The God of All

Introduction

Knowledge is a powerful and useful thing in life. Whether it be developing a new skill like learning how to read or write or sing a song or ride a bike, knowledge can help us tremendously. Knowledge can help us get a job. It can help us provide for our family. Knowledge is a good thing - God wants us to learn and to use the faculties that He has given us. But we all know that there are things that we simply don’t know… Like how many goose feathers are equivalent to a fully grown male elephant - does anyone know the answer to that question? Please, if you do, let me know! The more and more that you learn in life, the more and more you realize that there is so much more to learn! People who think that they know it all simply prove that they don’t know anything at all.

Spurgeon once shared that, “The knowledge of our ignorance is the doorstep of the temple of true knowledge.”

Augustine once shared this, “All great knowledge is this, for a man to know that he himself by himself is nothing; and that, whatever he is, he is from God and on account of God.”

God has given us much in this life, and one of the things that He has given us is a brain in order to understand things and learn and grow. Why did God give us a brain? Why did God give us life? Why did God create us in the first place? See, some people answer these questions by saying that we are here by accident or chance. We’re here to acquire knowledge and make the world a better place and then we’re done and that’s that. Is that true or is there something more to this life than just random chance?

This morning, we’re going to dive into Psalm 139 to help us see why exactly we are here… and as we learn that question, we’re going to also answer a much bigger question and that is the question of what is our Creator like? As we study from God’s Word in Psalm 139, we’ll see that there are many things that we simply do not know - but the thing that matters most is that there is a God who has made Himself known to us. He has all knowledge. He is all present. He is all powerful. He is all holy. He is all good. He is the God of All - let’s read from God’s Word this morning.

Psalm 139 CSB

For the choir director. A psalm of David. 1 Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away. 3 You observe my travels and my rest; you are aware of all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord. 5 You have encircled me; you have placed your hand on me. 6 This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable to reach it. 7 Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, 10 even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night”— 12 even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to you. 13 For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. 15 My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. 17 God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is! 18 If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you. 19 God, if only you would kill the wicked— you bloodthirsty men, stay away from me— 20 who invoke you deceitfully. Your enemies swear by you falsely. 21 Lord, don’t I hate those who hate you, and detest those who rebel against you? 22 I hate them with extreme hatred; I consider them my enemies. 23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.

What a passage of Scripture! The Creator of the Universe and the quintillions of stars and planets and galaxies that exist out there also created our hearts. He formed us. He sustains us. He knows us by name. What a God we are able to worship and come before in prayer - let’s do that right now and give Him thanks for that undeserved access.

God is All Knowing (1-6)

How many of us have someone in our lives that we feel like we know extremely well? Not just that you know about them or you know some of the things that they like and don’t like… I mean you know what they’re going to say before they say it. Do you have someone like that in your life? Praise the Lord for that person right now, genuinely! I’ve had people in my life that I know what they’re thinking just by looking at their face - have you experienced that before? Say you’re having a conversation and the person’s face changes just a little bit but you immediately know that they’re upset or frustrated or scared. We know what someone feels before they even say it at times. We know what people are like and we know many things about them. But there are always things that we don’t fully know. Lindsey and I grew up together from 3rd grade onward but we didn’t start dating until the summer before college because it took me that long to convince her that I wasn’t weird and I’m still working on that, if we’re being honest… we’ve known each other for a long time. It’s easy to guess what the other person is thinking because of that familiarity… but you still don’t know everything. Lindsey didn’t know that the summer going into our Junior year of college, I had talked with her dad about marrying her. She didn’t know that I had picked out the ring months before and she really didn’t know that I had my college roommates stage a broken down car next to a sun flower field just so we could get the proposal on video. And if I’m being honest, even though it was hard, I’m glad she didn’t know that I was planning those things months in advance because that would’ve ruined the surprise. There are times where it is a good thing that we don’t know everything - because after all, we can’t know everything… and there are some things we just don’t need to know.

