The Omni God

Psalm 139 The Omni God Introduction: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me…” The opening declaration and the big idea of this Psalm is God’s thorough knowledge of man (especially of his people-God knows or keeps the way of the righteous (Psalm 1)) God knows all. This Psalm teaches what we call the incommunicable attributes of God. The incommunicable attributes are those that we as creatures cannot share with God or fully comprehend..in contrast to his communicable attributes like, Love, Mercy, Justice, Holiness, goodness…etc. Something I love about this Psalm is that God’s attributes are not an abstract thing (even though they cannot be fully comprehended) the Psalmist describes God’s attributes in relation to himself. Every bit of this Psalm is taken in personal reflection - Meaning that who God is, and what he does, should bring radical shape and direction to our lives as Christians. 1. The Omniscience of God -Knowledge -vs.2-6 1. 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.” 1. Activities/Deeds, Words, Thoughts 2. God knows our needs, our wants, our temptations, our struggles, our greatest fears, our deepest darkest secret(s), our thoughts before we think them; both good and bad; God knows all these things. 1. Derek Kidner comments - "This divine knowledge is not merely comprehensive (impersonal) like that of some receptor that misses nothing, capturing everything alike. It is personal and active: discerning us; sifting us (the word search is the idea of winnowing or sifting wheat); knowing our minds more closely than we know them ourselves; surrounding us, handling us.” 2. The Omnipresence of God- Presence -vs.7-12 1. “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence (face)? 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.” 1. Nowhere too far; nowhere too dark; There is no place physically, emotionally, spiritually where we are beyond God’s presence and care. We cannot escape him. 3. The Omnipotence of God - Creator/ Possessor - vs.13-16 1. “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.[a] 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. 1. The Creator has intricately woven both soul and body; he knits together our unformed substance (embryos)..mapping out the days of our lives. This shows knowledge of the Psalmist life in it’s entirety before he was ever born - planning his end from the beginning. Every single day that you are on earth is ordained, from conception to final breath. He creates, ordains, sustains, upholds both body and soul. His power overshadows every second of your life. (fragile life in the womb, fragile end of days) To say, God thinks of him is an understatement his thoughts toward him/us are innumerable! 4. David goes through four stages as he takes all of this in: 1. Overwhelmed. In vs 6 he declares such knowledge is too wonderful for me. David is describing not awe, but more like being overwhelmed or claustrophobic at this knowledge. He says in vs 5. You hem me in. That’s in front and behind, and then you lay your hand upon me… the idea alone gets you breathing heavily. 2. Flee. David’s next stage or instinct is to run away. Tim Keller points out that these are the exact same hebrews words that are used to describe Jonah trying to run away from the presence or face of God. So David goes from this suffocating feeling to the point of wanting to get free from God. Now David was from an ancient culture in which your family and your surrounding culture/tribe largely shaped who you were and what you did. But even David is overwhelmed at this Idea of God having complete authority over his life. 1. How much more for us? In the U.S we have taken a perfectly good idea, Democratic Political Self Determination - that we should be able to choose our own government and elect our own leaders - And we have elevated it to an ultimate spiritual reality and the very meaning of life. We believe that we have to be ourselves, we have to choose our own way, we have to choose for ourselves what is right and wrong and if we don’t life is meaningless.This is what we believe as a culture, this is what the culture teaches us; so for people like us, if this is your understanding of life, an all knowing, all present, all powerful God is a nightmare. 1. The Existentialist Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, wrote in Being and Nothingness, “If there is a God we can’t be free. If there is a God who sees everything then we’re dehumanized. If there is a God who controls everything that is unconscionable. If we’re free then there is no God. If there is a God we are not free. Period.” That’s the reason why David, that’s reason why Jonah, that’s why some of us want to escape this ever present God. We don’t want to believe he exists. "Let me Go we say, I want to be free," because this is our definition of Life. 1. The problem that most people will have, in our day in age, with the first question of the Westminster Catechism, Q: What is the chief end of man (what is the meaning of Life?) A: To Glorify God and enjoy him forever. is that it doesn’t leave any room for self. What about me they say? 2. See, Jonah fled from God, or tried at least, David thought about it, we just either deny God or try to change the rules. (who he is, what he is capable of) 3. Ambivalence. Now David comes to a third response or stage. The stage of ambivalence 1. David tries to get away - if he goes to the ends the earth, there God is, if he goes to the heavens or to the depths of the sea, there God is too, and then he says, "even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” 1. See, you can deny God, or you can try to change the rules (who he is, what he is capable of) But then you have no hand to guide when you are lost, you have no hand to uphold you when you fall. 1. Sartre said in his 1946 lecture Existentialism is a Humanism "Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse.” 2. We want be free? Fine. But it means no hand, it means no guidance, it means no morals…David knows he doesn’t want that. See the ambivalence? 3. The presence of God is an escapable fact, and yet it is also a radical threat. This is the human condition - We can’t live with God and we can’t live without him. 4. Joy and delight in this knowledge of God’s Knowledge fourth and final stage. 