Psalm 139 Part 2

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Or “What’s your purpose in life?” or “Where you going to get a job?”

For anyone going through a transition, these are the dreaded questions because they are always awkward.

Last week we mentioned a term of “Man’s meaning making machine”

World’s System or Man’s Meaning making machine says Self Worth = Performance (what you do) + Other’s Opinions (what others think or say about you)

True Self Worth which says Self-Worth = God’s Knowledge and Presence with Us

Yet, even during looking at true self-worth we find our meaning and purpose in many places.

By nature, we give meaning to nearly everything. We can find meaning in a clump of clouds that looks like a rabbit

In a survey by Pew Research Center the top 4 in order of how Christian Americans answered “I find my meaning in”

1) Family

2) Career

3) Money

4) Faith

We could wave our finger at Faith being not in the top 3 but the reality is we all find meaning in many places.

NEED: We look to be purposed and when we aren’t aware of our purpose as created people, we substitute and find it elsewhere in what could be good things.

The problem isn’t finding our meaning in places in our life; the problem becomes when they become THE meaning.

We end up looking at these places as our validation, meaning and purpose in life.

When they fail to calm our anxiety, we find places of loneliness, despair, anger, and suffering we realize our meaning didn’t mean much in the face of chaos.

Subject: Our meaning and purpose should not be a place of wanting.

It should be a place of delight and awe.

Text: Our Scripture is from Psalm 139:1-24 shows that delight

As a refresher from last week from Psalm 139 the writer King David of Israel starts with God as the Ultimate authority and only place who can truly have full knowledge in verse 1-6 by

and verse 7-12 asked where we can go to escape God?

In a short answer nowhere, we can go to escape His loving presence because He is with us always redeeming not condemning

Listen again how that unfolds and how it moves us forward. Reading Psalm 139

Preview: I love a good picture or painting, to truly focus our eyes on the right details to see something new. We can do the same today.

First, we will focus on how God’s Purpose is not accidental or a reaction to us but a Pro-action and a foreknowledge of us.

Second, God’s purpose is Sovereign and in control, but man’s purposes are not. Purpose, like all places of creation, can be used for evil because of sin.

Finally, to truly begin with our functional meaning in purpose we must focus on where we started.

God’s purpose is a pro-action in v.13, not a reaction like family, money, or success, but God’s purpose is a pro-action to meaning.

We begin to see God’s way of approaching meaning and purpose

13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.

There are some powerful quotable passages in scripture.

In the Youth group we call them the Coffee Cup verses or what we find at TJ Max.

This verse is easily that and so much more!

For You, God our creation who formed and wove; a master craftsman sewing, those who sew know the level of depth involved.

God is intimately involved with us from all levels that make a person a person.

We are spiritually and physically made, that in the womb God makes us, and He makes us for a purpose.

I want to preface this phrasing carefully and wisely. It’s not out of shame or fear or forcefulness but because we do not need complicated subjects simply stated.

A worthy conversation is worth having, it’s not a coffee mug.

The reason we find the death in a womb so tragic is not about political ideology, it’s about God’s relationship to life and purpose.

God has majestically and finely made each of us because we are in His image. The Image of God or Imago Dei.

We want to be people that bring life, that focus upon life from the womb to the tomb and everything in-between those two moments.

Our call is not to find our allegiance and meaning in whether a court determines something we favorably or unfavorably find in our perspective.

Our call is to bring life from the womb to the tomb because our God knows His way out of both the Womb and the Tomb. Pro-life, not pro-womb.

The reality is though, death is real, grief is agony, pain is powerful.

We look at our world and we see the evil, grief, and loss.

Families make plans for a new baby and rooms are left empty.

A woman who miscarries is left alone in her grief.

Young fathers are gone before their kids see them get old.

We see children being killed in schools.

We see Russia’s war upon Ukraine, there were many moments in these last few months that no answer would ever satisfy.

We see trust and mistrust used as weapon.

We see our own struggles with anxiety.

Teen struggling with bullies and suicide.

Failures of systems and institutions and all of it shouts at us, and we look at ourselves or our world all to say:

“Why God? Why did you do this?”

And our Psalmists has no fear when he says.

14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Thanks, awe, and wonderful these are the words used. Our Scripture isn’t in a void separate from ‘real life’, it recognizes the reality that God is in control, purposeful, and loving.

We are made on Purpose. We, whether they are communities or individuals.

Let me say that again, we are made on Purpose.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

We also live in world tarnished by sin

But the beauty is we can’t downgrade God’s purpose.

We can answer that no matter our struggle, no matter our trauma, anxiety, suffering, or pains.

