“How Great Thou Art” – Psalm 8

There is nothing quite like a good rainstorm. I remember many a time my parents would drag the lawn chairs out under the carport just to sit and watch the lightning flashes and hear the thunder as they watched the rain come down. I confess I do it, too. I also like what I call a “walking rain.” That’s a rain that is a steady rain, where the drops aren’t too big and the temperature doesn’t change that much. It’s the kind of rain that makes it a pleasure to get soaking wet while walking in it.

Rain isn’t the only thing that is enjoyable in nature, though. Driving across Texas and into New Mexico and Arkansas, I’ve always enjoyed the mountains, the trees and the vast openness of West Texas and New Mexico. Driving from Las Cruces to White Sands, a person crests a hill and there before them is a beautiful valley that catches the breath.

Rejoicing in nature should cause everyone to rejoice in the One who created it all. Certainly, the world in which we live speaks to the creativity and glory of God. The writer of today’s hymn came to that conclusion, resulting in the hymn, “How Great Thou Art,” which we look at today.

Background

The hymn has an interesting history. It was written in Swedish, translated to German, then to Russian. Eventually, it was translated into English. The song originally had nine verses, and the last two verses we have in our hymn book were written by a missionary to reflect experiences he had as a missionary to Ukraine and to Polish exiles during World War II.

The hymn was written by Carl Boberg. Mr. Boberg was returning home from an afternoon worship service in Sweden, when he and a small group of friends were caught in a thunder storm. The storm quickly dissipated and the group of friends returned to their homes. When Mr. Boberg got home, he opened his windows and looked out upon the bay, which was now smooth as glass. From across the bay, he could hear the sounds of the birds and the distant ringing of church bells. He was inspired to write the hymn as a result of his afternoon experiences.

The hymn was originally in praise of God and His creation, and was first sung in 1888. It was translated into the different languages. A British Methodist missionary named Stewart Hine was doing missions in Soviet Ukraine in the 1931. He was so moved by the hymn that he paraphrased the hymn into the version we have now. He added his first verse—the hymn’s third verse today—when he and his wife came upon a woman reading from The Gospel According to John about Jesus’ crucifixion. The people who were listening were repenting of their sins, and in Ukraine the repentance is spoken out loud. Hines wrote down some of the phrases he heard, and made them into the third verse.

The final verse was the result of Hines’ ministry to Polish exiles. He met a man who had been separated from his wife after the war. The man explained that his wife had been a Christian, but he had not been at the time. He since was converted, and one of his great hopes was that he would find his wife and tell her his good news. He also expressed his confidence that he would one day meet his wife again in heaven, and there enjoy the fellowship they had missed in this life. Hines added this last verse and published his version of the hymn in 1949.

Boberg’s great-nephew said that the hymn was a paraphrase of Psalm 8 and was used in the underground churches of Sweden when Baptists and Mission Friends were persecuted. Whether this part is true or not, certainly Psalm 8 is a wonderful description of God as Creator and worthy of praise.

The psalm is attributed to David, and I can picture David the shepherd tending the flocks out in the pastures late at night. It would be easy for him to see the stars in heaven and to reflect on weather conditions. It’s is not unusual to look at the vast number of stars in the night and realize that, in the grand scheme of things, we really are very small and insignificant. It is that awareness and the awareness of God’s intimate involvement with humanity that leads to the heart of the psalm.

Central Truth: All creation reminds us that God is worthy of praise.

God is worthy of praise because:

1. He sets His glory above the heavens (1-2)

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise, because of Your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

My friend, Chris, invited Stephen and me to go hunting with him and his father. They had a place in northeast Texas out in the boondocks on the Sulphur River. There was a lot of woodlands and places for deer and other animals to find food. We got there around 7 p.m. on Friday. We got settled and had a meal, played some games and then decided it was time to get ready for bed so we could get up early and head to the deer stand. As Stephen and I went outside (there was no indoor plumbing where we stayed), I waited for Stephen. Looking up, I was amazed at the night sky. Growing up in the city, I had seen stars, but nothing like what I saw that night. I was in awe at the view I was looking at.

How can anyone wonder at the might of God when we look at the world around us and into the night sky? The creativity and the power and the majesty of God is everywhere.

The psalmist understood this. He begins his psalm with a simple declaration about God’s greatness. He speaks of the majesty of God and the intimacy of God, because the psalmist refers to God as “our Lord.” This creative and powerful God has brought Himself into relationship with us, through His Son, Jesus Christ, and we have the privilege of calling Him “our Lord.”

Please understand that the “our” used here is not a possessive “our.” We do not control God in any sense of the word. Instead, it’s a reference to our identifying with Him. Think of someone saying, “My Dallas Cowboys” or “our Minnesota Vikings.”

