Ps139-17
Precious, Vast, and New Every Morning
Ps 139.17,18
In July of 1997 my family had a family reunion in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming. Grand Teton National Park is one of the more beautiful and picturesque places on earth. We were treated to Elk by the dozens grazing peacefully and even wandered by a gigantic moose, knee deep in a lake.
We decided one day to climb up to the top of Jackson Hole ski resort. The chair lift runs all summers and if you took it up it would cost money for the ride, but if you hiked up, coming back down on the chair life was free. So my brother and I and some of our nephews and nieces hiked up to the top of the ski area. As I recall it was a hike of about 8 or so miles and we made our way up through the forest climbing ever higher. The top of the chair lift sits at around 10,000 feet above sea level.
As we were climbing, we broke out, all of the sudden into a gigantic subalpine meadow which stretched on and on over the tops of several hills and ridges, I would guess it was literally hundreds of acres in size. The path snaked across the meadows and as we started across, I was met with a stunning sight which I still remember as if it were yesterday. As I looked closely at this meadow, I realized that it was covered with tens of thousands of tiny little flowers of every color. Red, orange, white, purple, blue, and pink, none of the flowers was larger than, and inch or two, but they stretched on and on and on across this gigantic subalpine meadow. It was breath-takingly beautiful. Pictures do not do it justice, you have to be there, to comprehend the scene and the beauty.
We have been studying this great Psalm, Psalm 139 the last four times I have preached. I have been preaching on Sunday evenings, so many of you have not heard those sermons. I will do a quick review to catch you up to where we are. We said at the beginning of our study of Psalm 139 that we believed the grand theme of Psalm 139 was “A God Most Intimate,” that David is laying out for us the truth that, God is not just a great God who knows everything, who is present in every place, and who created us, but that he is a personal God. We saw that the God revealed in Ps 139 is unique to Judeo-Christianity, that no other religion has a conception of a God who cares intimately about me as an individual. We saw that He knows me completely, that there is nothing about me that surprises God. Nothing that He discovers about me that is new. He knows me better than I know myself and that knowledge, as David says, “hems me in, “ it serves to protect me, because God's knowledge serves as a hedge about me. Nothing gets to me that God does not know is coming. David says that this is a truth too wonderful for him to comprehend.
Then we saw that God is present wherever I am. There is no place I can go, David says, no place I can flee, and get away from God. He is present with all of his attributes where I am. The very fact that David puts that truth in the setting of fleeing from God, in verses 7-12, serves to amaze us because it implies that, God is present, whether I want him there or not. We say that, no matter how far I run from God, not matter how far I am from him, he is never far from me. What a profound truth that is.
Then, last time we took up this great section of vv 13-16, and we saw that God's power is demonstrated in the wonder of his works, and then David proceeds to work that out even more intimately. God's power is demonstrated in the care with which he created me. He labored over me. He knitted me in my mother's womb. He formed my bones. He gave me my specific character and personality, it is an amazing passage, and it lays the foundation for our understanding of the worth of the individual, so that there is no place in the Christian faith for abortion, or for euthanasia, or for racism. We could go on and on. Where God has created, there is value, and we treat the individual as valuable, just because each of us is created by God and in his image.
Today we are going to look at just the next two verses, vv. 17-18. Take your Bible and we will read those two verses. “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. (Psalms 139.17-18 ESV).
Such a simple couple of verses, and yet containing deep and profound truth. What we see here is that God's thoughts towards me, are precious, vast, and new every morning. God's thoughts towards me are precious, vast, and new every morning.
What does David mean when he says, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God.” The Hebrew word order here if we read literally is, “To me, how precious are your thoughts, O God.” So the “to me” comes first. What David means by that is, “towards, or unto me.” In other words David is emphasizing, not only the fact that all of God's thoughts are great and precious, as they are, but that his thoughts towards me as an individual are precious. This comes as no surprise since the grand theme he is working out, is that God is a most intimate God, and that all of his attributes are directed, are active, towards me. So it should not surprise us that God's thoughts are directed towards us, and yet, let's think about that for a minute.
God's thoughts towards me are precious because they imply that I am valuable. This is the theme running all through these first 18 verses of Psalm 139. A God Most Intimate implies that I am valuable as an individual. David doesn't say, “It amazes me that God's thoughts are directed towards humanity,” or “it amazes me that God's thoughts are directed towards his own people,” those two statements are both truth, and they are both amazing. What David says is, “it amazes me that God's thoughts are directed towards me as an individual human being.”