We are wonderfully and beautifully made

When we see ourselves rightly with God’s eyes, not that we are perfect but that we are His

We worship.

As v.14 “Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.”

Our soul worships because He is all that there is and was and could be and in Him we find more

15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; 16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written

The days that were ordained for me, When yet there was not one of them.

Every detail, the mundane, the problems the unformed potential all of this is purposed.

It is skillfully and wonderfully made.

If you ever have a chance to see a master craftsman in their trade, you will see metal and jewels made with skill and practice that is stunning to watch.

This is how God works with us, in us, and through us

17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.

How Precious God’s thoughts become to us because He knows us better than all other relationships

It’s almost like a dream, but better than a dream because it’s real.

There is absolutely no limit from God, our selves, or society that can undo God’s love and purpose.

Because of King David’s focus on realizing God is beyond his focus or comprehension he can enjoy, thrive, and live with Him regardless of what action or reaction of the world happens.

We should pause here and if we could count God’s thoughts, we would feel more awake, loved, energized, and excited!

Take a breath, (Pause)

Right before our coffee mugs of beautiful life verses gets smashed as we keep reading.

19 O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. 20 For they speak against You wickedly, And 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 the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies.

I can hazard a guess, that none of us have these verses as our life verses.

What’s this doing in our Bibles?

We just had so many beautiful images presented

And now.

These verses are anything but friendly, loving, and peaceful.

Let’s get a handle on what is happening.

The goodness of God forming our purpose is v.1-18, but now the reality of sin meets God’s creation in v.19-22 by David speaking of enemies.

Purpose like all places of creation can be used for evil because of the reality of sin.

God’s purpose is not undone by any means as God is sovereign over both good and evil, but now we see what happens when man’s evil meets meaning.

Meaning is used everywhere from false idols, false ideology, to truly evil.

The Psalmists speaks about two here to help us realize how evil is truly evil.

The first in v.19 is that murder, men of bloodshed. People whether they are nations or individuals that are bent on the murder and shedding blood of others.

We have seen these nations rise many times in the Bible it was Babylon and Assyria, in WW2 it was Japan, Italy, and Germany along with Soviet Union and the current Russian Federation under Putin today in Ukraine.

It is with these perspectives of how meaning has not been used to bring life but bring death and evil that the writer speaks with authority.

Closely related to murder is our second verse here in v.20 is that they speak with evil “malicious intent” and “name in vain”

God’s name being used as an excuse for evil is considered a sin worthy of murder.

God is not mocked. No person, church, country, or place is above God’s anger when evil is called good. When murder is called necessary. Evil is not explained away, even if man attempts by “fake news” or manipulated narrative.

God is not fooled. We are fooled daily no matter who or what we claim about our self, but God is not. In our anger though we can easily misrepresent and misuse our next key verse.

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 the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies.

Our mistake is not that we should oppose evil, our mistake is believing we are the righteous and the ones who are judges of it.

We are not called to anger at those who we define as ‘enemies’, rather we realize we are the enemies of God ourselves.

True divine truth illuminates that to realize we, not them, are the ones with folly in our hearts.

These verses are Not personal vengeance, arrogant victim-blaming or self-centered revenge.

This is recognizing that God is the determiner of evil.

Sadly, as part of the global church we have been the conduit and tools of evil in our society, any society can track and find evil inside and because of churches.

People outside the church used to believe themselves not moral enough to go to church.

Now the same people see themselves as more moral than the church who is full of evils, worse than the culture. Sadly, we have given reasons for this belief.

Residential Church schools that literally killed children

Religious wars using “God’s will” to kill and wage war

The Bible used as a weapon to not bring restoration, salvation, or healing to the broken but a weapon of arrogance and power to shame and attack ‘those people’ however we conveniently define them

It is good to work against oppression, we must be careful what though we believe is oppression.

We should absolutely rebel against oppressive authority but to rebel without a filter or understanding of evil leads to more fools.

At this point we need to realize that any verse in Scripture is best in context

These verses use three filters to best understand Psalm 139

One is that we are not King David, roles matter when we work against evil.

The role of a police officer is different than the role of a child with a police badge.

Like David we are wonderfully beautifully made in God’s image, we though are not King David in ways of anointed king over a nation.

We all have a common call of worth, King David over Israel and Pastor David and everyone of us have different functional roles.

Even if this message reaches a ruler, still we are not anointed like God anoints.

God alone rises and causes kings to fall.

Our call is the same, our role and authority is not.

David’s posture to evil here is one of a king, we aren’t kings like David.

The second filter is that God is not neutral about evil.

