Psalm 139
Summer in the Psalms • Sermon • Submitted
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Summer in the psalms intro - highlighted
We could spend all day unpacking the deep truth behind Psalm 139 and at the same time, nothing more needs to be said.
Psalm 139 is one of the best-known psalms in the Bible, and the truths found in it have brought great comfort to countless people throughout the centuries. Within this psalm, we find David masterfully holding both the soaring height of God’s attributes and the infinite depth of His knowledge of humanity. This psalm’s key and defining word is the verb “know.” Not just a cold and lifeless knowledge, but an intimate and relational knowing that is almost overwhelming. In this psalm, it’s less about us knowing God, and rather God knowing us. The God of the universe has a deep and personal knowledge of us! Psalm 139 seeks to press that reality into our hearts and plant it deep within us.
I would like to note that my reflections on today’s passage come from my guided study on the passage by the Youversion bible app in which I could not find an author to reference.
Please have our bibles open to Psalm 139 as we reflect on some of the words and truth in this passage that God will reveal to us today.
We pray Lord to reveal yourself to us in this word today so that we might know You more. To truly know You.
We are going to move through today's psalm in 4 segments the first 3 are all omni’s and the last section of this psalm feels contrary to our modern ears. Please accept my apologies in advance for I know I will get tongue-tied at some point as these are not words I usually use.
The first Omni is God’s Omniscience (ɒmˈnɪʃ əns) (vs1-6)
having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight - the state of being all-knowing - but this is not just a knowledge of everything, this is an intimate knowledge of you.
Though not true of every psalm, David begins this particular psalm with God and not himself, his situation, or his emotions. Often it’s easy to get distracted by all the things swirling around us and the voices chiming and vying for our attention, but David sets his gaze on Yahweh, the God who created him. This is the particular word for God that David has used which is tied to God revealing Himself in a very personal way to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3. When you see the name “LORD” written in all capital letters in the Bible, it is this name that it refers to. David starts this psalm with the one who started all things, the great Author and Perfecter of our faith. This is the God of Psalm 139 that David was looking to.
As he sets his gaze on the LORD/Yahweh, David realizes he wasn’t scrambling to try to get God’s attention, but rather God’s gaze was already set on him. Our God is never uninterested or engrossed in something else. He’s on a perpetual and never-ending search and rescue mission, seeking us out even when we’re unaware that we’re lost! The very word for “search” is tied to digging and excavating. It’s not a shallow or quick uncovering but a thorough one that goes down to the deepest recesses of our lives. God is the great Excavator and Digger and after something real in us even when we’re unaware of what is underneath the surface of our actions and intentions.
God knows us. Let that sink in. He knows us! Not only does God know all things generally, but he also knows all people personally. One might say, “God loves the world,” but have a much harder time saying, “God loves me.” Have you ever wondered if God sees and knows you individually? Does He care about you? I know I have wrestled with this and questioned God’s love for me. Yet this is why we come to this psalm today because it tells me, it tells us with a resounding, “Yes! God knows me. Yes God Loves me” Again, not only does the God of the Bible know in general, but He knows you personally. He knows you, Let me repeat that: He Knows You. The God of absolute knowledge is personal. He is not static, but active, one that searches out our path, one that’s acquainted not simply with one or two of our ways but with all our ways.
This truth generally brings about two vastly different responses, depending on one’s relationship with God. The first response by those who do not know God or love Him is one of great terror. We like our secrecy, and God’s omniscience crashes our dark secretive parties. There is not only a God who knows but also a perfect Judge who not only can judge us based on our external actions but one who judges us based on our internal thoughts. If you are at odds with this Judge, this God, then this truth is terrifying! The second response to this truth from those who know and love God is one of incredible comfort. Have you ever wondered if anyone knows? Does anyone even care? God does. His omniscience is accompanied by great compassion and mercy. We see this compassion primarily in God’s Son Jesus, who came to earth to rescue and redeem a people for Himself.
In his classic book “Knowledge of the Holy,” AW Tozer said:
“And to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us in the gospel, how unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely. No talebearer can inform on us, no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us.”
Before we move on from this section can I point out two wonderful pictures in verse 5
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
The first picture is of God hemming us in. We might be used to hearing this verb in the context of hemming a pair of trousers but less about something God does to us. The verb "hem" means "to surround." The picture here is of a complete and total surrounding. The verb "hem" can also be used when a city is besieged. Just as the searching is an excavation, this hemming is a besieging - God is after us, and there is nowhere we could go to escape Him. There is no hiding from the God who hems you in completely and thoroughly! We are a hemmed and beautifully besieged people, and this reality should bring us a sense of hope and freedom
Then we have Hand
The psalmist teaches not only does God hem us in, but He also lays His hand upon us. He is not distant but near to us. His hand is an extension of His care and also His power! This is the hand that shelters us, that imparts blessing, that disciplines those He loves, and ultimately, in Christ, this hand is the hand that was pierced for our transgressions! As He lays His hand on us, we can know He always lays His hand on us in love no matter the circumstance.