Think about it for a minute. There are 6 billion people on the earth. We, as individuals, are nothing in that mass of humanity. If Graham church were hit by a tornado with all of us in here and we were all carried into eternity, we would make the news a few nights in a row, we would get 15 minutes of too late fame, and life would go on without us. Most of the other 6 billion people would not give another thought about it, there would be no great changes in the course of humanity. We are very small indeed. Our place in the world is infinitesimally small. And yet here David has the audacity to say, “God's thoughts are towards you.” That is in some sense almost inconceivable. We get a glimpse of a God who is so huge and mighty that we cannot hardly begin to comprehend it.
The fact that God's thoughts are towards us is a profound statement, a profound commentary on the nature of God. He is mighty and vast. He has great responsibilities. We are but a vapor in the wind, and let's face it, when we are gone, apart from our families and friends, no one will notice, nor care. And yet here is God, directing his thoughts towards me. When the creator of the universe directs his thoughts continually towards me, that makes me very valuable, not matter what the rest of the world thinks. That makes me, in some sense, infinitely valuable.
God's thoughts are directed continually towards you, and towards me as individuals of great value and of great worth. I know that. How do I know it. Do you remember the parable of the prodigal son, in Luke 15? Do you remember the scene when the prodigal finally turns to home. His life is in the dumpster. He is feeding pigs, and sharing their food with them, and he says, “I will go home to my father.” “But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him”
(Luke 15.17-20 ESV). This guy has been gone for months and months, probably years, and look what Christ says, “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” I suggest to you that the only way the father would recognize his son “a long way off,” was if he was thinking about him continually. Month by month by month thinking with care and concern for his son. Does God the father do any less for us? Are his care and concern not ever with us as individuals. David says that God's thoughts are ever and always towards us. I do not even understand this completely. It is really unexplainable, and yet it is the truth that David proclaims. God's thoughts towards us are precious.
Now, I want you to grab hold of something here. If God's thoughts towards us are precious, then we need to look for his demonstrating that in our lives. You may be sitting there saying, “I do not see God's thoughts in my own life. I do not know what you are talking about. My life is nothing except difficulty and trial, where is God in that?” Part of our problem is that we do not see when God provides for us. We need to train ourselves to see his thoughts in our life.
During the lunar eclipse last month we were flying from Minneapolis to Memphis, flying south. We took off just at dusk and as we leveled off, the moon rose off to our left and it was just past full eclipse. There was just a sliver of the moon showing. I sit on the left hand side of the aircraft, so I am at 30,000 feet staring at the eclipse right out my side window the entire time it is eclipsing. I have front row seats to the eclipse. Wow. Amazing. I watched as the moon got brighter and brighter, until as we began our descent into Memphis there was just enough shadow left to make it look like the moon was wearing a top hat. What did I do to deserve that? Absolutely nothing. I think it was just God saying, I think I will blow John away with front row seats to that lunar eclipse today.
The skeptic says, “well you just happened to be in the right place at the right time, it is nothing more than that.” I say, “no, no, no, that is not the God of the Bible, that is no the God of Psalm 139. He is a God most intimate, and that was a gift to me, to John Murphy.” And what an incredible gift it was.
God has those gifts for us, but we need to have eyes to see them. You cannot see them watching television. I say that dogmatically and without hesitation. You are not generally going to see them at the mall. You might find it while watching a sunset, or walking out in the woods, or sitting on your front porch as the twilight turns to dark. You might find it in hearing the laugh of a little child, or in finding and caring for an injured animal. God has little gifts in radically different and sundry circumstances, but you have to force your eyes to see. The world sees a sunset as an event that occurs every day and is fun to note. The believer sees the sunset as a gift of God, the beauty, the soft fade from light to dark. The cool and quiet of evening. The fact tht you are there to witness it is a gift from an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-creating, radically intimate God. O brothers and sisters train your hearts and minds to see the gifts that God has for you in every nook and cranny of your life, then you will understand what David means when he says, “How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God.”
God's thoughts towards us are precious, David says. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God, how vast is the sum of them. If I should count them they would outnumber the sand. God's thoughts toward us are “vast,” David says. What is he trying to describe here? What truth is he trying to communicate to us?
Vastness is a comment on quantity. The Hebrew word here refers to quantity with a connotation of strength, might and power. So David is speaking of numbers in terms of God's thoughts toward us, with the implication that the very vastness of God's thoughts toward us express might and strength.