Have you ever been in a situation where you got in trouble and someone found out? We’ve all been caught doing something wrong before. Sometimes, that rocks our world. Sometimes we wonder how someone will respond if they know how we’ve really dropped the ball in the past. We wonder will this person still care about me or love me if they know what I’ve done. This can spill over into our view of God as well if we’re not careful! If God knew what I’ve done and what happened in my brain and what I did that one day, He’d reject me and want nothing to do with me… Friend, He’s all knowing! Look with me at 1 John 1:9

1 John 1:9 CSB

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Aren’t you thankful that we serve a God who knows all things and Who has the authority to not only forgive us, but to cleanse us from our sinfulness? He knows our thoughts. He understands our brains. He knows every single thing about us - we can’t hide from Him. This might lead us to be afraid if another person knew all these things… but the fact that God is all knowing leads David to rejoice and worship God because the God of the Bible is a FAITHFUL God. He is a Forgiving God. He is Father to His people. He knows it all. To be all knowing is to be “omniscient.” That means that God not only perfectly knows Himself but He perfectly knows His creation too. Look at what Job 36:4 tells us about God’s omniscience

Job 36:4 CSB

4 Indeed, my words are not false; one who has complete knowledge is with you.

He knows what happened yesterday, what is happening today, and what will happen tomorrow. He is all-knowing. He doesn’t change. He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to download the KY3 weather app and check what the meteorologist says its going to rain tomorrow or not - He is God! The God who created the sun to give us light and gravity to keep us nice and close to the ground is the same God who knit our hearts. Can we comprehend how remarkable that truth is this morning? The God of the Universe who knows all things, knows our hearts. He knows every little thing about us. He knows the number of hairs on our head. He knows the secret inside that we feel like no one else can ever know - God knows. Friend, the God of the Bible also knows you. He knows everything there is to know about you. He knows things about you that you don’t even know yourself. He has a plan for you. We cannot even begin to imagine how much God knows - we can’t grasp Him - but as we continue exploring in this Psalm and throughout Scripture, we see that this all knowing God has made Himself known to us through Jesus Christ. This God has placed His hand on His people. He loves us and He protects us and He guides us. Because He’s all knowing - He knows what is best for us as well! These are wonderful promises in these opening verses that we must reflect on and remember, because there are times where we question God’s omniscience and there are also times where we question our 2nd observation and that is that

God is All Present (7-12)

So God is omniscient and all knowing, but we also see in our text that God is omnipresent or everywhere. There are some who fundamentally misunderstand this reality as they wrongly think that God only exists or is present in some places like churches or hospitals or houses but not other places. Possibly the most clear picture of this logic is found in the book of Jonah. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and to call the Assyrians to repent of their evil. Now, Jonah is in Israel - we might expect God to be present with His people in Israel because that’s what we see over and over in the Old Testament… but we also know that God was present with His people in Egypt - He was present with Abraham before Abraham made it to what is now Israel. God is bigger than just one place and He is not bound by space in the way that we are. We are able to be in 1 place at 1 time - not even a pastor is able to be in 100 places at any 1 time, I’m sorry to disappoint! Sometimes, if we’re being honest, we have enough trouble being present at 1 place. This isn’t so with God and Jonah learned this the hard way… look at Jonah 1:3 with me

Jonah 1:3 CSB

3 Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence.

Now, Jonah was called by God while in Israel to go to Nineveh… maybe he thought that if he went west instead of east that he would escape God’s presence. That makes sense from a human standpoint… but that’s not the case! You can’t out run God. You can’t hide from God. There is no rock so big or cave so deep or valley so low or mountain so high that you can escape an omnipresent God - it doesn’t work that way! This is what David explains in the verses that follow in Psalm 139. We can’t flee from His presence. Look at the places mentioned here. Heaven, sheol, east, west, darkness, light, day or night - it doesn’t matter where we find ourselves… God is there! There’s a negative sense of this reality as nothing is hidden from His sight - whenever someone does something wrong, God is there and God knows. You can’t fool Him! But isn’t this reality of God being all present a positive thing to hold on to? Whenever you are rejected and isolated and abandoned, God is there.

Romans 8:38–39 CSB

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is our hope as believers - wherever we find ourselves at, God is with us because He is all present. Distance, darkness, even death - none of these things can separate us from our God. Regardless of what happens or what we feel like, He is with us.

God is All Powerful (13-18)

Omniscience, Omnipresence, and third, Omnipotence - the God of the Bible is also described to be all powerful. Our world is obsessed with power as people want more and more of it and they fail to ever be satisfied whenever they achieve what they were previously seeking after. People think that if they create something then they will have power. If they have their own business then they’ll be their own boss and then they’ll have power… But they still have to pay taxes. They still suffer from illnesses that are beyond their control. We all face the reality that this life is a vapor - here one minute and gone the next. As much as we crave power, and as much as some people seem to possess it, we know that we are not all powerful - even the best of us.

How does God demonstrate His power? He does so a couple ways in Scripture that are interesting to say the least… Look at Job 42:2

Job 42:2 CSB

2 I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be thwarted.

God demonstrates His power through His perfect plan that cannot be thwarted. That’s quite a bit of power! How else?

