Sermon Tone Analysis

We’re going to be in Psalms 139:16-18 today.

Did you know, that God wants to be your best friend?

He wants to be YOUR best friend!

How does that make you feel?

It makes you feel good.

You have a glorious, all powerful, all knowing God and despite all that, he still wants to be your friend.

Psalms 139:16-18 (NLT) says “16 You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.

They cannot be numbered!

18 I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!

And when I wake up, you are still with me!”

There are three points we can learn from this particular passage.

The first is God has a purpose for all of us.

Verse 16 says “16 You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

There’s nothing that is hidden from God.

He has already made provision for every struggle in our life, every thought, every desire, and every feeling that we will ever go through in our entire lives.

He knows it all, He’s known us since before we were even born.

One thing that always strikes me is that, if you look throughout the course of human history, there’s a lot of philosophers, and it’s typical of unbelievers, to ponder and to think and to philosophy about “What’s the meaning of life?” We’ve all heard this, from Socrates to Aristotle to modern day philosophers; everybody says the big question for humans is: “What is the meaning of life?” It’s because they don’t get it that if you take God out of your life, there is no reason for life.

Because, as believers, we understand specifically and clearly that the meaning for life is to bring Him glory.

We are here for His glory.

Isaiah 43:7 (NLT) says 7 Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have made them for my glory.

It was I who created them.’”

That’s a clarity in our life, God has a purpose, our purpose in our life is to glorify Him.

He has a special purpose for everyone of us.

His kingdom has a place for all of us.

That’s the reason why we go through our trials, our tribulations, our victories; they all have a purpose for us that serves God’s ultimate purpose.

But God makes provision for His own purposes.

He’s not restricted by human standards.

A good example is you think about when you were a teenager in high school and you’re thinking about what you want to be when you grow up.

You had to figure out what you were going to do with your life.

And when you think about that, there’s a lot of roadblocks to it.

When you want to do something specific with your life, a certain career path, you’ve got to figure out what it is you want to study.

Then you’ve got the hurdle of, if I’m going to college, how am I going to pay for it?

Then once you’ve figured out what you want to study and how to pay for it, you must figure out what college you are going to.

Now you must worry about getting the grades.

You must study, stay in college, and actually graduate.

Now, after you through all those hurdles, you must figure out if there are any job openings, can you even get a paying job for what you want to do?

So, from the time that you decide what you want to be to the time that you get to fulfill that purpose, you’ve got hurdle and hurdles that you have to overcome.

If we stay on God’s path, He will provide.

It is when we stray from His path that we start to feel like we are alone.

Isaiah 46:9-10 (ESV Strong's) says “9 … for I am God, there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’” Stay in God’s purpose and He will provide, He will accomplish, He won’t fail, He CAN’T fail.

So, all the details are already laid out before us when we stay on God’s path and there’s nothing that can stop God’s purpose.

We also learn here that God is a personal God.

In verse 17 He says: 17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.

They cannot be numbered!

God is thinking about you all the time!

He thoughts about us, you can’t even count them.

He is thinking about you all the time!

Whether you are thinking about Him or not, He is thinking about you.

He wants to know what’s going on in your life, He wants to see what your doing.

He is thinking about you ALL THE TIME! When, we bring ourselves into personal relationship with God, we gain His personal protection.

There’s a story in Numbers 12:6-8; I’ll give you a little background because the story is much longer, but we aren’t going to go through the whole thing; but the backstory to this is: This is after Aaron has been anointed as High Priest of the Jews and Aaron and his wife Miriam go and criticize Moses because he doesn’t have a Jewish wife.

Remember, Moses took his wife when he was in exile before he went back to save the Jews.

They are criticizing him because the Jewish law that was laid down to them was not to marry with the Gentiles because it contaminates the Jews.

So they are accusing Moses of being unholy, and Aaron is reinforcing his arguments by saying “Well, I’m the High Priest, God speaks to me to.

So, since I’m the High Priest, I’m speaking for God right now when I’m rebuking you Moses.”

But what happens?

What happens is God comes before them, calls them all to the tabernacle and God comes before them and He says this in verse 6: “6 And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream.

7 Not so with my servant Moses.

He is faithful in all my house.

8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord.

Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” God uses these words for a reason, He doesn’t just say that Moses was one of His people, all of the Jews were God’s people, Aaron was the High Priest; but He singles out Moses as His servant, because God had a personal relationship with him.

He had a personal relationship with Moses.

Even Aaron as the High Priest, who was the only one among the Jews, besides Moses, who was allowed to come into the presence of the Lord.

He was the only one who was allowed to enter into the room containing the Ark of the Covenant; and even then, he could only do it one time a year.

And Aaron had to go through an enormous ceremony just to be able to do that.

I f you want to read about it, you can read in Exodus and Leviticus.

But to summarize it, Aaron had to sacrifice like seven lambs and seven bulls, and he had to sprinkle blood all over himself and the tabernacle, then he had to go into the Holy of Holies and he had to sprinkle the Ark with blood and beg for forgiveness of his sins.

Then he had to go back out and do it all over again; and then he could go back into that room and he would sprinkle the Ark for the forgiveness of Israel’s sins; this was called the Day of Atonement.

That was the most he was allowed to enter into God’s direct presence; and, as the High priest, he was the only one who could do that.

Not so with Moses, you can read through Exodus and Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus; Moses is in God’s presence all the time.

Not once, does Moses have to go through some ornate ceremonial cleansing process to come into His presence.

Why?

Because God has a personal relationship with Moses.

There’s a personal relationship there.

God wants to have a personal relationship with you too.

That’s what He wants.

Follow me to Mark 15:37-38 (ESV Strong's) tells us about Jesus’ last moments on the cross: “37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.

38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”

Let me explain to you first what this curtain was.

The curtain was in the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was a huge tent of worship, it was the place of God within Israel as they wandered through the desert.

It contained the Ark of the Covenant and they would set it up in the middle of their camps.

The outer perimeter was about 150 feet long and about 75 feet wide, it was a good-sized area.

There was this outer perimeter that had a courtyard in it and then inside that was a tent that was about 45 feet long by 20 feet wide, that was the tabernacle tent that within the Holy place, where the incense altar and the lamp stand were located.

Then there was a curtain at the back of there, that created a smaller room that was around 12 feet deep; and in there was the Holy of Holies, the place of the Ark.

Separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy place where the priests would go in and burn incense, was this curtain.

The curtain designated that they were separated from God.

This curtain was approximately 18 inches thick.

Not wide, no long, THICK.

This thing did not tear!

There was an ancient torture practice of quartering, where they would tie horses to each of a man’s limbs and have the horses tear the man literally limb form limb.

It was said of this curtain that it would stop the horses in their tracks, they could not tear it.

God specifically had this curtain give the realization to the Israelites that, though He is with them, there is still a separation.

There was a distinct separation between the Israelites and God, even though He was in their midst, there was a separation, and again, only the High Priest could go in there.

And this curtain, it could not be moved, did you that, in order for the High Priest to go in there that one time a year, he had to crawl under the curtain?