Illumination Station :: Family Bible Week 2026
Lanse Evangelical Free Church
June 14, 2026 :: Psalm 8
I have seen so many humans in the last two weeks!
I have seen so many humans in the last two weeks as I helped our daughter Robin move across the country to Vancouver Washington in the Pacific Northwest.
Robin and I jumped into her 2003 Ford Ranger stuffed to the gills with her tortoise, her gecko, and her three exotic frogs in the backseat, and we traveled 3,000 miles (with no air conditioning) crossing over 11 states in 6 days.
We saw a lot of America the Beautiful! The spacious skies and amber waves of grain in Nebraska, the towering mountains of Colorado, the high desert mesas of Utah, and the green forests of Oregon ending up on the Columbia River as it empties into the Pacific Ocean.
Robin now lives on the north side of the Columbia across from Portland in the beautiful city of Vancouver in the shadow of Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens. Tomorrow is her first day of work as a Vet Tech. We got her all set up in her new apartment, and thank you for praying that her stuff that we sent ahead arrived ahead of time so that I could help her unload it and unpack it before coming home this week. A wonderful answer to prayer!
I started flying home on Thursday and got as far as Chicago when a major storm canceled flights out of Chicago and into State College. So I had to spend the night in a hotel near O’Hare, and there was a tornado sighting nearby, sirens going off and everything. It was a little too exciting traveling back. But I got home, and eventually my luggage did, too!
So I have been traveling a lot in the last two weeks, and in my travels, I have a seen so many human beings!
And they come in all sorts. Big ones and small ones. Rich ones and poor ones. Red and yellow and black, brown, and white. Some with lots of hair of all kinds of color, some with no hair, much like the top of my head. Men and women and girls and boys. Speaking different languages. Different accents. Different ways of dressing. Human beings in all of their splendid diversity.
I love people-watching, especially in rest areas and hotel lobbies and airports. And as I watched all of these beautiful human beings, I thought about the theology class I’m teaching this year for Family Bible Week.
This, by the way, is the first lesson in the class. Tomorrow night, we’ll have the second lesson. My class is for the adults who are not going to the parents’ class and for the older teens who are not helping with a little kids’ class. Everybody is welcome, and welcome to the first class!
We’re in a ten-year series of classes on systematic theology. In 2024, we studied from article 1 of our EFCA Statement of Faith, the doctrine of God. Last year in 2025, we studied from article 2 of our EFCA Statement of Faith, the doctrine of the Bible. This year, hopefully not surprisingly, we’re studying article 3 of our Statement of Faith, the doctrine of humanity, what we believe about the human condition. Let’s say it together as our Worship in Unity this week. It’s in your worship bulletin, and I also have it up here on the screen:
“We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan. In union with Adam, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God, and under His wrath. Only through God’s saving work in Jesus Christ can we be rescued, reconciled and renewed.”
That’s our topic for the next 5 days. There’s a lot there!
The image of God!
Adam and Eve. Men and women. Male and female.
Satan, temptation, sin.
And salvation through Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.
If you haven’t planned to come yet, please plan now to join us. Dinner is at 5:30 tomorrow night. There will be plenty for everyone. The program starts at 6:15. This is for you.
We’re going to be learning about what it means to be human. To be a human being created in the image of God. All of those humans I saw in my travels were created in the image of God.
Cody referenced that big idea in his message two Sundays ago. Thank you, Cody, for teaching us God’s Word–how and why to glorify God and enjoy Him forever! That’s why we are made. That’s what humans are for. We are made with a special connection to God and are intended to reflect Him to the world. Humans are made to be like mirrors reflecting the glory of God for the world to see.
God is the light (Psalm 27:1, John 8:12). And we are intended to be little mirrors reflecting that light.
And as I was thinking about where to go in holy Scripture to kick off our study of what it means to be a human, part of mankind, my mind kept coming back again and again to Psalm 8.