Psalm 115:3 CSB

3 Our God is in heaven and does whatever he pleases.

Ok… So God doesn’t have to pay taxes? That’s quite a bit of power. How else does God demonstrate His power? One of the ways we see God’s power in our lives is through creation. We know that in the beginning God spoke the universe into existence out of nothing. That’s a big God! Maybe we’d expect such a powerful God to delegate small tasks and not really care about them - but Psalm 139 declares the opposite is the case. The Creator of the Stars also formed our hearts.

Alistair Begg once said, “The Bible shares that the Universe is made by God, sustained by God, and accountable to God.” This includes every planet, plant, and person! God is all powerful. This means that as we look inside ourselves, God is the giver of life. Think about life for a moment. How many of you have ever been asked the following question, “Where did you come from?” There’s the obvious answer - your mother gave birth to you… but what about even bigger than that? Where did I come from, why am I here, where am I going? These types of purpose driven questions are answerless in a postmodern society that abandons God and truth… but here in Psalm 139, we find answers to those questions of purpose and life. David shares under inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we are not here by chance or luck… we are here because God created us and knit us together! Before your mother had a positive pregnancy test - God not only knew you, but He was busy creating you. Before your father held you for the first time, your heavenly Father held you in the palm of His hand and protected you from a sinful, fallen world where death seems to win the day. Your life is not random or accidental - you have a purpose because you were made by God!

This leads us to praise God in verse 14 as David says that he has been remarkably and wondrously made. Have you ever woken up and not felt like praising God? Or you felt like maybe you were a mistake? Accident? Unplanned? Back towards the beginning of the year I was praying about where the Lord wanted us to go during our worship times this year as we study His Word and worship Him together. Through prayer and seeking His will, it became obvious that looking at some beloved Psalms was the direction we were supposed to go. I’m looking at our summer calendar and this is the week after VBS and I think that Psalm 139 is perfect for that as we praise God for the gift of children and the gift of life in general… little did I realize that this was also going to strike home in more ways than one this week especially as Lindsey and I are waiting for baby Isaiah any day now. Accident? Unplanned? Mistake? Absolutely not. Life cannot be unplanned whenever you have an all powerful and all knowing God!

Maybe this is still how you feel personally, though, like a disappointment, accident, failure, mistake… been there, friend! Straight up, I shouldn’t even be here. My biological parents weren’t married - they were young - they weren’t even a couple when they had me. Made in secret? That was me. But there is no such thing as a secret to an all knowing God and this all knowing God has a plan for each one of us, friends! COVID made things hard in a lot of ways but one of the things that hurt the most was not being able to go with Lindsey to her pregnancy appointments with Gabriel. I didn’t get to go to any of those ultrasound appointments… so I’m making up for it with Isaiah now and you cannot look at an ultrasound of your child in the womb and not praise the Lord because of His wondrous work! It’s not us - it’s Him. Life is fragile - it’s a gift. He forms us. He sustains us. He gives life to us. The God of the Bible is not only pro-life, but He is the author of life itself from the womb to the tomb - friend, your life matters because it was given to you by the all powerful Creator of the Universe for a reason with a purpose!

Look with me at verse 16. God has a plan, from the time we were formless. The literal word here is also found in Jeremiah 1:5 in reference to God’s plan for Jeremiah

Jeremiah 1:5 CSB

5 I chose you before I formed you in the womb; I set you apart before you were born. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

God formed us in the womb, and He determined the date that we would be born because He is our creator. He numbers our days and plans them out. This doesn’t mean that we don’t make decisions to do things - that’s not true at all! God knew every word David would say and God knew every day David would live and the same is true for you and me. Nothing will happen in our lives that will catch an all powerful God by surprise. We make decisions every day and you’d better believe that we’ll be held accountable for those decisions by God. He isn’t the author of evil or confusion. He didn’t stutter. James reminds us that whenever we sin, we can’t blame God… we’re led astray by our own evil desires! As we reflect on God’s provision in our lives and how God planned out our days, this should be a pillow to rest our head upon at night. Nothing I’m facing today is too powerful for God. Nothing I’m facing today is a surprise to God. Therefore, I can rest in Him. He made me. He sustains me. He has a plan for me.

Romans 8:28 CSB

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

What a promise! Even when this passing life is over, verse 18 reminds us, we’ll wake up and we’ll be with our God still. All things work for our good because our God is all powerful.

