When David looks at himself against creation he feels so insignificant and inferior. You may feel you are nobody and God does not pay attention. In this Psalm you can see that you are somebody. We can feel good about ourselves because God says we are somebody.

1 – The mystery of man (vs. 1-4)

• In relation to the creation (vs. 3) – David was impressed by God’s creation. David thought he was seeing it all. Today we know that there was much more than what David could see. There is much that we can still not see. We have not travelled very far in space. We can’t travel at the speed of light. (186,000 miles a second). What if we could? We could reach the moon in a little over 2 second. It would take 8 minutes to reach the sun. It takes us four years to get to the next nearest star. It would take 10,000 years to leave our own galaxy. It would take ten billion years to leave the universe as we know it now. See Isaiah 40:26. Man now knows that the stars are innumerable. The creation of the universe was a simple work for God. See Genesis 1:16 – “He made the stars also”.
• In relation to the creator (vs. 4) – Man is a bit of weak dust in relation to his creator. It was the work of God’s fingers to create the Universe. It was nothing to God. It is amazing that God pays any attention to man. Yet God thinks about us. He thinks about you more than you could imagine. See Psalm 40:5-6. We are somebody because God thinks about us. We have his attention and affection. We are valuable because God loves us. Your soul is valuable to God.

2 – The majesty of man (vs. 5-9)

God has made man a little lower than the angels and crowned him with honour. The evolutionist places us a little higher than the animals. We are in the image of God. The humanist thinks that man is the centre of the universe. Man is a creation of God. The creation of man was “very good” rather than just “good”.

• Man is designed to be in dominion over all other things. He is to rule the animal creation and all the natural forces in the world in which he lives, and to exercise that dominion in an effective way. He is not talking about man’s ability to force the animal creation to obey him. What he is describing is the relationship God intended in which the animals would willingly serve man. We get a little picture of it in man’s ability to tame the animals. You may have pet dogs or cats at home — even birds, turtles, or snakes. You have tamed them, i.e., they willingly, gladly, cheerfully submit to you — most of the time. That is a small reflection of what this Psalmist is describing. It is a demonstration of the willingness of the created world to obey man.
• We do not yet see all creation in subjection to man” (Hebrews 2:8). That is clearly true. It is so obvious today. Here we are facing the fact that man has been so twisted and perverted by the fall that instead of running the creation he is ruining it. He is polluting the air and consuming natural resources at a prodigious rate. He is befouling the waters and the soil and making it almost impossible for human life to continue. We must face this. There is no way out of it. It stares at us in the face every time we turn around. Each time we take a breath we experience the terrible evidence for the truth of what the writer says in Hebrews “We do not yet see all things in subjection to man.” We find no way out.
• God has crowned Jesus with the glory and honour which he had intended for man at the beginning – See Hebrews 2:9. In seeing Jesus we see that God yet intends to fulfil his original creation. Watch the Lord Jesus in the gospel record. The first thing he does is to change water into wine at a wedding feast. He short-circuited the process that is taking place in every vineyard in California right at this moment and thus changed water into wine. But he did not do that as God; he did it as man; man as God intended man to be. When he quieted the winds and the waves with the word, “Peace, be still,” (Mark 4:39), and the wind whimpered and stopped its blowing and the waves quieted down, the disciples looked at one another and said, “What manner of man is this?” (Mark 4:41 KJV).They did not realize that what he had done was not done out of his inherent deity, but as a man indwelt by God. As Jesus himself said, “It is not I who do the works; it is the Father who dwells in me, he does the works,” (John 14:10). When he broke the loaves and fishes and fed the five thousand he did not do that as God; he did that as man — man ruling over creation, man fulfilling the intention of God for man. All the other natural miracles which he performed he did not as God but as man. Thus the writer of Hebrews says, “We see Jesus” (Hebrews 2:9) … the beginning of a new humanity God is building.

Paul says in Chapter 8 of Romans that the whole creation is eagerly looking forward to the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. God is not going to be defeated by the wickedness and foolishness of man. You are somebody! Don’t let anyone tell you that you are nobody. It is God who determines who you are. You are somebody. God has more in store for us in the future.

Categories: Psalms