Psalm 139: Lord, You Know Me

English Standard Version Psalm 139

139 TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID.

1  O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

2  You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

3  You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

4  Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

5  You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

6  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

7  Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

8  If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

9  If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10  even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me.

11  If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light about me be night,”

12  even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you.

13  For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

14  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

15  My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16  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.

17  How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18  If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

I awake, and I am still with you.

19  Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!

O men of blood, depart from me!

20  They speak against you with malicious intent;

your enemies take your name in vain.

21  Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

22  I hate them with complete hatred;

I count them my enemies.

23  Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

24  And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting!

FACTS ABOUT THE HUMAN BODY

Did you know?:

If a human being’s DNA were uncoiled, it would stretch 10 billion miles, from Earth to Pluto and back.[22]

By the time a person reaches 70 years old, he or she will have consumed over 12,000 gallons of water.

The body can detect taste in .0015 (15 millionths) seconds, which is faster than the blink of an eye

The brain contains 86 billion nerve cells joined by 100 trillion connections. This is more than the number of stars in the Milky Way.

A human eye can distinguish between approximately 10 million different colors.

It is incredible how complex the human body is and how much scientists know about the human body

And I’m sure that they are still learning. There is much that doctors still don’t understand

We can study and

Truly, human life is not an accident!

Truly, there is an intelligent and loving Designer!

The Psalmist starts out this psalm by saying, LORD, you have searched me and you know me

What does it mean to be known?

To be truly known by someone is both comforting and scary

God knows what you are

He knows that you human. He knows everything about how you are put together

He knows how our bodies are “knit” together.

Some of you might be into knitting or crocheting

To me, it looks terribly complicated, and I’m just not sure of how you keep track of what you are doing or where you are in the project

As we look at our human bodies, the same thing is true

There are so many mysterious things about the way our bodies are put together

There are things that even the smartest people haven’t completely figured out about the way we are put together

Why do we have fingerprints?

Why do we have an appendix?

that little organ that you can just yank out and apparently feel no lasting effects

Why do we yawn?

Why is laughter (and yawning) contagious?

Why do we have blood types?

These are all questions that scientists have no solid answers for. But God knows the answer, because this is exactly how He formed you to be

He “knit” us intricately together. These are things that define us as humans

Long before you were even born, He had a plan to create you and He knew that you were going to be here this morning

when God created the world, He created millions or probably billions of living organisms

cellular, molecular level

Plants, insects, animals

All those things, He spoke into existence

But when it came to Humans, Adam and Eve, He took His hands and lovingly and carefully formed them

Scientists often speak of humans being part of the “animal kingdom”.

yeah, we are pretty smart animals, but just part of the animal kingdom nonetheless.

But that isn’t Scriptural, even by a long shot

Before your body even came together, He had planned you out

And He formed you and knit you together

God not only knows how intricate our human bodies are, He also understands very well the weakness of our human bodies,

Psalm 103:14 “14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.”

Jesus understands also the weaknesses and limitations of our human bodies

this is why the incarnation is so miraculous

Jesus submitted Himself to the human experience,

He knew what it was like to be hungry, thirsty, tired, perhaps sick, to have sores on his feet, to feel the sun burning his skin,

When you think about this, and think about how a baby comes into this world, fully formed

It just impresses on us again the horror of abortion and awefulness of treating human life as if it is something that we can just make decisions about

And this is also why I find it difficult to support the death penalty and going to war

it’s that each person whom we make life and death decisions about were formed and knit together by our Creator

God formed you. You were created unique and with a special purpose and plan He knows what you are

God knows who you are

You know, I’m Ok with people knowing things about me

I’m OK with people knowing that I really love chicken and rice

Or that I think airplanes and machines are cool, or that my favorite color is red

I’m Ok with going to the dentist and him finding out that I have this one really wacky tooth up here that I used to be so self conscious about

Or doing to the doctor and him finding out some other medical issue that I have

These things are OK and necessary

But how many people truly KNOW me. How many people in our lives truly KNOW everything about me

The things that I think about, the things that I dream about, the kinds of things that I do when I think that no one is looking,

Things that I may have done that I really wish I hadn’t done, and I’m ashamed that I did those thigns

Things that others have done to me that brought me pain and shame

You know, it’s probably not a stretch to say that every single one of us in this room has those things in our lives that we just would rather keep hidden

Each one of us has had experiences that are painful and in many cases bring shame to our minds and when we think about them, we cringe and try to push those things down

Or maybe there are other things in our lives that we know aren’t right. They don’t please Him. But we kind of enjoy them

habits, sin patterns, activities that don’t exactly bring glory to Jesus

But we hang onto them because we kind of enjoy these things, thinking about them, indulging in them

Whatever it is, there are things in our lives that we would just rather keep hidden from others and from God

And we try to put up a facade, a false front, that will hide those things

And many people live in fear that someone will find out something about us that will hurt whatever image we have tried to portray

To have someone TRULY know us, and know everything about us is something that is frankly terrifying

A few months ago we attended a conference. The speaker was talking about dealing with pain and sin in our lives, and he advised us to do a FULL LIFE CONFESSION.