1. David turns at some point in his thinking, over the smothering care and presence of God, somewhere between the second and third stanza…At the end of the third stanza we read - 1. “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.” 2. Most commentators agree that this is the climax of the poem. Yet there are all sorts of different ideas as to what it means… .. But why would this be the climax? David has already said that when he sleeps and wakes up God is there, at the beginning of the poem. Why then would the climax be that God is ever present with me even when I awake - unless David isn’t actually talking about sleep? 1. David uses these same words in Psalm 17 in reference to death he says, "But as for me, my contentment is not in wealth but in seeing you and knowing all is well between us. And when I awake in heaven, I will be fully satisfied, for I will see you face-to-face.” 2. What is David celebrating? David has gotten so far from bemoaning the fact of God’s presence, he now celebrates a God that has him by the hand, that will never let him go, he will be with him to the end… that even if he dies, or when he dies, he will be with him, through death. David wakes up, he’s come through death and he sees the Lord face to face..That’s the ultimate omnipresence, he’s going to be with us through death and he’s gonna wake me up, and I will see him. 1. Mark 5 - Jairus’s Daughter 1. “Then He came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly. 39 When He came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”40 And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying. 41 Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement.” 2. David is saying, if God has you by the hand, even if you go into darkness it will become light, even if you go into death it will become resurrection. Death is only sleep for the believer in Jesus. 5. Full Circle 1. David has come full Circle now. Listen again to his closing prayer, “ 1. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me (test) and know my thoughts![c] 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, (wicked way, Idolatrous course, pattern of evil) and lead me in the way everlasting!” 2. The closing request echoes the opening statement - Now rather than deny all this or block out the idea the Psalmist rather invites and celebrates God’s knowledge and search of his life…He invites God in for relationship. He says, come into my innermost being (the heart) with full and divine scrutiny; take control of my ways to eradicate sin and folly and direct me in truth and the way of life. 1. How could David pray this? No one can possibly pray this knowing their own heart… 1. First off, God is holy, No one can see him and live, His presence, the sight of his face, would destroy us in our sinful state. 2. Secondly, this Psalm describes the human predicament of our rebellion and sinfulness against God, we are all trying to get away from God, to get away from his presence and his authority over our lives. But the Bible says, that is Sin. We are not letting God be God. We are not giving him the praise, honor, and devotion that he deserves. 1. If God is allowed (as it were ) to plum the depths of the human heart, what will he find? Jesus said, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” - Matthew 15. If you were to stand in the presence of God you would know what God told Moses - You need to be covered, no one can see me and live! 2. How? How did David do that? How did he get there? How did David go from the threat of God’s presence to a transforming Joy; and how do we go there? 3. Why? Why does David pray what we are taught to never say in the NT. vs. 19-22 “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.[b] 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.” 1. What are we taught in the NT? Jesus teaches us to love our enemies; to bless those who curse us; to pray for those who spitefully use us. That’s the exact opposite of what David prays!! 2. What happened between David’s time and our time? 1. David’s greater son hung and died on a cross, praying for his enemies. This is why David can experience God’s presence, this is why we are never to speak like this about our enemies. 3. Compare and Contrast 1. Jesus experienced “the distance” of Psalm 22. If Psalm 139 is all about presence, Psalm 22 is all about distance. “My God, My God why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far?… Be not far from me!” - It’s all about distance. David cannot lose the presence of God, and David’s greater son, Jesus, can’t find it. Even David’s darkness turned to light, but for his greater Son, even the midday sun became dark. 2. Why? He was getting what we deserve…he lost the presence of God so we would never have to. This is what each of us want - autonomy, and Jesus actually experienced that. He is punished for our sin, so now because of what Christ has done, we will never lose the presence of God, even though we might feel abandoned, even though it might be dark, even though death might be at our door, his hand lead us, and his right hand will hold us!! 1. Some of you are thinking, but everything is going wrong in my life lately? Maybe that is God allowing these things so that you will come back to him. He’s not abandoning you, he’s pursuing you. He’s with you. 6. Conclusion: The Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence of God should do two things for the believer: it should bring both great fear and great comfort. Not fear in the sense of judgment, but fear in the sense that we don’t want to let God down, He’s always with, He knows everything, even before we say it or before it happens, and so we strive to be holy to honor him with everything we say and do. 1. “‘Fear’ in the Bible means to be overwhelmed, to be controlled by something. To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love. It means that, because of his bright holiness and magnificent love, you find him ‘fearfully beautiful.’ That is why the more we experience God’s grace and forgiveness, the more we experience a trembling awe and wonder before the greatness of all that he is and has done for us.” -Tim Keller 2. And in all of that we have a great comfort, he will never leave us or forsake us. never, no never. Closing Prayer: Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.