The God Who Knows Me
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“The God That Knows Me”
Psalm 139
I already mentioned that tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer. Tomorrow at noon, we will meet at the memorial on the square, we will pray over our country, read Scripture, and hear Scott Houston share some thoughts from Scripture.
Scott asked me if I would read the passage of Scripture that he is going to preach from tomorrow, and that combined with some recent events in the news got me thinking…
I won’t read it all, but Scott has asked me to read from Acts 17. Specifically, he want me to read the story about Paul ministering to the “Men of Athens.”
In that passage of Scripture as Paul was addressing those men, Luke records the following…
For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Paul said the One you are truly seeking is the One that created EVERYTHING. He isn’t created by human hands, but He created everything that human hands use to create ANYTHING.
As far as that goes, HE CREATED MANKIND! But that last verse gives us the reasoning for the creation…specifically the creation of Mankind.
He said, He created us, that we might seek Him and find our way toward Him.
Even as I say that we have to understand that God isn’t hiding from us. He isn’t trying to make it hard for us to know Him. He isn’t absent from our lives, but He is very active in all that we do. He is present in all of Creation.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
So He has made Himself known to us…At least His Eternal Power and Divine nature…BUT HE WANTS US TO KNOW HIM AND BE KNOWN BY HIM ON A PERSONAL LEVEL.
I want to read the entirety of Psalm 139 this evening.
I’ll be honest, this came to me over the past couple days as I have tried to somewhat follow the drama with the Supreme Court.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, someone leaked an opinion paper that Justice Alito wrote potentially overturning Roe v. Wade.
If this decision goes through and is voted into law, the choice of abortion would become a state right.
Therefore, the state of Missouri could completely outlaw abortion if I understand this correctly.
With that said CA, NY, IL, etc. could continue to choose to be enemies of God, while other states could choose to criminalize infanticide!
ANYTIME I think about abortion, my mind turns to Psalm 139…specifically Psalm 139:13-14
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
But tonight I want to preach from the entire Psalm from the title
“The God That Knows Me”
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
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.
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.
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
There are a few words that describe God.
Omnipotence - All Powerful
Omnipresence – Everywhere at once
Omniscience – All Knowing
Omnibenevolent – All Good
Truth be told there are a LOT more, but in the passage we just read there are 2 (maybe 3) of those that are often used to describe the indescribably greatness of God.
As David starts this Psalm, he begins with the knowledge and understanding that God ALREADY KNOW!!!
That 1st verse he says you have searched me and known me…
At first thought that seems like it could be a good thing, but then you have to ask…
What do you do when you sit down?
What happens when you lie down?
What do you do when you rise up?
What are your ways?
What are your thoughts?
When you start thinking about the idea that God knows you, better than you know you…it can get a little scary!
The idea that He knows what we are going to say, before we ever say it…
For some of us, that might be a GIANT YIKES!!!
But even in David’s understanding, even under the Old Covenant, David understood not only God’s GREATNESS, but also, GOD’S GOODNESS!!!
David knew that God had searched him out and knew his spiritual condition, AND EVEN STILL
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
You lay your hand upon me…
NOT ONLY HIS GREATNESS, BUT ALSO HIS GOODNESS!!!
We see this really start to play out in Luke 15:4-7
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
I don’t know what David’s Spiritual condition was at this point in his life. We obviously know that David found favor with God. We know that David was a man after God’s Heart. BUT We also know that David was human…He had some failures and some difficulties.
We can read through the Psalms and see that he had some anger issues. He struggled with depression and inadequacies. He dealt with anxiety.
As good as David was and as much as he loved God, we have to know that when God searched him, and knew him, He found some stuff that displeased Him.
BUT GOD…
Even more so for us…we can finish that with, BUT GOD DEMONSTRATED HIS LOVE FOR US….
David goes from You lay Your hand upon me, and this knowledge is more than I can bear to EVERYWHERE I GO, YOU’RE THERE!!!
It’s in those next 6 verses that I can take joy and know that that is why I am here today.
Where can I flee from your presence?
Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Let me say that that verse is a proverb not a promise.
BUT PROVERBS ARE WISE SAYINGS.
The idea is that when we raise our children in the Ways of God, they will carry that knowledge with them for the rest of their lives.
That even if they stray, and walk away from God, that knowledge of Him will remain.
BUT THE BEAUTY OF IT ALL IS THAT GOD IS EVERYWHERE EVEN IF WE AREN’T RAISED IN HIS WAYS.
