June 7, 2020. Finger Painting    Psalm 8    

 

Introduction:  Today we’re going to do something fun and uplifting, because all we hear from day to day is bad news.  So today we’re going to finger paint.    We’re going to imitate God Himself.  As you can see in verse three, the Bible tells us that God used His fingers when He flung out the stars.  Isn’t that the most beautiful image?  You have to be a bit of artist to really see it.  God is sitting at His easel staring at the blackness of the universe when He lifts His fingers and begins to twirl and doodle bringing twinkling lights into view.  He smiles. He likes was is developing before His eyes.  

         Go ahead.  No one is watching you.  Turn off your video if you have to.  Lift your fingers and begin to draw in the air.   Scatter a few stars.  Drop a moon here and there.  How do you feel?  I want you to carry this image of God finger painting with you today.  Every so often, pause and see God at work, creating the world and us at His easel.  

Here is a simple two-point outline that will help us think about this activity of God:

1.  You are the artistic creation of God.  He made you while sitting in His studio, and in so doing found such joy in how you turned out.  He didn’t make a mistake.  If you have big ears, that is how God wanted it for you.  If you’re short or tall, God did it purposefully.  If you have blue eyes or brown eyes, that is what God wanted for you.  There’s no need to change yourself.  You are just the way He envisioned you.  You’re perfect in His eyes.  (Isn’t that a comforting and inspiring thought)?

         My mother was an artist.  She loved to sit and paint.  She took her first drawing class when we lived in Japan. The Tokyo Baptist Church had a school with a variety of classes from flower arranging to painting to lessons in Japanese.  She took them all, but she especially loved painting.  

         She learned later in life how to do toll painting.  She would paint flowers and trees and landscape images on pots, spoons, plates etc.  That is the very scene we see here in our text.  “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained…” (Ps 8:3).  God is toll painting as He makes His world.  

         We are not accidents of evolution.  We aren’t mistakes.  We are the product of God’s artistry.  He made us and loved us as soon as He created us.

2.  You are valued.  You aren’t just some castaway tossed to the side of the street.  God created you and now He values you more and more each day.  

         a.  He thinks about you every day. (v4).  Nothing lifts our spirits more than a little card in the mail from a friend saying these simple words:  “I was thinking about you.”  And God writes one of these each day and sends it to you.  “I don’t need anything,” He says.   “I’m was just thinking about you.”  We are valued.  

         b.  He made us a little lower than Himself (v5).  That is an amazing thought.  We’re just a little lower than Himself.  

         *In the year 42 BC , the Roman senate did something it had never done before:  it deified Julius Caesar.  Before this no Roman citizen had ever been declared a god.  But now there was one—Caesar.  The Psalmist tells us that God made us a little lower than Himself.  We are not equal with God, but we bear so many of His features.  We look a little like him, walk like Him, act like Him.  We are just a little lower than Him. And so we are valued by our Creator.

         *There is an art collector in Paris who has accumulated over 2000 original artifacts about Napoleon Bonaparte.  He has his entire house dedicated to Napoleon. He has Napoleon’s war hat, the very throne he sat on, and he wears the sapphire ring Napoleon wore.  It is obvious what he values.  I saw no pictures of his wife or his parents or his children.  Only Napoleon.  

         But if you stroll through heaven, you will pictures of you spread all over heaven.  All He talks about is you.  You are valued by God.

Conclusion:

         How did you do in your finger painting moment?  I hope you see God crating you at His heavenly easel as you live out this day.  And remember forever this simple but profound truth:  You are the artistic creation of God and you are highly valued in heaven.