Especially because in verse 4, King David writes the question into his song:
“What is man?" What is a human being? What does it mean for us to be human?
And King David directs that question at God Himself. Because that’s where we are going to get the real answer to that question.
Everybody has an answer to that question, “What is man?” but so many are just plain wrong.
And what I love about Psalm 8 is that it puts us humans in our place in all the right ways. Psalm 8 puts me in my place.
Psalm 8 is about God. It's an amazing song about our amazing God. It starts and ends with magnificent praise to God, and the middle is full of worship, too. And while King David is leading us in worshipful praise of our magnificent God, he is also, at the very same time, masterfully putting us in our place in all the right ways.
I don't know about you, but I often need to be to put in my place.
I need to be told where I belong, where I fit in the grand scheme of things. So that I don't get too big for my britches. (Or too small for them either.) Psalm 8, while praising God, puts us in our place in all the right ways. Let me show you what I mean. Psalm 8, verse 1.
“For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.
O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.”
Here's my place:
#1. LOOKING UP AT OUR LORD'S MAJESTY.
King David wrote this song “according to gittith.” We don't know what that means. Maybe it's a song for people from Gath or maybe a “gittith” is a musical instrument or musical style. We don't know. But David wrote it and gave it to the director of music for the temple for God's people to sing their hearts out.
And for people who were in church of a certain age, there’s a song that immediately jumps to mind by Michael W. Smith. Anita played it as the prelude this morning.
“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.”
You can just feel the praise pulsing through the psalm! David is joyfully overwhelmed with the glory of God.
He names God here. He uses God's covenant name: YHWH. Whenever you see that capital L-O-R-D in your English Bible, the covenant name for God revealed most gloriously at the burning bush is standing behind it. Yahweh. "O YHWH, our Lord," our sovereign.
King David is singing about His Heavenly King and claiming Him as his. You see that little word “our?” That's a relationship word, isn't it? He isn't just saying, “God, you are majestic.” He is saying, “Our God is majestic.” The one we belong to. The one we are in relationship with.
“O Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
Do you feel it? That word “majestic” means "awesome, magnificent, splendid, beautiful, grand, exalted.” “High and lifted up!”
King David is enthralled by how dazzling, awe-inspiring, sensational, and glorious God is! His name (His reputation, His glory, His name) is majestic, not just here but everywhere, “in all the earth.” Wherever you go, God's glory fills the earth.
And above! “You have set your glory above the heavens.” All creation (in heaven and earth) is a testimony to the glory of God. All things point to the majesty of the name of the LORD. God is transcendent over all.
That puts us in our place, doesn't it? Looking up at the majesty of our God. He is worthy of our worship.
That's one reason why we need to set aside time every day and especially every week just to worship. We come together as a congregation this morning to worship, to declare the majesty of the name of Yahweh. His name deserves our praise. His name deserves our singing! He is transcendent and glorious over all. Amen?
And then, verse 2 is a real surprise to me. It calls for more praise, but the people praising are the surprise. Verse 2.
“From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”
Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but I never see those kids coming in this psalm. The Lord's name is majestic over everything, and He has ordained praise from the lips of children and infants.
From the smallest and the weakest. I guess he's putting us in our place. He doesn't start with the great and the strong. He starts with the humble and weak. When the humble and the weak praise God, there is strength.
That word for “praise” there in verse 2 is literally, “strength.” Strength of praise is the general idea, I think. And when the weakest lift up the name of the LORD, they shame the supposedly strong. They silence the foe and the avenger, the enemies of God.
Remember when Jesus quoted this verse? It was Palm Sunday when Jesus came into town riding on a donkey, the little children praised Him. And it enraged the Pharisees, but Jesus said, in a mic-drop moment, “Haven't you read Psalm 8? That's what the little kids are supposed to do.”
God loves to humble the proud by using the praises of the humble. I love it when the stage up here gets filled with little kids praising God. God loves to humble the proud by using the praises of the humble. Because He deserves it.
