440_Man created for God’s glory Psalm 8 O Lord, 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 the enemy and the avenger. 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 him, and the son of man that you care for him? 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. 9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Years ago, a well-known astronomer lectured publicly on the universe. He spoke about galaxies billions of light-years away, of stars thousands of times larger than our sun, of nebulae that glowed with colors we would never see with the naked eye. After the lecture, a small boy approached him timidly and asked, “Sir, if the universe is so big and we are so small, do we really matter at all?” The astronomer had no answer. But Psalm 8 does. David, the shepherd-king of Israel, asked the same question centuries earlier as he looked up into the night sky. His heart was overwhelmed with of all he saw. But he also realized that God, the Maker of so much beauty and grandeur, cares about man. It is an astonishing truth. God knows each of us, not in general but personally and thoroughly. This is not because of our greatness - but because God is great. Psalm 8 opens and closes with the same majestic refrain: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” David begins with an upward look rather than looking inward at himself. His gaze is filled with God. He calls him “Yahweh,” by the name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush, the name by which God made a covenant with his people Israel. He also calls him “Adonai,” meaning Master or Sovereign. He is the God who exists of himself, uncreated, sovereign, the God and King of Israel and of all the earth. God, eternal and uncreated, wise beyond all measure, immeasurably creative, — the One who made galaxies and atoms, the One whose voice thunders and whispers — makes Himself known to human beings. More than that, He has entered into a covenant with them. And this is of his own free choice. God’s name, expressing His character and His deeds, is recognized as that of the king, unique in all the earth. When God delivered Israel at the Red Sea, they sang, “Who is like you, O Lord,