When you begin to ponder what the Scriptures say about God and us, and his knowledge of us, and his protection care and concern, it is easy to understand what David is saying. The more that you think about it, the more things come to mind in regards to God's thoughts towards us. That is the notion David has in mind here, I think. Start thinking about God's thoughts and promises to you, and they just keep coming and coming.
Several years ago, we were out in the mountains surrounding Los Angeles where I spent summers growing up. There is a mountain near where I grew up named Mt. Baden-Powell, after the founder of the Boy Scouts. My wife had never climbed up Mt. Baden-Powell, so several of us started the climb. It is only about 4 miles from start to finish, but it is all uphill, and almost all of the trail is composed of switch backs as it winds up the mountain. It is amazing how many switchbacks it takes to get up one mile of trail. They just keep coming and coming, and we kept climbing and climbing. My wife would say, “Are we getting near the top?” and I would say, “Yes, just a few more switchbacks.” So we would climb a few more switchbacks and my wife would say, “Are we near the top yet?” and I would say, “Yes, just a few more switchbacks.” The switchbacks seemed never ending, and my wife has not let me forget that hike to this day. My wife understands what David means by God's vast thoughts here. They just keep coming and coming, just like those switch backs did. When you think you have exhausted them, you find that there are more.
God knows the numbers of the hairs on our heads. He knows our thoughts and what we say before we are even going to say it. He knows where we are at all times and is present there. He formed us even while we were in our mother's wombs. He knows what we need before we even tell him what we need. He knows how to give us good gifts. He knows the plans that he has for us, to give us a future and a hope. He has set his love upon us. He is a refuge for us in times of trouble (Ps 9.9). From the Lord comes our help (Ps 121). He will deliver us from trouble (Ps 50). He will seek out the lost, broken, and the sick (Ezek 34). He will give us what we ask for when we ask him. He promises rest for our weary souls. He will give his angels charge over us to guard us in all our ways. (Ps 91). He gives strength to the weary (Is 40.29). He arms us with strength (Ps 18.32). He knows all that we need (Matt 7.29ff). He is with me like an ever present shepherd (Ps 23). He is my salvation (Ps. 38.22)!
We could go on and on and on and only scratch the surface. This is why Job said, when pondering God, “Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways and how faint a whisper do we hear of him, but the thunder of his power, who can understand?” I cannot understand how a God who has responsibility for the universe can so intimately and deeply care for one of six billion. Incomprehensible, and yet here is David claiming that very thing. You will find this God only in Judaism and Christianity, no other religion has this conception of a God Most Intimate, a God who cares about the little things, the little people.
Francis Schaeffer has this great sermon that is called “No Little People. No Little Places.” The theme is that where God is concerned there are no little people and there are no little places. We are all valuable and put in valuable places, no matter how small they may appear to the world. This is the God whose thoughts towards us are so vast, so incomprehensible, so innumerable, that David says, they are greater than the sand.
How vast is the sum of God's thoughts towards us.! No one captures that truth better than Frederick Lehman, in his hymn, the love of God. He adapted a very old Jewish poem into this third verse.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
Try as we might, we will never plumb the depths of God's thoughts toward us demonstrated in his love poured out upon us at the cross.
God's thoughts toward us are precious. They are vast. Then David has this truly strange comment at the end of verse 18. “If I should count them they outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee.” What could he possibly mean by that? One set of Bible notes said, “well this clearly makes no sense in the context, so the original wording must have been different.” We do not agree. David clearly meant to communicate truth here, but what was he saying?
We think that he is saying much the same as the book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;* his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3.22-23 ESV). We think that David is saying, “God's thoughts towards me are ever new. They are new every morning.” The picture is one of a child falling asleep in his father's arms. The child falls asleep in perfect peace because he has no worries that his father will not be there in the morning. He has no thought nor comprehension of that. A father is there for his child at night when he goes to sleep, and in the morning when he awakes. During the night he has not changed. He is the same father he was when the child went to sleep. He has the same thoughts, the same love, the same nature. The child expects this, this is the nature of fathers. This is what fathers do.
Its kind of scary to see what happens when fathers aren't there for their children. When my son, Ben was about 2 or 3, Cherie was gone and I put him down for a nap and went outside to work. My neighbor came outside so we began chatting and all of the sudden, Ben comes running out the garage door and he is screaming bloody murder. I ran over to see what the problem was, and he had awakened from his nap and got up to find his father, and his father was gone! He looked everywhere and no father, so what to do now? Panic of course, what kind of father leaves his kids when they are sleeping? Ben has never forgiven me for that. Fathers are there for their kids when they awake.
