Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea of the Message: Lent is a season in which we lament our personal sin and brokenness.

Understanding

What is Lent?

Lent is a season of forty days before Easter when Christians fast, pray, and refocus their lives on God.

Lent is a season that involves lament, repentance, and anticipation.

What does it mean to lament?

We get the idea of lament from the Hebrew word qina, which means a dirge or a song of mourning.

It emphasizes feeling sorrow and wailing, many times in the form of a chant or song (Edward W. Goodrick and John R. Kohlenberger III, The Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999], 1483).

Acquaintance (v.

1- 3)

This Psalm is considered as a celebration of God’s attributes - which means “an abstraction belonging to or characteristic of an entity” (David Witthoff, ed., The Lexham Cultural Ontology Glossary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).)

So here David was making it clear how involved God was in his life;

The Hebrew verbs can be interpreted as timeless truth: “You search me and you know me.”

God’s attributes are not restricted to time.

There was nothing about his, David’s, day that God was not aware of and or involved in;

The poet multiplies expressions to indicate how complete is God’s knowledge of him.

Whether he be at rest or in motion, in every posture and state, God knows him.

Not only his outward acts, but the thoughts from which they spring are at once discerned.

And this has not changed for you and me – God is still involved in every part of our lives – we may not want to acknowledge it but that doesn’t stop it;

The question becomes how does this knowledge, new or reminded, effect your thoughts and actions?

Attendance (v.

4-6)

David was recognizing that even his words God Himself was aware of, good or bad, because of His, God’s, involvement in every aspect of his life;

Wherever we are we are under the eye and hand of God.

Perhaps it is an allusion to the physician’s laying his hand upon his patient to feel how his pulse beats or what temper he is in.

God knows us as we know not only what we see, but what we feel and have our hands upon.

God’s presence was, and still is, everywhere and in everything;

God’s omnipresence guarantees protection.

The first line is literally “Back and front, you enclosed me.”

Your hand on me denotes absolute control over the psalmist, who was subject to the Lord’s loving care and discipline.

Because God is outside of time and matter, therefore He is not restrained to our here and now.

We cannot by searching find out how God searches and finds out us; nor do we know how we are known.

How should this affect you every moment of everyday?

Artificial (v.

7-12)

David, after pointing out God’s ever presence, David is now wondering how he can hide from Him;

God is everywhere; not only above all as transcendent, but also through all and in all as immanent in nature.

This thought is expanded and enforced by its application to all measures of space.

There is absolutely no place to hide from God so why do so many people try;

Yahweh’s authority extends beyond the cosmos, and his sovereignty recognizes no limits.

Every human is under the power, protection, and authority of God.

Darkness runs from His presence, waters stand aside at His command and storms lay down by His voice because of His authority, but yet people think they can hide from His authority;

Not only do people try to hide but they also try to offer fake or partial worship;

God knows when you are being “Artificial” in your worship;

Why do people, Christians, offer fake or partial worship - because of an unrepentant heart;

How is your heart today - what are you holding that needs to be released?

Application Point: We will not fight the feelings of guilt because of sin.

The Cross