Psalm 8: What is Man that You Are Mindful of Him?

Psalm 8:3-4 "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?"

We turn our attention this week to the psalms of praise. I don't know about you, but I'm super excited to look at the psalms this week to see why and how we ought to praise the Lord. This morning, we turn to a more popular psalm that utters the following phrase: What is man that you are mindful of him? Perhaps you have heard this phrase before, or perhaps you haven't. Nevertheless, this morning we are going to find out what it means, and how we ought to praise the Lord for it.

In Psalm 8, David starts out by recalling the deeds of the Lord. Specifically, David highlights the deeds that the Lord has done in the heavens, that is, "the moon and the stars, which [God has] set in place" (3). To David, the moon and stars were great proclaimers of God's handiwork, and therefore his majesty and splendor. David, through the revelation of the stars, could see a small glimpse of how wonderful God truly was. Therefore, it led him to ask this question: What is man that you are mindful of him?

The beauty of this question is found in its context. As we just discussed, David is considering the glorious works of the Lord, most notably in the heavens. In response to this, David asks the Lord why he would ever care for human beings, since they are such a small part of his creation. If we were to put David's question here in modern terminilogy, it might be put like this: "God, because you are so majestic and great, why do you care about me? Don't you have other things that are more important than me that you could be caring about?" And this is where we see the beauty of what David is saying here: Although we are but a small part of God's creation, God still takes great care and pride in us. He makes us only but a little lower than the angels (5) and gives us dominion over all the earth (6-8). Even though we are but a tiny part of God's creation, he is mindful of us. He does care for us, and he does not forget us.

So what? Oh, dear reader, if this statement doesn't make you wonder in awe of who God is, I encourage you to read it again. The response to the Lord's care for us amidst his great splendor is praise, which we find in verse 9: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" The application this morning is to merely behold and praise the God who cares for his children even when he didn't have to--even when galaxies upon galaxies were created by him as well. Nevertheless, God is still mindful of us. He still cares about us, and he still sent his Son to die for us. Glory be to God forevermore!

P.S. There are two absolutely wonderful songs that proclaim the same ideas of this song. I encourage you to listen to them if you haven't heard them before:

"Who am I" by Casting Crowns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XHXUqXV34w

"Cannons" by Phil Wickham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0YiRav-Gn4