The God that Knows

Introduction

Weakness. No word is quite so uncomfortable on its way out of my mouth as that one. When we started this series eight weeks ago, I had no choice but to stand up here, and not only admit our weakness, but to openly expose it so that it may be seen exactly and precisely what it was that was going on in my life.

As we conclude this series on depression, I wanted to end with this passage. Now, this particular Psalm could have been at least four sermons. This Psalm has been so incredibly helpful to me in so many ways, because it has been a compass for me, pointing me to God’s faithfulness over and over again. And I would like to just spend some time today and study this Psalm with the hope that it may serve as a compass for you as well.

The essence of the Psalm is simple: God is everywhere, and He knows everything. But David uses beautiful language, and incredibly illustrations to help us to bring these truths to bear in our own hearts and lives. God knows. And I want us to trust that God knows, as we study this passage together. Today we will discover four things this passage show us that God knows, and then we will think through three summary statements that give us hope as we seek to apply this passage.

1. God knows our ways (1-6)

Psalm 139:1–6 ESV

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

Can you imagine just for a moment what it would be like to know every thought that every person was ever thinking, and to know them all at the same time? This is where understanding the God who knows begins. Look at some of the things here that David teaches us that God knows:

God knows everything we do - there isn’t a part of our day that would catch God off guard or by surprise. If we are caught in traffic and late for work, He knows. If we are up too late on Saturday night watching TV and so miss church because of it, He knows. If I work hard for the benefit of another and it goes unnoticed, He knows and sees.

God knows everything we think - He never has to guess what we are thinking, because He knows it immediately. All the really left-field thoughts we have - he knows that. The fears we are afraid to express out loud? He knows that. The times we think about giving up or quitting? He knows that. The things that make us truly happy? He knows that.

God knows everything we say - “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold O Lord, you know it altogether.” That is a thing that has always puzzled me about why people will not curse in front of a pastor. I mean, if you are prone to bad language or coarse jesting, every single time you say something that should not be said, you say it before the face of God! That should mean far more than saying it in front of me.

Transition: this awareness, that God knows everything and every thought about us, can be a comfort or a terror.

Comfort: God knows all of this, even better than you do, or would like to admit, and yet he still loves you. That is a love like no other. Most of us live with a realization that if everything we were thinking just came out of our mouths, it would dramatically alter our earthly relationships. Some of us have experienced this. But God knows all these thoughts, about others, and even about Him. And He chose you. He knew those thoughts before you thought them. And He still chose you. That is an incredible comfort for us. I had some dark thoughts during may of 2023. And yet, God loved me. And still loves me. What a comfort.

Terror: unless you are trying to hide from God, in which case there is zero comfort in this idea. Instead, it can make us feel tempted to run, to do what Adam and Eve did and try to hide from God when we have sinned, or even when we haven’t sinned but are suffering. David knows this feeling (think Bathsheba), and so he reminds himself of another truth about God’s omniscience:

2. God knows our path (7-12)

Psalm 139:7–12 ESV

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

But even if we try to hide from God, He is in all the hiding places. David senses this, and asks a question “where shall I flee from your presence?” There is nowhere we can go that we are away from God’s presence:

He is in heaven, and in sheol - this is a difficult theological concept for us to understand, but the main idea is this: there is not one place in creation, or in eternity, where a created being does not live his life before the face of God! No height, no depth. If he takes the wings of the morning, going to the place where the sun rises, or goes to the depths of the sea, to the very edge of where humans can go, God has already been there since the first day of creation.

2. He is in the depths - and now this is where the Psalm gets intensely personal for me. David says “If I say “surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night.” In those times when we feel like we will be just smothered by the darkness that threatens to consume us, we remind ourselves that the darkness that we see is not darkness to God. In week one, when we discussed Ps. 88, we said that we worship a God who is not afraid of the dark. This is how we know this. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. This doesn’t mean that you won’t be in darkness; it means that, as His child, when you are in the darkness, the light of Christ is with you. He is present there, in the darkest points of our life.

This is why the promise “I am with you” is repeated over and over in the Bible - He is with us! We are not forsaken. In so many ways, this part of this Psalm serves as the culmination of what we have been studying all along.

