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 me, in 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, and 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. O 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. Let's pray to receive God's word. Father in heaven, we thank you that you have indeed known us, You knew us before we were conceived. You know us now. You know all that we do. Lord, we pray that you would send your spirit to illumine our minds to your word and to soften our hearts that we might receive it and rejoice with the psalmist as he praises you for your knowledge of us, which is complete, which is loving, which is and should be and we pray will ever be a joy for us forevermore. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Please be seated. When we began to catechize our children, we asked them if God knows all things. And before we taught them the answer with precision, they knew intuitively that indeed God knows all things, that nothing can be hidden from his sight. One scholar has defined the doctrine of God's omniscience this way, God fully knows himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and eternal act. That's a difficult statement to digest and perhaps it strikes you as uninteresting, about as interesting as an afternoon spent reading the dictionary if you don't have time to really contemplate its meaning. Well, I think one of the reasons for that is that it seems impersonal. It's an interesting fact, but well, what does it have to do with us? But as we look to Psalm 139 tonight, what we're going to see is that for David and for us, it should be a very personal and practical doctrine. That God knows all things implies that God knows us in every detail. And what we'll see in the passage tonight is what it means for God to know us. Well, I want to briefly review what Scripture says about God's omniscience before we dive into the passage. When we read in some texts, we might be led wrongly to believe that there are things that God does not know. For instance, this morning if you were in Sunday school, we spoke about Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned and God confronted them in the garden. In verse 9 of chapter 3, he asked, where are you? And if we took that at face value, we might think that God did not know. But I love the way that Chad put it this morning, when he said it wasn't an indication of a lack of knowledge in God, but an invitation for Adam to repent. You see, if we let Scripture interpret Scripture, we see that God knows all things. We see that He even knows the mind of man. Many, many passages, Acts 124, 15.8, Jeremiah 17.10, Romans 8.27, I could go on and on. Many passages tell us that God searches our minds and our hearts. Hebrews 4.13 tells us that we are exposed before Him. And Isaiah 46.10 tells us that He knows all of history. Indeed, He declares the end from the beginning. And from ancient times, things not yet done. So the consistent and repeated affirmation of scripture is that God knows everything that has ever been, that could possibly be. He alone knows himself completely and perfectly, and he knows everything that we have ever thought, will think, and are even thinking now. But what Psalm 139 does for us is it takes this doctrine and it shows us that God's knowledge of us is always accompanied by His love and His care for us. We are in Him. We are His children. And yet when we contemplate and consider what Scripture tells us about God's knowledge, we might approach this with an air of skepticism. not the sense that uh... god doesn't know all things but more the sense that sure he knows all things but does he really care about me am i really important to god you see when i was uh... in eleventh grader in high school in my english class i remember very vividly that one of my classmates expressed her sincere belief that if she prayed earnestly that god would grant that she could win her tennis match that afternoon, that God would answer her prayer and give her the victory. Well, putting aside the errors that she had in her thinking about prayer and how God answers prayer, I want to consider what my teacher said in response to her. My teacher said, I just don't think God cares about your tennis match. It's the idea that he has this great big universe to run. What does he care about little insignificant me? What does he care about the people of Grace Baptist Chapel, this small little church in Hampton, Virginia? And yet compare that with what David says in Psalm 8, when he looks at the Cosmos, surveys the universe, and he thinks to himself, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? David's not saying that with an air of skepticism, but wonder and awe that in all the universe, God had set his affection on mankind, and specifically on David, his anointed one, who he anointed as the type who prefigured his son, Jesus Christ. That was a source of joy and awe for David and it should similarly be a source of joy for us. The simple truth and the simple fact is that God cares deeply about you. I want you to see four ways in this text that God cares about you. Or put it another way, four things that we might think would cause God not to look upon us and to consider our ways. And see how David in this psalm dismisses each one of them. First, God's knowledge of us is not limited by what we think he might find important. Look at verse two. 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. Every day begins with these two actions. Begins and ends with these two actions. We sit up, we sit down. We go somewhere, we lay down. In other words, God knows us even in the mundane routines of our lives. Everything that we do, no matter how inconsequential, no matter how insignificant, God is aware of it. He knows it. Indeed, He searches it out. And so though we might think that God doesn't care about things that we deem insignificant, the psalmist confirms for us, affirms that God indeed cares very much about every detail of your life. His knowledge is also not limited by our attempts to conceal things from Him. You see, when I was young, I used to, when I was caught in thought, people would ask me, what are you thinking? And in a childish way, I always insisted on my right not to tell anyone what I was thinking. It's not for you to know, it's my thoughts and mine alone. That's not true, is it? It's not true at all. For all our thoughts are known to God. All our thoughts are before Him, even before we think them. He discerns them from afar. We can't conceal them from God. Nor could we hide in darkness, as the psalmist later says, where David writes, 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. So God's knowledge is not limited by our attempts to conceal things. His knowledge is not limited by time. He knows our speech before we even utter a word, David writes. