Search Me and Know My Heart

Intro

In 4th Grade, we had pen pals and I wanted them to know about Texas.... and what was more Texas in the 1990s than Walker TEXAS Ranger? Somehow I got the address for him and wrote a letter. He wrote back and sent signed copies of him as Walker Texas Ranger.... I was through the roof excited! Somewhere I still have that signed picture.

To be “Thought of” by someone so famous was awesome! I bet you have moments like that in your life too.... someone famous talks to you or seeks you out!

This morning.... David, possibly older in his life, is sitting and thinking deeply about the GREATNESS of GOD and the fact that God in His GREATNESS has Known David, Been with David, and Created David...... Let’s Look at Psalm 139

God Knows Me

Psalm 139:1–6 ESV

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2 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.

a. God is Omniscient

Defintion - All Knowing

Past, Present, and Future all at once a simple act. Everything about himself, everything about everyone to ever live.....

Not like a computer and waiting for the result...... Mind blowing..... It is too high!

Verses on God’s knowledge

- Every part of my day - sitting down and rising up

- Every thought in my mind

- Everywhere I go

- Every word… even before I speak

- You hem me me, behind and before me,

- God’s All Knowing is too much for our human mind to fully comprehend

God “comprehends all incomprehensible matters with so incomprehensible a comprehension!” Augustine in City of God

b. David’s Reflection - The God who knows everything nows ME perfectly.

Psalm 8:3–4 ESV

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

David reflects on the personal application of God’s Omniscience..... This morning.... do you recognize that the God of the Universe that knows everything perfectly..... knows YOU?

God is With Me

Psalm 139:7–12 ESV

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 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.

a. God is Omnipresent

Defintion - Ever present

- God is spirit and cannot be contained, because then the container would be greater than God

- God is wholly everywhere.... not like a human body that enters a room and leaves another

- God is ever present and ever sustaining in all places at all times for all things he has created

Verses on God’s presence

- There is no place that God’s Spirit is not there

- You cannot travel away from Him

- If you were to get on an airplane and travel to the farthest reaches of the earth.... He is there

- If you go deep into the sea where it is uttterly dark and the crazy fish that live down there in Finding Nemo..... God is there

- Even with your presence..... You lead and hold me

- In the heights of human flourishing and the depts of human suffering.... God is there

- Dark and light exist, but to God there is not difference..... HE is everywhere.

Jeremiah 23:23–24 ESV

23 “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? 24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.

Augustine - The Most hidden and the most near

God is omnipresent.... but hear David’s reflection this morning.

b. David’s Reflection - The God who is everywhere is personally with ME.

- He leads and He holds fast

This is not David’s reaching and holding onto God.... This is God holding onto us.... This is God choosing to be with us and holding us.

On our own, we would find ourselves like Rose in Titanic making a promise we cannot fulfil.... I will never let go of you God!

In Christ....we have the same promises from God to us.... to lead us and hold us fast..... Matthew 28..... John 10:28-29

John 10:28–29 ESV

28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Romans 8:38–39 ESV

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you see God’s presence in your life? How do you respond to it? Is God with you?

This Psalm points to a resounding yes.... He is everywhere and he chooses to be with you in Christ!

God Created Me

Psalm 139:13–18 ESV

13 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. 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. 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.

a. God is Omnipotent

Defintion - All Powerful

God’s Power on Display is HIS SOVEREIGN WILL in ACTION.

“knowledge of what should be done, the will to do it, and ability to do what we have purposed....

1. God is wise, so that he knows what to do;

2. God is good, and thus he chooses to do the right;

3. God is powerful, and therefore is capable of doing what he wills to do. "Christian Theology" by Millard J. Erickson.

In our sin, we fall short of having the power to do what we desire to do! Listen to Pauls’ words in Romans.

Romans 7:15 ESV

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Romans 7:19–20 ESV

19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Verses on God’s Power

- God formed (knit, took my reins) me in my mothers womb

- fearfully and wonderfully made

the imago dei - made in the image of God Genesis 1:26-27

The intricacies of your body

If you live to age 70, your heart will have beat around 2.5 billion times!

You not only made me wonderfully, but you have kept me alive at every beat of my heart.

My body… physically, outwardly you knew what I would look like

My personality, my emotions, and my nature

You willed my existence and the days I would live

Your thoughts and your actions and your power backed willful acts..... How vast the sum of them

b. David’s reflection - The God of perfect power Created Me

PRAISE...... He knows All things.... His Presences is Everywhere.... His Power created Me..... I will praise HIM!

It is a response to how David was created!

Lead Me in the way everlasting

Psalm 139:19–24 ESV

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. 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. Let me be found as righteous NOT as an enemy of God. I hate those who hate you, your enemies deserve the justice due to them.

2. In view of your knowledge of me, prescence with me, power in creating me..... help me in the everlasting way.

Hear David’s conclusion

Search Me and Know my Heart

Try me and Know My Thoughts

Remove the guilt of my sin

LEAD ME..... like a blind man in need of everything.......

Is this our response this morning..... God knows you perfectly.... God is with you everywhere you may go..... God created you.... Will you praise him and pray that He leads you?

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Response

Will you Praise God this morning? Will you Rebel and be God’s enemy?

In Christ, we have the God who Knows me, God is with you, and God has created you to worship Him!

Respond as God leads you, towards faith in Christ, fruit in keeping with repentance to the Holy Spirit, or baptism or joining this church family!