Psalm 139 God shapes individuals to bring about His purposes - Needing a Vision for Personal Ministry

Farm Tool Quiz – each has a purpose – each critical for the task

Some of these things look terrible. Yet each had a purpose. Useful in the farmyard. And essential if you want to do the task.

So it is in the church. Each person designed and built as a custom tool to accomplish just what the Lord desired.

Needing a Vision for Personal Ministry because

I. God shapes individuals: Making them with purpose

A. Created who I am v 13a, 16

(ESV) Psalms 139 13 For you formed my inward parts; … 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

1. Formed. Created me

2. Personality / essence / soul

3. Not the sinful part or sinful tendencies

4. Inmost being, ‘kidneys’, the seat of emotion and moral character, the mind and heart

5. From conception – unformed substance

B. Created my physical being v 13b, 15

(ESV) Psalms 139 13 … you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. … 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. …

a) Wove/ knitted – weave/embroidered (color and pattern) (veins/arteries color – or complicated person)

b) Frame, the bony structure,

c) From the inner depths of the womb – outside human sight Shaped from conception

C. Created a masterpiece v 13-14

(ESV) Psalms 139 13 For you formed (sculpted) myinward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. … intricately woven in the depths of the earth. … 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

1. A marvelous creation – handmade by an infinite artisan

D. Created with purpose v 16-18

(ESV) Psalms 139 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

(ESV) Psalms 139 17 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.

1. Creator of a plan for you

a. From the moment of conception – when no form had begun

b. Before physical development – He already had laid out His plans for me (ordained)

2. God thinks about me

a. Invested much time, effort and thinking about me

b. Thoughts of our lover are precious

c. Each day continues to think about me – not just during creation

Needing a Vision for Personal Ministry because

II. God shapes individuals: Intimately knowing them

A. Examinedthoroughly v 1

(ESV) Psalms 139 1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

1. You emphatic – It is you who search me

2. Searched

a. Scrutinize

b. Diligent and often difficult probing (Doctor pokes you in the belly ‘does it hurt’ of course it does – investigating legal case (Law and Order – follow the twists and turns)

3. Known

a. Knowledge gained by the senses – experiential (not just academic) (Dad 8th grade – always amazed me about life – I had more academic knowledge but he knew so much more)

b. Penetrating and intimately acquainted

B. Understooddeeply v 2-4

(ESV) Psalms 139 2 You know when I sit downand when I rise up; you discern my thoughtsfrom 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.

1. Understands

2. Inner thoughts and outward activity

a. Even when He seems far away

3. Everyday life and lifestyle

a. Watches as I do everything that I do

4. Perceives our motives and purposes of his actions

a. Discerns why I do what I do

5. Knows unexpressed thoughts

C. Protected intimately v 5

(ESV) Psalms 139 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

1. Enclosed – protected and guarded as money

a. Used of besieging a city – encircle and build mounds – relentless attack of a stronghold

b. Safe and secure

2. Precede me – follow me – protect me

3. Hand overtop – protection/blessing

D. Beyond comprehension v 6

(ESV) Psalms 139 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

1. The Lord is intimately knowledgeable of me - Wow

d) “wonderful” is in the emphatic position, at the beginning of the sentence.

e) unusual, beyond human capabilities. As such, it awakens astonishment – Proves God cares

f) I can’t understand how this can be

Needing a Vision for Personal Ministry because

III. God shapes individuals: Involved by His personal presence

A. Never beyond His reach v 7

(ESV) Psalms 139 7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?

1. I can never move beyond the reach of God’s personal concern. (lived far away but never more than 18-20 hours drive – almost there)

Jer 23. 23 “Am I a God who is a near,” declares the Lord,

“And not a God far off?

24 “Can a man a hide himself in hiding places

So I do not see him?” declares the Lord.

“ b Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.

2. Couldn’t escape Him if you try

B. Present in every circumstance – Spiritually v 8ing

(ESV) Psalms 139 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

1. Merism –everywhere spiritually

2. Spiritually

a. Heights of being with God

b. Depths of distance from God

3. Can’t escape Him – He is present

C. Present in every circumstance - physically v 9-10

(ESV) Psalms 139 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 handshall hold me.

1. Merism –everywhere geographically

2. fly at the speed of light (the wings of the dawn) from the east across the sky to the west – rays of the dawning sun

3. Even if at the edge of the world – beyond the chaos of the sea

4. Can’t escape Him – He is there to guide me/care for me (hold me/support me)

D. Present in every circumstance – Emotionally v11-12

(ESV) Psalms 139 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. Merism –everywhere emotionally

a. Present in the darkness

Needing a Vision for Personal Ministry because

IV. God shapes individuals: Intending them to respond to Him

A. Rejecting the world v 19-22

(ESV) Psalms 139 19 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. 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. Hate what God hates

2. Need to align with God

a. Major change of tone

b. Move from meditation on God to application in the difficult world

3. Reject the world in favor of the one who knows me

a. World is difficult – full of opposition to those who align with God

b. Identify with the Lord

c. Side with the Lord against sin

d. Long for the day of righteous judgment

B. Yielding to His desires v23-24

(ESV) Psalms 139 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

1. Responds to God’s work and love in Him

2. Desire to have a heart right with God

a. Search him for a right heart (hard for him to know)

b. Test him as a refiner tests metal – refine to make more pure (even with anxiety)

c. Examine for way of pain – offensive way – to God/others

d. Desire the way everlasting, the way of life and peace, as compared with the way of ruin and destruction for the wicked