God is not neutral or far off from any evil. He is aware, He is knowing, and He is not affirming it.

God is not neutral about evil. Any evil whether it is great or small. Nation large or hidden in our deceptive thoughts.

God is not blind, far off, or neutral about it.

We cannot be neutral about evil either.

Our third filter is that the story on evil isn’t wholly seen or understood from this one passage.

God has more to say about evil, both evil itself and how Jesus deals with evil.

He doesn’t come like the warrior, even though He could, He comes as the lamb who is to be slain.

Evil isn’t the end of the story. The story always leads to Jesus. Suffering isn’t the end of the story.

The story of Jesus, the man who died for the men of blood, the evil, the fallen, the us.

That’s where the story goes.

We place our trust in Him, we ask God through His Spirit and being forgiven by Jesus to move us to our final place and only place.

We tend to focus on the results of a situation, the end goal. The final test, the final diagnosis, the death or the life, the divorce, or a loss. It’s natural to look for the end.

But God doesn’t work that way, if he wanted to end sin, he would have ended it after Adam and Eve bit the fruit.

God isn’t interested only in the end; he’s interested in the process. We are all works in process, which is why,

The Psalms moves us to v.23

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

I heard a story about a Satanist who believed in himself. As a high school student, he felt he could disagree with PhD holders and anyone. This carried over into belief about God that he knew best about morality, science, and by his self-informed education he knew best. He could know and be known to himself as the expert upon morality, sexuality, or anything really.

One day he had a thought “What if my worldview is just stupid? Believing I am all knowing when I don’t even know myself.

What if the belief in myself and my narrative as the best filter, determiner, and believer of truth, religious or not. Is Stupid.

It’s the process of realizing we aren’t the center of God’s universe, God is.

Look closely at our verse, it’s not an attitude of self-righteousness or power or prestige or authority run amok.

It’s Search Me, Examine Me, Know My heart, Try me.

It presupposes truth is beyond me.

We all have an overwhelming desire to know and be known, many decide that God can’t know them or doesn’t know them. Those though who start here, with God search me and examine me find meaning more precious than any other narrative.

David, like all of us here, wants God to test us to be proven right in His eyes.

“Try me and know my anxious thoughts”

This phrase is reminding us of a courtroom, put on trial our anxious thoughts and see if they are of merit.

Many anxious thoughts have no merit or won’t last in any courtroom.

To put on trial our anxious thoughts, that control and manipulate us. To test them rightly.

The desire to have nothing less than being confirmed in God’s will.

To be utterly examined and shown how to navigate the reality of life in the light of God’s view of us.

Not our self-righteous attitude towards marriage, immigration, sexuality, evil, war, illness, morality, knowledge, or power but an attitude of submitting to the one who already holds all authority.

A lot of people want to be in the right ‘tribe’, but there isn’t to be a Christian tribe or family but a Kingdom with a King.

The Christian walk is simply learning to follow behind King Jesus and letting Him show us the reality of our true self.

A youth once asked, “Why should I care about the Kingdom of God?”

In short, you shouldn’t if you don’t know the King. If you know the King, the Kingdom makes sense. Without the King, there is no Kingdom, and we will find no suitable kingdom out there.

It makes sense to be tested and examined because Jesus is the King and our Psalm moves us to

24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.

See the potential we have for harm and stop us. That’s his prayer and should be our prayer.

Young people are taught to change the world but not our souls, so we change the world, and it becomes worse.

We are taught that meaning is based upon success, influence, and personal levels of satisfaction.

There is more to the story

We surrender our will and give way to being life givers from the womb to the tomb in any person, from any perspective, and not in a way of arrogance but a way of kindness.

We cannot comprehend God, but we can realize that God has ordained, revealed, and communicated to us salvation through Jesus.

In our entire passage in context, we find that God doesn’t absorb or swallow us by creating us, he releases and makes us free to truly pursue Life everlasting.

“To be lead in an everlasting way.”

All ways we choose in our own wisdom, whether arrogance, sexuality, gender, morality, politics, science, or any way none of them are everlasting. The goal is always Jesus and a dynamic everlasting relationship with Him.

To be examined and not found wanting but found loved.

We find ourselves by letting ourselves go.

If we don’t know Jesus as the lead of our life, let’s start there. We would love to have that conversation.

Meaning is best in motion, even when the meaning is not known fully.

Activate our time with God by examining our false idols and being known by Him.

Activate our community by joining in any ministry, we would love to help find a spot and there are many places.

When we let God be the one who examines, searches, and reveals us we find we aren’t absorbed but redeemed.

Don’t be anyone else, just be you as created and loved, warts and blessings, be examined and known.