads this way:
"Oh Jehovah, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth."

The Lord’s name is Jehovah which is translated "I AM WHO I AM". This name is majestic, it is magnificent, it is stately, it is great - first by virtue of what the name represents and reveals to us about God; that God exists, that God is a personal being who exists on his own, who is eternal without beginning or end, and for whom there is no comparison. This is the God we have come to worship and to whom we pray and sing and listen this morning.

But the Psalm expresses other matters that point to the majesty of the name of our God.

1b
God’s glory is above the heavens. Where is "above the heavens"? It is somewhere or some dimension beyond the heavens. At the dedication of the temple Solomon said, "The heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple..." (1 Kings 8:27)

How big and vast are the heavens? We don’t know - we only know that the heavens of which we are aware are millions and millions of light years across. Is it possible to reach the end of the heavens? And if so, what would the end consist of? How is it possible for space to end?

But this prayer states a dramatic truth - that as far as the heavens are, God is farther and he is greater. His glory is above the heavens which makes God holy, " a cut above" the creation, above and beyond the creation.

2
God’s name is praised over the whole earth. Even babies praise God. The first cry of each newborn baby is an eloquent expression of praise to the God who made us.

"Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the song
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble." (Peterson’s The Message)


When we look at a newborn baby, our thoughts automatically turn to the existence and power of an Almighty God. A newborn baby speaks volumes of the existence and glory of the Creator revealing and praising the majesty of God throughout all the earth.

3
"I consider the moon and the stars and the vastness of the heavens." One of my favorite exercises is to ask people to consider the vastness of the heavens. Our solar system is within a huge cluster of stars called the Milky Way. The sun is only one of millions of stars in this galaxy. Scientists tell us that light travels at 186,000 miles per second, and they have computed how long it would take a beam of light to travel across our galaxy called the Milky Way. Can you guess how long? 100,000 years!

Now keep in mind I am only talking about one galaxy, the Milky Way. Do you know how many other galaxies scientists say exist? What if I told you millions and maybe billions of other galaxies? That is what we know exists. We know much more than David concerning the seemingly infinite vastness of the heavens. So his question should very much be our question:

4
Our planet is so small in the grand scheme of the universe, such a tiny speck in the vastness that makes up the heavens. And people are even tinier specks on the surface of the earth.

Yet, God is mindful of us. He is aware of every human being. He knows everything about each one of us. He notices what is going on. And he cares for every person, so much so that he gave his only Son... (Jn. 3:16)

And one has to wonder "Why?" Why did he bother to create us? Why does He bother to observe? Why does he so much care?

5
David confesses what all Christians confess, that God made us. The science books our children read in the public schools teach them that no one made us, that we just happened, that we are only one of a series of accidents on our way to the final accident.

But this prayer is an eloquent statement of what we as Christians believe, that God made us. Scientists keep looking for life elsewhere in the universe, and they may someday find the existence of such life. But it is interesting and significant that in all their search they have yet to find even one shred of life anywhere in this vast expanse of the universe except on our own little planet. God made us and so far as we know (even scientifically), life exists only on this planet, and we are the only humans God has made anywhere in the universe.

Furthermore, God made us "a little lower than the angels", "a little lower than the heavenly beings", "a little lower than God" himself. Children are being taught from kindergarten through college that we are only a little higher than the monkeys, but not by much - and some of us aren’t even that, that there is no inherent difference in the value of human life and other forms of life. Indeed, there are the endangered species which are illegal to kill who are treated as being of more value than the human embryo or the unborn baby which it is quite legal to kill.

Here again, the prayer eloquently affirms what we profess to believe, that men are alone made in the image of God, that we have a dignity and a value that animals do not have, that we are made with a special honor and glory that no animal has, that we are more than just evolved dogs or mutated monkeys.

And not only does the prayer express wonder that God made us a little lower than God, but ...

6-8
God has made us with a reason in mind and for a purpose - that we might have dominion, that we might master the creation and rule over it including all the animals and including, I presume, our own inner selves.

The world tells us and our schools teach our kids that really life just happened by accident and not by any so-called God, that there is therefore no ultimate or particular purpose to life at all. It really doesn’t matter what we do with our lives because human life just accidentally happened and there is no purpose for our being here. You are born by accident, you live for a a few years, you die and are remembered no more, and so in the long run nothing really matters. Without God, this is the conclusion we are simply forced to believe. Life is an accident. We have not been put here on purpose for a purpose. What we do and how we live life doesn’t really matter.

But David’s prayer beautifully expresses a most wonderful Christian conviction: that God has made us on purpose and for a purpose, that God made us to master the universe and to master ourselves and to master our sinful tendencies, that what we do and how we live life matters tremen- dously both now and for eternity.

"Oh Jehovah, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth."

The majesty of Jehovah’s name is expressed in babies and children, in the vast expanse of the heavens, in the glory and honor of every human being, and in the purpose God has given to us. "Oh Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth."