"Created for Me!"
What is the title of this Psalm 8?
To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
Read Psalm 8:1-2
1 YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still/destroy the enemy and the avenger.
What “refrain” begins this psalm?
"YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
Majestic/Mighty NAME of God. This refers to the God of history - His name is the action He has done for His people. (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob DID these things for this people.)
Notice the contrast - great glory & strength that destroys enemies... proclaimed by weak little babies. God love to work under opposites. Consider how he did his greatest work of salvation - a shameful bloody death on a cross.
Read Psalm 8:3-4
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of/ remember him, and the son of man that you care for/visit/attend to him?
BUT, He also cares for mankind - it reminds us how important we are to God in His creation.
**“Remember” – So does God have a faulty memory and is forgetful - and then remembers? No, rather this is when he acts. (See Gen 8:1 – God remembered Noah… Gen 30:22 God remembered Rachel) God's ACTION is when he remembers (does) his promises!
Read 8:5-8
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
What is God’s great work for mankind?
Mankind was made to rule over creation ("dominion") – This is a reminder of Genesis 1.
Don't you just LOVE the created order God set up?
Even better, this good creation is FOR us. Mankind is special to God. He made it, He gave it.
**Read Bonhoeffer Psalms The Prayer Book of the Bible, “The Creation”. These Psalms teach us that our Creator loves us so much that He gave us a Redeemer.
What is the purpose of this Psalm/prayer?
Praise for God's work
Description of creation and man's place in it.
How did Christ fulfill this psalm?
God cares for His created people and wants His world to be good.How can we pray this?
Praise God for our place in creation – amazing that he has cared for us so much!Praise God for the lengths he went to restore our place in creation - reconciliation through Christ.
WE PRAY:
(1) Our Father who art in heaven.
What does this mean? God would thereby [with this little introduction] tenderly urge us to believe that He is our true Father, and that we are His true children, so that we may ask Him confidently with all assurance, as dear children ask their dear father.
(2) Give us this day our daily bread.
What does this mean? God gives daily bread, even without our prayer, to all wicked men; but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to KNOW IT, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.
What is meant by daily bread? Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as meat, drink, clothing, shoes, house, homestead, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful magistrates, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.
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