David is saying, 'All of this is new every morning. If it is true that the God we worship is a God Most Intimate and that he cares for us as individuals, that we are not just a number in the great Cosmos, if that is true today, it will be true tomorrow, and if it is true tomorrow, it will be true on the next day, and the next, and the next until we are called to be with God in eternity. “You can take that, says David, to the bank. “ “When I awake I am still with thee.”
We come to the end here at verse 18 in this great Psalm of David's theology. He will turn to application of that theology next. I want to make sure, as we end, that you fully grasp the import, the consequences of the truth that David has laid out in these verses. In the Christian faith the individual is valuable and the reason they are valuable is found right here. God is a God, not merely to a mass of people, not only to the church as a body of believers. He is a God to the individual believer.
What that means, and if you get nothing else I want you to get this. This means that he cares for you. This means that you are valuable. That when he knows, he knows you. That when he is present everywhere, he is ever present with you. That when he created, when he formed, when he knitted, he created you with all of your abilities and character to be a song to him. That your life would sing the mighty power of God. That your lips would sing the mighty power of God. That you would come to him and call him Abba, Daddy, Father.
Oh, brothers and sisters, if only you could grasp that. He is a kind and loving father to you. I know that some of you sit here and you have had an earthly father who was no true father, who was not there for you, I know that. My heart aches for you. But here is hope. You will find the father you never had, you will find a perfect father, in these verses in Psalm 139. Come to them again and again and again and pour over them and meditate on them and sit with them and you will come to understand a true father who will not abandon you, who will love you with unceasing, unstoppable love.
Precious, Vast, and New Every Morning
Ps. 139,17,18
I. Introduction
A. Eclipse
B. Review
C. Theme: God's thoughts towards me are precious, vast, and new every morning.
II. Precious
A. Read Ps. 139. 13-18
B. Hebrew word order - “To me” first. Means, “towards, or unto” and first in order to emphasize.
C. Precious because they imply that the individual (Me - You) is valuable
D. Profound commentary on the nature of God
Illus: How do I know that? Story of the prodigal (Luke 15.17-20)
E. Application
1. Train ourselves and our children to look for God's thoughts towards us.
Illus: Girl searching for frogs! Dad's reaction honors his daughters interests and teaches how her interests demonstrate God's thoughts towards her. Integrating life with faith. Teaching her to see!
a. skeptic - objection. Answer: This is not the God of Ps 139!
2. Can't see them watching television. Or at the mall.
3. Learning to see God's thoughts builds fortitude strength for the journey.
Illus: Mike and Kathryn - First class to Europe! We lucked out, or God is giving us a little treat!
III. Vast
A. Hebrew word means quantity with implication of strength and might.
B. Start thinking about it and the more you think, the more that comes to mind.
Illus: Switchbacks
C. What are God's thoughts towards us?
God knows the numbers of the hairs on our heads. He knows our thoughts and what we say before we are even going to say it. He knows where we are at all times and is present there. He formed us even while we were in our mother's wombs. He knows what we need before we even tell him what we need. He knows how to give us good gifts. He knows the plans that he has for us, to give us a future and a hope. He has set his love upon us. He is a refuge for us in times of trouble (Ps 9.9). From the Lord comes our help (Ps 121). He will deliver us from trouble (Ps 50). He will seek out the lost, broken, and the sick (Ezek 34). He will give us what we ask for when we ask him. He promises rest for our weary souls. He will give his angels charge over us to guard us in all our ways. (Ps 91). He gives strength to the weary (Is 40.29). He arms us with strength (Ps 18.32). He knows all that we need (Matt 7.29ff). He is with me like an ever present shepherd (Ps 23). He is my salvation (Ps. 38.22)!
D. So Job: Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways and how faint a whisper do we hear of him, but the thunder of his power, who can understand
E. Application
1. No Little People No Little Places
2. You are not little! Thus Frederick Lehman
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
IV. New Every Morning
A. NET Notes
B. Saying the same thing as Lamentations: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;* his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
C. God's thoughts towards me are ever new. Child falling asleep, wakes up and his father is still with him. Father does not change during the night.
Illus: Ben
V. Application
A. End of the theology part.
B. In Judeo-Christianity the individual is valuable because God is for the indvidual
C. This means that you are valuable
D. …..
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