In the depths, we are before the face of God. In fact, at all times, in all places, and in all situations, we are before the face of God. Man, think of how we would live differently if we would simply apply this truth:

In those quiet, secret moments when no one is watching, God is watching and with us. The omniscience of God helps to promote integrity in our lives.

In those moments when we feel forgotten, unappreciated and alone, God is watching and with us.

In the times of our greatest victories, God is watching and with us.

In the times of deepest suffering and sorrow, God is watching and with us.

Transition: this awareness, that we can’t get away from God, that all life is lived before the face of God, is just like the last point we discussed: either a comfort or a terror. But we will go even a step farther here, as David then drives this deeper for us, and show that God not only knows our thoughts, and knows our path, He knows precisely how we are made

3. God knows how we are made (13-18)

Psalm 139:13–18 ESV

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

This section of the Psalm constitutes for us one of the most poetic, beautiful and practical explanations of why as Christians we simply must be a pro-life people. God creates every single life carefully, intentionally, and for His glory. Every single part. Every little detail. Made by Him, and for Him. This does, most certainly, mean two things:

We must be a people dedicated to celebrating and preserving life - it doesn’t get more clear, I believe, then “your eyes saw my unformed substance” or “you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” There was no more sobering moment for me than to hear the heartbeat of my unborn son after 2,548 days of praying. To this day, I can still close my eyes and hear that sound. I’m pretty convinced I could pick out it’s tenor in a crowd. Life is precious, and it matters.

2. and all life matters. Even decisions we make at the end of life must be tempered by the realities in this Psalm. It is God who determines our days. And even though we have made great advances in technology and science, we must submit all our knowledge to the reality that God knows our days, and has ordained them.

These are great truths, and we could not possibly study this Psalm without seeing them. But there is another hopeful truth tucked into these verses:

God made you exactly as you are, and He did so in order for you to pursue holiness and live in obedience to His Word.

Now, what is unfortunate is the way that we have appropriated this truth to justify sinful behaviors. So, let me be clear: I am not saying that the fact that God has made you is somehow a means to justify sinful behaviors. Rather, I am saying that there are aspects of us that were created very intentionally by a God who is the master of intricate design, and the intricate design of you is exactly as intended.

There are some very particular ways in which this applies itself to our lives.

God made our appearance the way He wanted it - for just a moment, let me speak especially to the young people in this room. Every single generation of young people has dealt with an overemphasis on style, on dressing and acting a certain way in order to gain the approval of others. But I do think the pressure can be higher now, because of the pervasive influence of social media. But in a world that would tell you that you need to dress a certain way, or that your body needs to be a certain shape, or that you need to have a certain number of things in order to be approved, please hear this passage for what it means: God made your physical appearance the way He desired it to be. There is no contentment in to be had about the way we look if we don’t find our contentment in this.

Now, this is also true for us old folks, right? I mean, aging presents problems for us all. The cosmetic industry presents all sort of nefarious ways to help you to hide or prevent the evidences of aging. The great irony of this? Length of days is God’s grace. We idolize youth as though youth were the only gift God gives to us. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, friends. And the very fact that we aren’t as young as we used to be serves to show God’s grace to us.

2. God built us with weaknesses - every single person you encounter has weaknesses and limitations. No matter how much we deny it, however, we have built-in weaknesses so that we will rely on God’s strength and mercy, instead of our own.

Growth often implies that we work to strengthen our weaknesses, but there will be some limitations that we simply cannot avoid. And each person has a different set of these. But listen friends: when God in His providence knit you together, counted all your days, and made you a part of His sovereign plan, He factored in your weaknesses.

This has been one of the most encouraging things for me. The number of times I have said something along the lines of “I feel so weak” have been very high. But here is the thing: this only is a surprise to me if I fail to remember that I am dust. We all have weaknesses that will present themselves in our lives. Some are physical. Some are emotional. Some are mental. But each of these weaknesses are by design, and on purpose. And that purpose is to teach us to rely, just as we studied in 2 Corinthians, not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

Now, here is a word about biblical friendship and relationship that you may or may not have heard before in a sermon. But if this is true, and we are all built with weaknesses and limitations, then when we engage in relationships with others, we will inevitably encounter and discover these weaknesses and limitations in people. When those moments happen, how you react and care for those weaknesses is very, very important.

