Psalm 139: The God Who Knows Us
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Call to Worship
Call to Worship
“Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the Lord God is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.”
Sermon
Sermon
We’re going to continue this week and next week with two more Psalms together. Next week we’ll look at maybe the most famous song, Psalm 23, this week we’ll go through another well known Psalm. Psalm 139.
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
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.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
I love this Psalm, it’s encouraging, and comforting.
As we go through these first 18 verses of the Psalm there are three major themes or sections. First, we are fully known by God. Second, we are always in God’s presence. Third, God is the creator of each and every one of us.
Let’s start with the first part, we are fully known by God.
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
This Psalm was written by David, and this is how David starts, that God has searched him, and God knows him. When we think about searching all sorts of ideas come to mind.
As kids I remember when we would go over to Halls Harbour and we would walk around and look in the caves their, and we would search them and see if we could find any cool sticks or rocks in them.
Or I remember times where we would go on a hike as a family, and we would do these little scavenger hunts where we would search the trail or the woods and see if we could find specific types of plants or rocks or different things.
When we talk about computers and using websites like good we talk about searching the internet to try and find information.
Sometimes I’ll talk to some of my friends that are single and sometimes they’ll talk about searching for a spouse, trying to find the right person to marry.
When we talk about searching a person we often think about like airport security or police checks or things like that, where we look and see what a person has, what’s on their outside.
Dictionary.com says that the word search means to “try to find something by looking or otherwise seeking carefully and thoroughly.”
And when we think about the examples I described above, this idea makes sense, that searching means to seek thoroughly. When I was a kid and we would try to find different sticks and rocks and different things, we would try to look thoroughly. When we use the internet we, with the assistance of technology, seek thoroughly for information. When my friends are trying to find a date they seek thoroughly for a person that they are compatible with. When someone is searched in line at security the security guards seek thoroughly to see what they are carrying.
When we think about this in the context of the passage we begin to see a clear idea of what David is saying, God is seeking his heart thoroughly. God is looking into all the different crevices, all of his thoughts, and secrets, and desires. These are not hidden from God. God seeks David’s entire heart thoroughly, and knows things, that perhaps David himelf doesn’t know.
And God does the same thing for us, He seeks our hearts thoroughly, He knows every thought, secret, desire, worry, anxiety, doubt, concern, there is nothing that is hidden from God. Things that no one else could possibly know, God does.
And God says as much to Samuel, when Samuel goes to annoint David as king.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
And initially some might think that that’s alarming, they don’t want someone to know everything they’ve ever thought, because sometimes its mean, or embarassing, or personal. But as we read the rest of the Psalm, David finds comfort in the fact that God knows everything about Him.
He continues like this.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
God not only knows things about us in the present, but He knows them before we do, before we thought a thought, before we said a word, before we did any action, God knew that we would think them, say them, and do them. I love that last bit, “such knowledge is too wonderful for me”. For every time that I feel that I don’t know what I’m doing, don’t know what to think about something, don’t have the right words to say in a difficult situation. It’s ok, because God does know, and we can rest in the fact that God has seen us and known us from before our beginning, He knows everything that will happen to us, and He works all of it together for the good of those that love and follow Him.
There’s a song that was released a few years ago called WayMaker and the song is a reminder that God continues to work things together for good even when we don’t understand or see what He’s doing. This is the chorus and the bridge of the song:
Way maker
Miracle worker
Promise keeper
Light in the darkness,
My God, that is who You are
Even when I don't see it, You're working
Even when I don't feel it, You're working
You never stop, You never stop working
You never stop, You never stop working
And during the pandemic this song brought me a lot of comfort, to know that God knew our struggles, and He saw us, and He was still moving even in the uncertainty around us. And recently I was in a small group looking at the story of Moses and Exodus, and I was reminded of the conversation that God has with Moses at the burning bush, and there was a line that God used that I hadn’t really caught before.
Exodus 3:7–8 “Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the misery of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and [I am coming to rescue] them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey...”
My Dad made an interesting observation about these words, he pointed out the five action or response words in this passage.
First, God sees His people, He sees their hearts, He sees their pain, He sees their misery.
Second, God hears their cries, He hears the pain they’re in, He hears them praying, crying out for Him
Third, God knows their suffering , He knows the pain they’re in, He knows the hopelessness they feel, He knows all things about them,
Fourth, God is Coming, He has seen them and heard them and He knows them, and He’s coming to do something about it.
Fifth and Lastly, God is coming to Rescue them, He doesn’t just seen and hear and know, God fixes and saves and rescues and restores us.
For the Israelites that meant bringing them out of literal slavery, for the rest of us, God saw us trapped in our sin, He heard the pain that humanity was in because of it, He knew each of us, He knew our hearts and He knew that we couldn’t save ourselves. So He came down Himself in the form of a man, as Jesus, and He came to rescue us. To die on the cross for our sins, to pay the pentalty that we couldn’t to bring us back into His fold. And like the promises we looked at last week, once we are apart of His family, and are living with and for Him, there is nothing in this whole world that will take us away from Him. Once He has saved us, that salvation can’t be taken away from us.
And as we go back to our Psalm, David also talks about this idea a little bit.