The writer tells us that God, by His creative work, has demonstrated His majesty far exceeds that of His creation. His glory is so far above us that it is above the heavens. His glory is such that even the simplest can grasp the wonder if it all. Children and infants give praise to God, and their praise is enough to refute God’s enemies. Think of Jesus and the children. The disciples tried to rebuke the children that wanted to see Jesus, but Jesus welcomed the children and told us that we must become like children if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven. The simple truth of the gospel and the glory of God defies logic. Those who oppose God are put to silence when God’s glory is demonstrated in His creation.

2. He is mindful of us (3-8)

When I consider 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, the son of man that You care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

The vastness of God’s wonder and glory, the testimony of the night sky, can cause us to wonder why in the world we are so important to Him. After all, look at the stars and planets. Consider the vast differences of the animals and plants on our planet. Imagine that there are even more creations on many other planets—each animal and plant peculiar to their own planet. Across the vastness of space and the likelihood of other living things in those worlds, how can we assume that we are significant? How can God even consider us? The psalmist wondered this, too, and raised the questions we find in verses 3-4. Why does God keep us in mind? Why does God care for us?

We need to remember, though, that Genesis 1 tells us that God created us—men and women—in His image. He imparted to us the ability to fellowship with Him through our spirits that connect with His Spirit. And we need to remember that God loves us because we are uniquely equipped to not only know Him but to love Him, too. God’s great love sent Jesus to our world to live with us, talk with us and to die for us. God’s great love enables us not only to find forgiveness for our sins through Jesus, but He also enables us to have eternal life through Jesus as well. This eternal life is fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit that indwells us.

The psalmist’s question is answered in that God has always acted toward our benefit. He prepared the world to house us and feed us. He cut us off from the tree of life so that we would not always live in our sin. He sent Christ to us so that, through Him, we can overcome sin. It’s true we may not have the powers and abilities of the angels, but it’s also true that the angels will never be called the children of God. We are God’s children precisely because He is mindful of us and cares for us. Through Christ, we are made the children of God.

God is worthy of praise because He is mindful and because He does care for us.

3. He blesses us with stewardship of His creation (9)

You made him ruler over the works of Your hands; you put everything under his feet: all the flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth.

When God created us in His image, He also imparted to us a responsibility. He knew, because we were created in His image, that we of all His creation in our world, would be uniquely equipped to oversee His creation. As such, God made us stewards of His creation. It is our responsibility to make sure the world is well-kept, preserved for future generations.

The steward’s job is to oversee and tend to the assets of the owner. In this case, the world belongs to God. He is the One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. We see the stewardship aspects when we look at God’s laws concerning the lands given to the tribes of Israel. If someone sold his allotment of land, he was really selling the number of crops that would be grown on the land until the Sabbath year. The ownership of the land would revert to the original owner, but the final purpose of this was to remind Israel that the land God promised them belongs ultimately to Him.

When sin entered into our world, though, we began to mistake stewardship for ownership. We began to look at God’s creation and see not what we needed to care for, but what we could use for our own selfish gains and ambitions. With ownership comes a sense of entitlement, and the sense of entitlement leads us to not consider the future or the needs of the next generation. That’s why today we live in a polluted land. Our air, our water, our land is contaminated with chemicals and other elements that are damaging to our health and the prospects of future generations.

We are not called to be owners, but stewards. We are to work to conserve our air, water and land. We are called to protect the wildlife in our world—the flocks and herds, the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. God made us rulers not so that we can selfishly and mindlessly take from the world God created for us, but so that we can live in harmony with Him and with His creation.

In Romans 8:19-21, Paul tells us how our sin has affected our world. He writes, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay, and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” In other words, the world suffers because of our sins, and it will be set free from decay and ruin only when Christ returns and sin is eternally vanquished from our world.

The psalmist understands this. He knows what it means to be a steward, and he knows God’s expectations for us. Is it any wonder that the psalmist returns to the original idea of his psalm? “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth.” God has a plan, and His plan will not be thwarted. Victory is found in Him, and He is worthy of praise and glory.

Conclusion

Carl Boberg told this story of how he came to write “How Great Thou Art.”

“It was that time of year when everything seemed to be in its richest colouring; the birds were singing in trees and everywhere. It was very warm, a thunderstorm appeared on the horizon and soon there was thunder and lightning. We had to hurry to shelter. But the storm was soon over and the clear sky appeared. When I came home I opened my window toward the sea. There evidently had been a funeral and the bells were playing the tune of “When eternity’s clock calls my saved soul to its Sabbath rest.” That evening, I wrote the song.”

Like Mr. Boberg, all we have to do is open our eyes and hearts to see God’s creation. Like him, we, too, will be inspired to sing God’s praises with a grateful heart and a joyous spirit.