Summer in the Psalms (Psalm 139)

Introduction

Well a very good evening and welcome to another devotional in our Summer in the Psalms Series. Tonight we are going to be reflecting on Psalm 139, just a wonderful psalm that ponders God’s Infinite and intimate atributes. Shows us what God is like so that we might be encouraged to walk in in his way and not take the path of the wicked. Lets hear God’s word.

Play Video that is on Faithlife.

Just wonderful, and if you would like to go into this psalm in more depth than we are able to cover tonight and to here more about its context, I will leave a link at the end of tonights video to a sermon that I preached on it just before Lockdown. But tonight I would like us just to pause and reflect on these particular words, Psalm 139:13-16 and how it might apply to us today.

Psalm 139:13–16 NIV13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 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. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

The Psalmist knows where he comes from and to whom he belongs. He kows his life is not just the result of Random Evolutionarry processes, He is fearfully and wonderfully made, created designed. That is he has been made in such a way with such care and purpose that inspires reverential awe in him.

Some years ago I was engaged in music ministry events across England when I shared a song I wrote called wonderfully and fearfully made based on this psalm. (ill share it with you at the end of this devotional) A lady came up to me after the concert and said “my Son has cerebral Palsy, he suffers terribly, tell me is he fearfully and wonderfully made?” up untill that point I had never really bean challenged by anyone after on the content of my songs and message at the end of a concert. The answer of course is a resounding yes, he is absolutly fearfully and wonderfully made, Disabled people are created, valued and loved by God, but as a young zealous christian with a fairly privilidged upbringing I had yet to think through some of the more difficult questions of Theodicy. This mother felt that because her sons body was broken the Psalmists claim about Gods loving care and design in creation could not be true of her and her son.

If we are to understand what it means to be wonderfully and fearfully made in spite of our broken bodies, then we first need to understand what our primary purpose is as human beings.

The Shorter Catechism was designed for children and Adults with learning disabilities who may have found the westminster confession of faith to difficult.

Q1: What is the chief end of man?  A1: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever. 

Whoever you are you are abled or disabled, you are fearfully and wonderfully made for the purpose of Binging Glory to God. We see the Face of God most clearly throught the person of Jesus. In John 9:2-3 Jesus was once asked a question about a disabled man.

John 9:2–3 ESV

And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

The Bible is full of people whose disabilities were no barrier to them playing a vital part in the history of God's people. In the kingdom of God, abled and disabled people sit together as equals at the feast table

Jesus was absolutely revolutionary in whom He welcomed: infectious people (Mark 1:40-42); disabled people (the Gospels are peppered with stories of His disability ministry); adulterers (John 8:1-11); social outcasts (Mark 2:14); foreigners (Matthew 8:5-13); women (Luke 10:39). His life was reinforced by his teaching; in the Sermon on the Mount He turned the world's values upside down and declared blessed those whom society considered cursed.

There may be someone here tonight, and you struggle to agree with the Psalmist that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You don’t have much self esteem, you don’t feel very important, maybe you don't feel attractive or valuable or loved. But the Lord says you are mine, You are my workmanship, created for good works which I have prepared for you to do in advance, your life is not meaningless or purposless, you are not a mistake, You are not simply an accident brought about by natural processes.

Wether you were loved by your parents or not, Ulitmately it was God who knit you together in the Womb, God who made you into living soul, God who created your spirit.It doesnt matter wether you are white, black, young, old, disabled or abled, you were made by God for God, to glorify God. And you need to know that God your creator sent his Son Jesus to die in your place save you from the power of Saten sin death and Hell. Peace and forgivness with God can be found in his name. This God who sent his son to Die for your Sins is always thinking of you. Not because you are the center of the universe he is, but because he made you for himself. If you are reconciled to God, he delights over you with singing. The Psalmist says:

Psalm 139:17–18 NIV17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.

The psalmist declares that God thinks about him often

This verse is important, because some people believe that if there is a God he couldnt possibly take the time to care about me. He’s got the Universe to Run. God thinks about you often because you were made for him, you have the capaicity to Glorify him in such a way that the rest of creation can’t, because you have been made in his image and likeness.

You know my Grandma has a photo framed of the day when my Grandad met the queen. She is so proud of that picture and how the queen the queen of England took notice of my Grandad. His contribution to various building restoration projects. But thats nothing....Because almighty God, The ultimate Monarch, The king of Kings and Lord of Lords actually thinks of us constantly! He says he has engraved our names on the palms of his hands (Is 49:16), as if to show how continually we are before him. Zepheniah3:17 shows us He delights over his Children with Singing.

Eternal life is offered to those who put their trust in Jesus. If we do that, our broken bodies will one day be utterly transformed and we will shine like the stars forever in Gods etenal Kingdom.

> Play Video Wonderfully and Fearfully made.

Don’t Read,

I have a wonderful electric Fender Telecaster in strorage, you might say it is wonderfully and fearfully crafted, but you know what, It doesnt cut grass very well? There may be things we want to be able to do but we are unable because of our limitations, but we were all made for one purpose, that purpose is to Glorify God in the only way each of us can no matter what our broken bodies are like. To that end we are fearfully and wonderfully made.