That is, find someone whom you trust and as best as you are able, tell your entire life story, leaving nothing out. The good, the bad, and the ugly

Because Satan deals in darkness. And if he can persuade us to keep those things in the dark, he has power over use

But when we bring those things into the light, Satan begins to lose his power

But here’s the thing. God knows about these things already

He has searched me and He knows me.

Search: Probe, test, examine

Pilot checkrides: in training, you can sometimes start to pull the wool over the eyes of your instructor

But then you sit with an examiner

he comes into the airplane with an unbiased view

he can sense right away what your attitude is coming in to the check ride

he can catch right away whether or not you are careful with your procedures and checklist useage

He can see if you have formed any bad habits that will be hazardous as a pilot

And he will sometimes create various distractions to see how you will respond. Or purposefully do something to see if you will correct him

Getting my bus license:

three parts of the test: pre-trip, maneuvering, driving

Each done by a different examiner

God examines us and He knows us intimately. He knows our hearts even better than we do!

He discerns my thoughts from afar!

The Bible says in a number of places that Jesus knew people’s thoughts and motives and He addressed them before they had even said a word

Can you imagine how disconcerting that must have been for folks

You are sitting there being critical in your heart, trying to keep your expression somewhat neutral

And Jesus says, “Hey, I’ve got something to say to you”

We can sometimes do that with people. Sometimes our expressions or mannerisms give away what we are thinking

But other times we think that we can be really good at hiding what is in our hearts

but with God, it’s impossible for us to hide what is in there

God knows where you are

The Psalmists talks about fleeing from the presence of God

And a lot of times, I think, “Well he means literally going somewhere”—like going to Africa to try to get away from God

But that’s ridiculous, right? We know all the correct answers, and we know that God is omnipresent, everywhere all the time, and that we can’t possibly get away from Him.

at least not physically

But it’s possible, I believe, that we often try to escape Him in other ways

Jonah tried to flee from the presence of God

Jonah wasn’t dumb. He knew he couldn’t get away from God

But maybe he thought that somehow He could put a kink into God’s ideas

God wanted him to to go Nineveh and preach repentance

“But maybe if I go far enough in the opposite direction, God will say, well looks like you aren’t available. I’m going to have to find someone else to do it”

Maybe he just thought that God would let him off the hook if he just used his good ol’ common sense

but of course, God didn’t let him off the hook and he found himself by a very unpleasant route back to Nineveh!

it is possible that we try to do the same thing?

We don’t literally go to another country or something like that, but I think that we do try to “run” by creating excuses about why we can’t be “all in” with Him

Well, I’ve got this business to run

Well, I’ve got family to attend to

Well, I don’t have the abilities that you are looking for!

Sorry, God! You’ve got the wrong guy!

But here’s the amazing thing: Even when we do that, God is right there. His Holy Spirit is right there directing our steps and guiding us

If I ascend into heaven, you are there

if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), you are there

if I get as far away from home as I can, wow, there you are! Your hands are leading me, and holding me

even the darkest situations are like light to you

I hope that this is something that you can all testify to.

That in your life, even when you felt far from Him, He was still there, holding you in His hands, guiding you with His hands

in my life, as a young man I moved from Canada back to the States

And those were some difficult years. I didn’t exactly feel like I was very close to Jesus

I had desires in my heart of things that I wanted to do, but life felt very directionless and aimless

But I look back now and I can testify that even then, God was there directing me and holding me

Things felt dark sometimes, but things weren’t dark to Him

This is the amazing thing about the Love and Mercy of God

you may be intentionally running from Him

You might have just wandered away from Him

But no matter the case, I believe that He is there and offering to direct your steps

“you hem me in behind and before. You lay your hand of blessing on my head”

I picture a dad with His young son, there as a protection and laying his hand on His shoulder or on top of His head as both blessing and direction

Gently guiding him in the direction that he should go

His love for us is vast

As we look at this entire Psalm, it’s just impressed upon me of the love of God for His creation. That is you. That is me

David says to God, “How precious your thoughts towards me are. The sum of them is vast!”

I wouldn’t be able to count them

they are more than the sand!

7,500,000,000,000,000,000

7.5 sextillion

David had no way of knowing how many grains of sand there are

But that’s not the point. He was using hyperbole, or exaggeration to make a point

That God’s thoughts are not like our thoughts. His ways aren’t like our ways.

the fact that He thinks of us at all is incredible

And David is making the point that He never loses track of us

He never wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Ooops, I wonder what Conrad has been doing the last few days. Kind of forgotten about him!”

And each of us, you and I, are an integral part of His plan and purpose for the world

And that should be a “precious”, valuable thought to us!

You mean, God’s plan for His world, His creation, includes me?

Yeah! It does!

Don’t discount this!

And if we trust in His perfect love, it is then that we can say with the Psalmist, “Search me”

He starts out the Psalm by saying, “Lord, you have searched me, and you know me”.

You have examined me, and you have found out everything about me

And he winds up the Psalm by saying essentially, “Lord, continue to search me. I want you to know me even better!”

When you have entered an intimate relationship with another person, it might be kind of scary at first

But when you have experienced someone who knows everything about you and yet still loves you, you don’t want it any other way

It’s when you trust that God knows you intimately and still loves you immensely, that you can pray this prayer:

“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!”