“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
How are you doing at looking up at the majesty of our God? Are you worshiping the Lord every single day? Are you seeing how majestic He is in all of the earth? Not just on Sundays when we're singing in here, but on Mondays when you're slogging it out at work?
It helps to get out into creation. I saw a lot of beauty in the last two weeks. Snow-capped mountains. Rushing rivers. The vast ocean. Huge trees. Water falls. Even the high mesas with their massive piles of sand and stone were beautiful in their own way. These all reflect the majesty of God. He made them! In just a minute, we’re going to sing:
“The mountains are His!
The valleys are His!
The stars are His handiwork, too!”
That line comes from Psalm 8. I think that David probably wrote this song at nighttime reflecting on sleepless nights on guard duty as a shepherd on the hillside looking up at the night sky filled with stars and thinking, “My God made those.” Which is very humbling, but also very exhilarating, isn't it?
“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
And then verse 3 is surprising, too. In fact, even David is surprised by it! Look at verse 3.
“When I consider your heavens [YOUR heavens], the work of your fingers [handiwork, like my wife's knitting], the moon and the stars [it's nighttime], which you have set in place...what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”
Do you see David's question? The Lord is not just majestic. He is mindful!
He is mindful of David and other human beings. That's what “son of man” means here, it means humanity, humankind, probably represented by the first man, Adam.
When I look up at the Milky Way, I think, how is it that that majestic God would even have one thought about me? Little old me!
Do you feel the amazement? Do you get a sense of the wonder that David is singing about? This song really puts us in our place. It humbles us, but in a thrilling way.
And then it humbles us again by telling us that we are not insignificant. Yes, we are small, but we are not insignificant. You would think that we are less than a speck. When you think about God and Who God is in all of His majesty and splendor and beauty and glory and magnificence. And then you think about who you are...
And then you think, “God thinks about who I am? I am in God's mind? God cares for me?”
What dignity! What significance! What meaning that gives to our lives!
The world will not tell you this. The world will either tell you that you are the greatest, you are a god, and you deserve all of your wildest dreams to come true. Or the world will tell you that you are worthless, a nothing, a meaningless speck, a cog in the machine, here today and gone tomorrow.
Neither are true, because of Who God is.
God is majestic over all creation, and God is mindful of His special creation, humankind.
And even more mindful, if you can say it that way, of His own children, those who belong to Jesus Christ.
Remember when Jesus said, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows" (Matthew 10:29-31).
This majestic God is mindful of you.
And we know even better than King David how big the universe is.
One author I read said it this way, “On a clear night David could likely see 2,000-3,000 stars. What if he'd had a good pair of binoculars? Up to 100,000 [stars]. What if David knew...that if the Milky Way galaxy were the size of the entire continent of North America [which I traveled across last week], our solar system [!] would fit in a coffee cup, and that the Milky Way is one of perhaps 100 billion such galaxies in the universe? [David] would have been even more staggered than he was–but he had enough to stagger him, to be impressed with the massive vastness of his world over against his apparent insignificance...When he exclaims, ‘What is man?' he is speaking in baffled wonder and perplexed joy! Only the condescension of God can hold together astronomical vastness and individual concern. It gives David liturgical goose-bumps" (Dale Ralph Davis, "The Way of the Righteous in the Muck of Life, pg. 97-98).
David breaks out in song, and so should we!
This majestic God is mindful of you.
Do you need to hear that today? God's mind is on you.
He sees you.
He knows you.
He knows what's on your mind.
He knows what's on your plate.
He knows what's coming this week.
And you matter to Him.
Not because you're so grand. He's so grand!
But because you're His. And because He made you to represent Him.
That's where David goes next in verse 5. He goes back to the creation account in Genesis 1 and sings about that. Look at verse 5.
“You made him [Adam, the Son of Man] a little lower than the heavenly beings [or literally, “a little lower than God”] and crowned him with glory and honor.”
The majestic and mindful King of the World made us...little kings and queens of the world.