EVEN IF A PERSON HAS NEVER HEARD OF GOD, OR ALL THEY CAN DO IS PRAY TO “THE UNKNOWN GOD” HE IS STILL THERE.
But when we are raised in it. When we have known Him. When we have spent time knowing we were in His presence, then sin becomes miserable.
It in those times when you are in your worst conditions doing the worst things that you remember God is there.
JESUS IS WATCHING!!!!
BUT as believers, as followers of Christ we can trust that God will never leave us nor forsake us.
As followers of Jesus we can cling to PSALM 139:10-12
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
His hand shall lead us and His strong hand will hold us.
EVEN THE DARNESS ISN’T DARK FOR HIM.
We can take the hard times and know that in God the worst times are great times.
That’s hard to hang on to when you’re in the midst of grief or loss, BUT if we spend our good times basking in His known and recognized presence, we can recognize and feel His presence in the worst times
It’s then that we can COUNT IT ALL JOY WHEN WE MEET WITH VARIOUS TRIALS!!
These next few verses resonate with the current situation in the SCOTUS
I often focus on Psalm 139:13-14
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
But look at Psalm 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.
On the day of conception God pulls out a fresh ledger sheet.
On the day of conception as He guides the seed to the egg, God the Creator Wrote your name on the top of the Page!
The day, the hour, and the minute of conception is recorded on that ledger, BECAUSE IT IS AT THAT VERY MOMENT THAT HE BEGAN THE PROCESS OF BRINGING YOU TO BE!
AT THAT VERY MOMENT LIFE WAS CREATED!!!
AT THAT VERY MOMENT YOUR FACE WAS IMPRINTED IN HIS MEMORY.
OVER THE NEXT 40ish WEEKS GOD KNIT YOU TOGETHER IN YOUR MOTHER’S WOMB.
DAY BY DAY HE RECORDED THE PROGRESS IN HIS BOOK, BUT IMAGINE, SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY, IN THE NAME OF MEDICAL AUTONOMY, OR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM, OR WOMEN’S RIGHTS, OR WHATEVER ABOMINABLE LABEL YOU WANT TO PUT ON IT, SOMEONE SAID, “NOPE, GOD WAS WRONG; I DON’T WANT TO HAVE A BABY.”
And just like that the ledger stops!
Just like that God’s purpose for a life is ended!
I had a conversation with someone I have an enormous amount of respect for a few months ago.
He is pretty neutral on the abortion argument. Truth be told, he probably leans towards the right to choice.
He says he’s a believer, but he could not answer the most basic question of WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN!
And that ladies and gentlemen is the biggest problem.
As a society we have strayed so far from the truth of Scripture that people (EVEN “BELIEVERS”) CANNOT SAY WITHOUT DOUBT THAT LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION!
So if we look back through all of this we see that David understands God’s Omniscience and Omnipresence because it’s clearly stated. He seems to understand that God is always good and is all powerful.
He knows that life begins at conception, and is created and overseen by God.
All of that brings him to LOVING GOD BACK!!!
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.
We love because he first loved us.
But it isn’t just about Loving God, it is about hungering for His thought and His knowledge.
But even David understands that the thought of God are beyond our ability to comprehend.
How vast is the sum
They are more than the sand.
But that didn’t stop David from trying, and it should never stop us.
Scripture is clear that there are things we will never understand or know about God this side of Heaven.
His thoughts are not only more numerable than we can imagine, but His thoughts are higher than our…even beyond our comprehension.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
But look at the verses right before that.
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Just because His thoughts are higher than our CANNOT stop us from seeking Him.
It cannot stop us from allowing Him to reveal things to us!
It cannot stop us from being in relationship!!
Finally, I want to end with Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
The psalm starts with an acknowledgement that God has searched me. It begins with an understanding that He already knows.
But it ends with an invitation.
David ends the way we should begin our days and our prayers.
Search me, examine my life and see what’s not right.
Don’t just examine it, but show me the right way!
How do we do that???
I’ll sum it up, and I’ll close with the second verse to Clear the Stage by Jimmy Needham…
Take a break from all the plans that you have made
And sit at home alone and wait for God to whisper
Beg Him please to open up His mouth and speak
And pray for real upon your knees until they blister
Shine the light on every corner of your life
Until the pride and lust and lies are in the open
Then read the Word and put to test the things you've heard
Until your heart and soul are stirred and rocked and broken