God is All We Need (19-24)

Over and over in the Bible, we’re reminded that our list of needs is usually a lot smaller than we actually think it is. I need a phone, I need a car, I need a girl friend or boy friend, I need this new thing, I need this truck, I need an answer. What do we truly need? If God is all that we have, we have all that we could need! In the 19th century, there was a missionary who went to the African jungle by the name of David Livingstone. He went into the jungle to tell natives about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he found himself surrounded by enemies who were bloodthirsty and planning on killing him the next day. This is what he wrote in his diary, “January 14, 1856. Felt much turmoil of spirit in prospect of having all my plans for the welfare of this great region and this teeming population knocked on the head by savages tomorrow. But I read that Jesus said, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ It is the word of a gentleman of the most strict and sacred honor, so there’s an end of it! I will not cross furtively tonight as I intended. Should such a man as I flee? Nay, verily, I shall take observations for latitude and longitude tonight, though they may be the last. I feel quite calm now, thank God!”

Facing enemies, the words of Jesus saying “I am with you always” provided Dr. Livingstone with much needed strength. In this life we face enemies - David faced many in his early years, especially before he was king of Israel. David prays that the Lord would judge his enemies. That sounds harsh here! We know that Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us in Matthew 5:44. There’s a distinction here, though, that is important. Yes, we are to love people as God does - the Great Commandment to love God and others still applies! And we all know that there are still people who not only reject God but they do so boldly and deliberately. They are wicked and God promises in Psalm 2 that these people will perish unless they repent. Why are there people in this situation in David’s day and why do people continue to reject God and do what is evil? Because they fail to understand that God is all that they need. They believe that they need things that this world promises rather than what God provides.

James 4:4 CSB

4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.

This is a stern warning that we must heed well. Those who practice friendship with the world are called God’s enemies and we know that God will bring about judgment on such people. But this isn’t how David ends this Psalm… He doesn’t end it with a Psalm of lament or praying for fire and brimstone upon these people while puffing himself up to look macho and great. He humbles himself and prays for God to search his heart and to reveal if there is anything inside that needs to be dealt with. Here’s what David knows, and this is what we must know too, church. David knows that he used to be a friend of this world. He used to walk in darkness. He used to be lost. And if you remember where you used to be, you gain a much better appreciation for where you are today. David knows that he is a wicked person in need of God’s amazing grace and that he needs God to give to him a new heart… a clean heart.

Psalm 51:10 CSB

10 God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

This week we have a team going to Guatemala to build homes, feed families, share the Gospel, minister to kids, and partner with the local church. Why do we go to the nations and why do we witness to our neighbors? Because of where we used to be. There’s just 2 ways in this life: There’s the way of the world and the way of the Word. Psalm 1 is the key to understanding the whole book of Psalms. We must understand the Word before we understand why we Worship. We must remember that God knows us. He sees us. He made us. He sustains us as Colossians 1 reminds us

Colossians 1:17 CSB

17 He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.

Until we understand all that God is… we will not understand that God is all that we need. Our prayer today must be like David as we ask God to search us and to change us and to shape us to become more like Him as we walk this life.

3 ways God must change us:

God Has a Plan For You - Trust in Him

God’s plan might not always make sense. It sure didn’t for the author of this Psalm, David. David was anointed as the next king of Israel. He slayed a giant. He was beloved by his people… but he was also hunted by King Saul. As we reflect on Psalm 139, we see that God made us and has a perfect plan for us. We can fully trust in Him - after all, He knows everything there is to know about us. He is faithful - He deserves our trust!

God Has a Plan For You - Live For Him

As we trust in our God, this means that we must also live for Him. So often there is a lie that comes up that says, “God just wants an hour a week, a dime from a dollar, and an occasional song here and there.” If we believe that God created us, has a perfect plan for us, and desires for us to follow that perfect plan, we’d better get to work on living for Him. We can’t just say that we’ve walked the aisle or gotten dunked and now we can sit on our blessed assurance because that sounds nice… God has a plan and we have a part to play. We must follow Him and live for Him each day He gives us

God Has a Plan For You - Worship Him

As we live for God there will be difficult days and tired days and hard days and all the other types of days that we can imagine. What doesn’t ever change though is the fact that our hope in Jesus is secure. He really did come to this world to seek and save lost sinners like you and me. If you have been saved, you have no excuse but to worship God today. If you get saved today, you have no excuse but to worship God tomorrow. God has a plan for this world, but more specifically, He has a plan for you and part of that plan is to know Him. Not just to know about Him, but to know Him as Lord and Savior. To repent of your sins and trust that He is Who He said He was - that He made us, that He sustains us, and that as long as He gives us breath, there is work for us to do. FBC Salem, let’s be a people who keep the main thing the main thing and lets glorify God as we proclaim His Gospel, make disciples, and love God and others because our God first loved us. There might be a lot of things that we don’t know in this life… but we can know those things because our God made Himself known!