Remember what God said in Genesis 1?
This will be what we will focus in class on tomorrow night, and I’m sure it was rolling around in David’s head as he wrote this song. Genesis 1:26-28.
God says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. [Rule.] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
The image of God and rulership go hand in hand. God made us to represent Him and together to rule the world as those made in His image.
He put a crown on our heads! How's that for putting us in our place? Didn't see that coming!
The shepherd boy who became a king knew that He was tiny and made out of dust and yet was also made to wear a crown and help rule the world for God!
Did you know that you were made to wear a crown?
Verse 6. “You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.”
We were made to rule all of that. Just think about everything in those categories.
Here's your place: Looking Up at Our Majestic God. But also:
#2. LOOKING OVER THE REST OF CREATION.
As one of our God's faithful representative rulers.
Humans were meant to be a kind of royalty. If you've ever read the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis was a master at creatively communicating that truth. King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy learn of their royalty that comes as a gift of the Christ-mirroring Aslan and the Emperor Over the Sea. And they learn to rule as representatives.
How are you doing at representing God in this world? You may not rule over very much right now.
I have a little 5 acres I’m responsible over in Lanse. And for 28 years, I have had a leadership role here though I’m certainly not the ruler of Lanse Free Church and don’t ever want to be. I don't rule over very much. But how am I doing at representing the God in whose image I am supposed to rule?
What do you rule over?
It was fun to see Robin setting up her home in her apartment in Vancouver. To see Fritz the Tortoise and Winona the gecko and the three frogs, one of them is Dolly and another is Dex, and I think the other one is Mustachio. And she cares for them. She feeds and waters them. And makes sure they have light and heat. I’m not sure how you can tell a tortoise is happy, but I think those animals are pretty happy there in Robin’s domain.
What do you rule over? And how are you doing at representing God there?
Maybe in a workplace?
Maybe in a household?
Maybe in a community?
What's your dominion?
We were made to look up to the majesty of God, and (amazingly) in the mindfulness of God, we are also made to look over the rest of creation and represent our Lord to it as responsible rulers.
And of course, as an entire race, we are not doing a very good job it. We have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And our rule over the world God made has been despotic, and disappointing, and disastrous. That's why we have wars and violence and rioting and racial injustice and even hurricanes and raging forest fires and raging epidemics. Because, as the human race, we have dropped the ball.
Only one human has ever lived up to the promise of Psalm 8. And it sure wasn't David. David could see it, and he could sing it, but he couldn't live it out the way it should be.
Do you know where this Psalm gets sung again in the New Testament? You should. We just studied it a couple of months ago!
It's the Letter to the Hebrews chapter 2. Listen to this:
“But there is a place where someone has testified: ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.' [Sound familiar? Hebrews says...] In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. [Things are not the way they are supposed to be.] But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone" (vv.6-9).
Psalm 8 puts us in our place. Here's our place:
#3. LOOKING FORWARD TO JESUS.
Looking forward to Jesus, because of His death and resurrection and present session, putting everything back to the way it was always supposed to be.
“We see Jesus...now crowned with glory and honor.” Fulfilling Psalm 8, being everything we were always supposed to be. And, one day, making everything new. Majestic, Mindful, Messiah.
What’s the application of that?
“Fix your eyes on Jesus!”
He is the image of God. He “is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being...” (Hebrews 1:3).
The radiance of God’s glory! Or another way of saying, He is the Light of the World.
No wonder, David returns in the last line to the first.
“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
***
Note: Astute readers with long memories will recognize that a hefty portion of the message has been adapted from a previous sermon I preached during covid, “Majestic and Mindful,” August 30, 2020.
The major difference is that I have been sharpened in my understanding of the image of God, especially by reading Dignity and Destiny by John Kilner. I no longer believe that the image of God has been lost or even damaged by our sin. All humans (lost and found) are still made in the image of God with a special connection and substantial reflection of God. It’s because of that status that sin is so grievous and salvation so glorious.