Trust in a relationship is built on the belief that I can trust another person with my weaknesses, and that they will handle them with care (if time, the hand a dog an egg challenge). If you see weaknesses and limitations in another person, that is an opportunity to handle with care. Isaiah, and then Matthew later, both said of Jesus that He did not break the bruised reed. May we be a people who respond similarly.

This truth, that we are inticately created by God with purpose, causes David to worship in a two verse refrain in verse 17-18. It is a matter of perspective. Sometimes, we need to take a step back and look at the whole, divine landscape in order to gain a vision for God’s goodness.

Transition: so, after a very artistic rendering of the truth that God knows everything (17-18), David begins to explore the realities of this. God doesn’t just know everything about me; He knows everything about everyone! And if this is true, it means that God also knows our enemies.

4. God knows our enemies (19-24)

Psalm 139:19–24 ESV

Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

We have mentioned a few times that we have three enemies to deal with. These last five verses bring to bear the fact that because God knows everything, we can also bring our petitions for Him to overcome our enemies.

When our enemies are others - David has no hesitation about asking God to slay the wicked, and to for him to be separated from those who are enemies of God. The principle here is this: the God who knows everything, will deal justly with everyone.

2. When we are our own worst enemy - after asking God to rightly judge all people, David takes a step inward and begins to appeal to God to make sure that he himself isn’t given to evil. It is a good practice for us to look to God and say often “God, show me what You see.” The truth is, we are often afraid of what that may entail, or what we may actually find. But at the end of the day, we are called to look inward and conduct a fearless moral inventory, so that we are always reforming and being changed to the image of Christ.

Action plan:

This verse has said an awful lot, and we really were only able to scratch the surface of what the Psalmist has said in it. What I would like to do is to give us just three key principles to take away from this Psalm, and to focus them very specifically on how we think about our own anxieties, sufferings and sorrows. All three are based on the reality that we have studied here: God knows everything.

If God knows everything, He factored in Your limitations and weaknesses into His divine plan - and He intends to use them for His glory. Over and over again, we have run back to that precious passage that tells us that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. There are few truths in Scripture that are harder to apply than this one, because as a people we tend to want to hide our weaknesses, or ignore them, or act as though we don’t have any. But God has put them there to be used.

Nothing has shown me this more than the last 8 weeks of being open with you about my own struggles, and then seeing that be a help to others. In fact, I would go so far as to say that being open about my own weaknesses has accomplished more in my recent life and ministry than acting as though I didn’t have any ever did. I’m sure that is an obvious statement, and it probably would be for me too if I were sitting here listening to me, but the problem for us is most often in the doing, not in the knowing.

God desires to use your weaknesses to display His strength. What are you hiding that you should be owning?

2. If God knows everything, He knows both where I am at, and when I will leave - there is this thing that happens in our own souls when we go through seasons and cycles of despondency, where we get impatient at our own position. We think things like “when am I just going to get better” or “why can’t I shake this?” I’m not sure there is anything that can prevent us from asking these questions, and I don’t think that we often find a satisfactory answer to them right away, but this passage teaches us a central, and very important truth as we are thinking about sorrow - God knows when He will lift us out of the pit. He knows when the sorrow will end, or when the suffering will cease. And it will end precisely when He sees fit for it to.

Which brings us back to our need for submission. We must humble ourselves to His divine plan. I hope you don’t think this means we are to be passive; I have worked to preach mutliple sermons prior to this one that teach us the very opposite of that. But our waiting on the Lord is a humble, active waiting. We take our own souls to task, and we immerse ourselves in God’s Word, and we trust that He will work in His time. Because it is all His time.

3. If God knows everything, He is fully aware of who I truly am - for some of us, this is truly terrifying, because it means that though I have spent years fooling others into thinking that I was one thing, I simply cannot fool God. He knows precisely who I am. And in His grace, He has given me opportunity to respond to His Gospel today. Who are you, really? What is really going on inside you today? Friend, would you confess that to the Lord, and be free from the slavery of sin? He is merciful and gracious to us, and will give us the freedom that our souls long for.

We are likely not as strong as we would like to be. And we will never be. But by God’s grace, we can be more: we can be images of the invisible God. And we are known by Him, and loved by Him who created us with our very specific weaknesses so that His strength could be on display.

Let’s pray.

Benediction: Ro. 8:38-39