David’ second theme is the idea that we can never escape from God’s presence. And like I mentioned a little earlier, for some that idea may be initially unsettling, but for David, and for all who know and love God, this idea is incredibly comforting.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
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.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
We can’t run from God, we can’t hide from God, there is nowhere that we can go that God’s presence cannot reach. And again, maybe that’s comforting and maybe that’s alarming, but either way it’s good. Think about these two stories.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
And so Jonah and the captain of the boat talk, and Jonah takes responsibility for the storm, and tells them to throw him over the ship. And then we know this next part.
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
But even in the belly of a fish, Jonah was still in God’s presence. He had tried to run from God, so maybe that wasn’t initially comforting for him. And I’m sure that being in the belly of a fish was not an ideal location for Jonah. But, even in the belly of the fish, God still had plans to use Jonah, and to save people through Jonah’s message.
Think of another story. This is a parable that Jesus told:
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
There is nowhere that we can run away to, nowhere where we can get lost, that Jesus our good shepherd can’t come and find us and bring us back home. And we can have the same hope for our loved ones that may not be Christians right now, there is nowhere they can run that they are too far for God to come and find them and bring them back home. And that’s the hope that we have for them, that like David said, even if they’re lost in darkness, “even the darkness will not be dark to [God]; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to [Him].” There is nowhere they can get to on earth where they are too lost, if they turn to God, and repent, He is like the Father in the story of the prodigal son, waiting for them to run home to Him.
I’m reminded of a couple of other verses, that also bring the same sort of comfort. That remind us that there is nowhere that we can go that God is not with us.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Here Moses is talking to the Israelites who have been wandering in the desert for 40 years, and he reminds them that God is going to be with them as they head into the promised land. It’s one of the last things that he tells them before he dies. He reminds them of the law and then he tells them that they are going to be ok, because God is with them, going before them, fighting their battles for them, teaching them and leading them just like He did for their parents. And the promise made to them is that God will never leave them or forsake them.
There’s another verse, that’s very similar, and it’s repeated by Moses’s successor Joshua, as he begins to lead the people into the promised land. As God appoints Joshua to lead the people, God tells him this:
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
This verse is really special to me. My whole life this has been my family’s verse. I don’t know if you have a life verse, or something like that, one that you always go back to. I have a few of those, but this one is probably number one. Even from my earliest memories my family would pray this verse as a blessing over us as we would go out to school in the morning. When I was probably about 10 years old, my Dad printed this verse off as a poster, framed it, and hung it right above the door in our front entry, and ever since every single time I’ve left the house I’ve seen that verse. And over the course of my entire life, I think that this verse has given me more courage, and more comfort than any other verse. And it’s emboldening, and encouraging and comforting, because it’s a reminder that God is always with us. There is nowhere we can go that He is not leading, nowhere we can go where we need to be afraid, because our God is stronger than every other being in the universe, and nothing and noone in the whole world can take Him away from us.
It’s a beautiful thing to serve and love and to be loved by the God that is always there, the God that knows us and loves us and created us.
And that’s how the Psalm continues, that it’s a beautiful mystery to be able to be in relationship with and in the presence of the God that not only knew us from the beginning, but also formed us and knit us together.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
It’s incredible to worship the God, that formed us. And it reminds us of how precious all of life is, God is the one that has designed and orchestrated the life of each person. Each person is His creation, that He put together with love and care, and in His foreknowledge, He created them knowing all the days of their life, knowing everything that would happen to them, every good thing, every bad one, and not only has He seen them as they’ve gone through each moment, they’ve also never left His presence. He has always been there for them to turn to. And that’s true for us as well, each one of us was made in God’s image, and it’s important for us to remember that, that we were designed to represent Him.
And as Christians this has further implications for us.
First, that we should marvel at the beauty of human life, and in the way that we treat people, it should be apparent that we understand that they were made in the image of God, and that as we have respect for God, we also show respect to His creation.
Second, we should always be putting God on display in our words, thoughts, and actions. As we interact with people, God’s love should be shown. As we talk to and about people, it should be clear that we respect God’s creation. And even in the ways that we think about people, we should be keeping ourselves accountalbe, knowing that God knows our every thought. And that shouldn’t scare us, it should be a helpful and hopeful reminder to us, that with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives we can start to fix our way of thinking, and we can and should be starting to think about people the way that God does, as His beautiful creation, and considering ways that we can help and serve and love people well.
Finally, as we go from here, continue to reflect on the beauty of the idea that God is always there. This Psalm, and the verses I shared are far from the only verses in the bible, that give us comfort that no matter where we go God will be there for us. I would encourage you, if you haven’t done so already, to choose a verse to reflect on for a while, like my family has done with Joshua 1:9, maybe you only think about it for a week, maybe for a month or several months or a year, maybe for your entire life. And obviously still read and seek out other scriptures, but I think there’s something to be said about reflecting on and praying one verse for a while, I think you being to really understand it better, but also, it becomes a source of hope and peace and comfort for you. So continue to reflect. Reflect on God’s word. Reflect on God’s protection and constant presence. Reflect on the gift of being known and loved and created by God. And reflect on the gift of salvation that we have been gived by Christ Jesus.
Let’s close in prayer.
Benediction
Benediction
The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
“ ‘ “The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.” ’