Next, David reflects on God’s boundless presence
God’s Omnipresence (om′ni·pres′ence) verse 7-12
It means He is present in all places at all times
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
First the horizontal plane
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
To the heights of heaven, the desired place, to the descent of Sheol, the grave, a place no one desires. God is there.
Now the vertical plane
The east to the west
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
From east to west, north to south, be it in ordered or chaotic times, God is with you and near you.
And like the hand on your shoulder in verse 5, in our travels, God’s hand leads and support us in verse 10. God’s hand and personal engagement in our lives, no matter where we find ourselves, should be a great comfort whether we think we’re near or far from Him. It is as if these verses could have been written by the wandering prophet Jonah himself, who knew this truth intimately. He sought to run away from God, heading in precisely the opposite direction of where God was calling him, only to find out he was still led and held by the very One he was running from. No matter where you are in life, no place is too far out of God’s reach or from His presence. Seasons come and seasons go, but God’s hand remains near. There is not a square inch in this universe that God is not Lord over and near to.
Are there any ways you feel your life is far from God’s reach? Because of things you’ve done or situations you’re in? David speaks these powerful words to us: “even there.” God meets us at the moment and place we are currently in, not where we wish we were.
Finally, after establishing that we cannot run from God’s presence what about darkness to keep himself from God’s light? We rationalize that as long as we are hidden, or our sins are hidden, they do not affect others. We are “covered” and safe. While hiddenness from others is possible and hiding sin we do not want others to see (be it from shame or a desire to continue in the sin), God is never tricked. His vision of us and our activities is not impaired by anything we could do. “Hidden sin” is a contradiction of terms before an omniscient, omnipresent God. The psalmist is confronted with the truth that our darkest midnight is but the brightest noonday for God. He intimately knows the things we’ve done and the things that are done to us. He knows who did what and why. Again, this truth brings both great terror and comfort. Terror to those who don’t want the light to expose them. Comfort to those who need to know the darkness does not get the last word!
Spurgeon reflected the following.
Men are still so foolish as to prefer night and darkness for their evil deeds; but so impossible is it for anything to be hidden from the Lord that they might just as well transgress in broad daylight.”
Darkness and light in this agree;
Great God, they're both alike to thee.
At the beginning of Psalm 139, David pointed us to a God who knows and sees all things and a God whose presence none can evade or escape; God is forever near and intimately aware.
The last Omni is God’s Omnipotence (om•nip•o•tence) (vs13-18)
Its meaning is the one having unlimited power and authority.
In the psalm, we read of the hand God has in knitting us together again an intimate knowledge of our life and our ways. In Job chapter 38 we read of God’s omnipotence in the ability to hold a galaxy in his hand.
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
One of the young adults would get caught up in the Omnipotence Paradox, If God is all powerful could he create a rock that he could not lift.
Sounds silly I know, but this is the starting point for a lot of young believers trying to grasp who God is and these three words, Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent.
We all struggle to understand the paradox of God and the impossible He can achieve. If you are interested in the Omnipotence Paradox I can point you to a video explaining it.
Here David is observing the wonder of life and praising God the creator. There is nothing created by chance.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
The Creator knows His creation through and through.
Now comes the twist or is it?
Verse 19-22 is called an imprecatory (im′pre·ca·to′ry) prayer or Psalm
invoke judgment, calamity or curses upon one's enemies or those perceived as the enemies of God
Psalm 69 and Psalm 109 as well as 19 others are alike.
If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
These payers and psalms speak of God’s Judgement or the desire for it in the eyes of the psalmist. This can sound jarring to our ears as we have spent so much time in awe and praise of God’s presence and mercy. Yet these lines are perfectly consistent with it. When our world is full of God, we long for the elimination of evil. These evildoers are described both as bloodthirsty (v19) and as those who misuse God’s name (v20), either taking his name in vain or exalting themselves against God’s authority.
I hope we too can relate to our eyes open to the evil in the world that not just harms people but lead the innocent to become evildoers. Why we find these words so hard is that we ourselves have evil in our hearts and stumble. The Bible teaches us that the sinner is both the object of God’s love and wrath,
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Jesus also goes on to say
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
Therefore, we should earnestly desire the salvation of sinners if they will repent, and equally earnestly their (and our own) destruction if they (or we) will not repent.
There is a song that seeks to have their heart broken for what breaks yours. Most of the time we think of the suffering in the world and God’s mercy, yet it is people's rebellion, which leads to evil and evil can only be dealt with and has been dealt with God’s judgement falling on His Son Jesus on the cross.
The theme continues, some will find God’s judgement terrifying, there is no escape, and no sin can be hidden, while others will find great comfort in the elimination of evil from our hearts and the world.
These prayers also teach us that we can pray and talk to God honestly and not hold anything back. He cares about the things that we are passionate about and the wrestle with things we are yet to understand.
Let us end this psalm with its own final words:
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Can you pray that prayer:
