1.I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your name forever and ever.
2.Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever.
3.Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable.
4.One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.
5.On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wonderful works, I will meditate.
6.Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.
7.They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness and will shout joyfully of Your righteousness.
8.The LORD is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.
9.The LORD is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works.
10.All Your works shall give thanks to You, O LORD, and Your godly ones shall bless You.
11.They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom and talk of Your power;
12.To make known to the sons of men Your mighty acts and the glory of the majesty of Your kingdom.
13.Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
14.The LORD sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down.
15.The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time.
16.You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17.The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds.
18.The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.
19.He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them.
20.The LORD keeps all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy.
21.My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.
B.How great is our Lord!Verse 3 says that "His greatness is unsearchable.”His greatness deserves our attention, as verse 5 says, "On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wonderful works, I will meditate.”Let us do so now.
II.HE STRETCHES OUT THE HEAVENS
A.Consider Isaiah 40:22, 26.
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in…Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.
B.How big is the universe?God only knows, but we can get at least a slight idea of the vastness of space by considering some of the measurements made by astronomers.
1.First, let’s get a few benchmarks for understanding some of these distances.We know that the circumference of the earth at the equator is approximately 25,000 miles.We also know that the distance from the earth to the moon is a little less than 240,000 miles, which is almost ten times the earth’s circumference.Furthermore, the distance from the earth to the sun is estimated to be about 93 million miles, which is about 3,720 times the earth’s circumference.At the outer edge of the solar system, Pluto, which was once classified as a planet, is approximately 3.7 billion miles from the sun.Such distances are incomprehensible, yet we have hardly begun to imagine the entirety of the universe.
2.To describe distances in outer space, astronomers do not use miles because the numbers would be too large to be practical.Instead, they use the units of light years, which is the distance a beam of light travels in one year of time.The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, so a light year is 5,865,696,000,000 (nearly six trillion) miles.Only astronomers and accountants in the federal government can understand numbers that big!
3.Now let’s consider a few outer space measurements.Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is estimated to be approximately 100,000 light years in diameter.The closest galaxy to the Milky Way is the Andromeda galaxy, and it is estimated to be two million light years away.The most distant galaxies astronomers have seen by telescope are 10 to 12 billion light years away.
4.Moreover, it is estimated that in the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are 100 billion stars.Beyond this, there are millions of other galaxies with similar numbers of stars.
C.These numbers are impossible for us to comprehend.However, the vastness of the universe is nothing compared to our God.
1.If the universe is so boundless, then how great must be the Creator who made the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the vastness of space?In fact, He is so powerful that He made it all in a single day, which was the fourth day of creation according to Genesis 1:14-19.
2.God controls it all, and He calls each star by name.How awesome He is!
3.Let us praise Him!"Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You” (Jer. 32:17).
III.THE HAIRS OF YOUR HEAD ARE NUMBERED
A.When we consider the vastness of the universe, it may cause us to feel very small and insignificant.This is the sentiment David expressed to God in Psalm 8.
1.In verses 3-4, David wrote, "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?”
2.However, a reading of the Genesis account of creation changes our perspective so that we may understand just how significant mankind is in God’s creation.David realized this too when he continued his thoughts to God in verse 5, saying, "Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty!”
3.Indeed, man is greater than even the magnificent heavenly bodies, for only man bears the image of the Creator (Gen. 1:26-27).
B.In this vast universe on this immense planet with untold trillions of living things, God cares for you.
1.The United Nations estimates that the total population of mankind in the world exceeds seven billion.Nevertheless, God is aware of each individual man, woman, and child and cares for them all.
2.Notice Christ’s words in Matthew 10:29-31.
"Are not two sparrows sold for a cent?And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”
3.Consider how great our God must be.
a.Not one sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge.He knows the activities of every living thing on earth.
b.He numbers every hair on every head of more than seven billion
c.souls who live on the earth.Not only this, but He also remembers all of those who have lived before us, and He already knows those who will come after us (Ps. 139:16).
C.This awesome and infinite God cares so much for you that He sent His Son into the world to save you.
1.God’s Son, Jesus Christ, was the Divine Agent through which the whole universe was made.
a.John 1:1-3 – "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.He was in the beginning with God.All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
b.Colossians 1:16 – "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him.”
2.Nevertheless, the Father gave His Son to die as a sacrifice for our sins so that we might live.
a.John 3:16 – "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
b.1John 4:9 – "By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.”
IV.CONCLUSION
A.How great is our God, and how much confidence we should have in Him!"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32)
B.With every ounce of our beings, let us praise our awesome God, saying, "How great Thou art!”