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it altogether. And when David considers how God knit him together in his mother's womb, He writes, 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. So God's knowledge concerning you is not limited by time, but he knows everywhere you've been, everything you've done, everything you are doing, and everything you will do in your life. Indeed, he set it apart. He wrote them all in his book before you were even conceived. And fourthly, God's knowledge of us is not limited by space. In this beautiful stanza beginning in verse 7, he asks, 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. You see, what the psalmist is doing is he's taking two things that are as far apart from one another as two things possibly can. Heaven, the place where God dwells forever, and Sheol. the place where the dead go. In the ancient times before God had clearly revealed the nature of heaven and hell, they would regard the place where the dead went to go was called Sheol. And David elsewhere writes of it, in Sheol there's no remembrance of you. And yet here he affirms that though we would not have remembrance of him, yet God knows us even in death. Even there we don't escape his watchful eye. And of course God has revealed to us that those who die in Christ dwell in heaven until Christ returns and the new heaven and the new earth is ushered in. But what we can think of here is the sense that death is not an escape from God. The clearest illustration of this of course is in the resurrection of our Lord. That Christ three days in the tomb And yet the Father raised Him from the dead and raised Him with a new and resurrected body to reign forever and ever. The assurance for us that even in death we are not too far from God for Him to know us, to be aware of us, and to care for us. So this beautiful passage where David considers, where could I go from your spirit? There's no place in all the earth, in all the universe, in all of existence, where we could go to escape our Lord. So considering this truth, I want you also to see that it's not just that God knows us, but there are three ways that the passage shows us that God's knowledge of us is marked by His love and His care for us. First, notice the way that the psalmist writes about God's knowledge. It's not just that he knows about us, knows information about us, but the words that he uses, they signify a sense of personal interest. a sense that He wants to know us and a sense of intimacy. He searches us. Charles Spurgeon in the Treasury of David writes about this, that it's as though an officer is searching someone he's arrested and searching to see everything about him, what he might be concealing on his person. He warns us or cautions us not to take the analogy too far as though God needs to discover something that He doesn't already know. But it's the sense of completeness. and the thorough searching of our persons. Again, He's acquainted with our ways. I think of Isaiah where it says that Jesus was acquainted with grief, that He would be acquainted with grief in His life on earth. And very similarly, He's acquainted, God is acquainted with our ways. He knows it in the sense as though they're His experience He discerns our thoughts. He perceives them. He senses our thoughts as we think them. And so these words, they signify a sense of interest that God has. It's not just a knowledge that's disinterested and distant from us. Secondly, we see statements that indicate that with this knowledge, God cares for us. He responds with the kind of care that we would see from a father for his children. You see, he knows our weaknesses and our frailties. And so we read after David considers all the ways that the Lord knows him, in verse five, you hem me in behind him before and lay your hand upon me. Again, in verse 10, when he considers where he might go to escape the spirit, he says, even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. It's the sense of a shepherd herding his sheep. a father shepherding his children. We could compare that with Psalm 103 where the psalmist writes, As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. Why? For He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. You see, the Lord's understanding and knowledge of our weaknesses, of our frailties, inspires His compassion for us, His mercy for us. Because He knows our frame, He's merciful to us, He cares for us, He shepherds us. He knows our need, that apart from Him we can do nothing. One more time, we see a beautiful illustration of this in the person of Christ. where the author of the Hebrews writes of him that he is a high priest who can sympathize with us in our weakness. And because he can sympathize with us in our weakness, being tempted in every way as we have been tempted, yet he himself without sin, therefore, on account of that, we are able to enter into the presence of our Father through this high priest who's made a way for us. And so see the statements that indicate God's care for us. He cares for us like a father, like a shepherd shepherding his sheep, because He knows us. He knows our experiences, our weaknesses, and our sufferings. And thirdly, His care for us is demonstrated in the way in which He makes us. Look at what David says about his conception and his birth, that the Lord knitted me together in my mother's womb. says, I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I think of an illustration of a mother who knits a garment for her child. Or even my mother-in-law, she made for us a beautiful quilt when Lisa and I were married. And we have that, and we treasure it. And why? Because it signifies to us her love for us, that she invested this time in crafting it with her own hands. Didn't just go out and purchase it, but she made it for us. because of her love for us. And so too, this idea of knitting together, it illustrates this beautiful picture of God's love for us. He knit us together in our mother's womb. Before we were yet born, He was caring for us and creating us and making us. We're intricately woven by Him. And so we see these three ways in which the psalm shows us God's love and His care for us. that His love and His care, they accompany His knowledge of us. And yet, there is a deep and abiding impulse in the human spirit that drives us to run and to hide from the God who loves us. Why would we do this? Just as David asks, where could I go from your spirit? We might ask, why would I go from your spirit? Why would I flee from you, O God? We see a picture of this in the book of Jonah, for instance, where twice we're told that Jonah was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. And it gives us a reason why we might flee from God or why we might hide from Him. In Jonah's case, surely it was rebellion. Jonah did not want to obey the command of God. And so he sought to escape from God's watchful eye in hopes that God would not compel his obedience. We also might consider that another reason why we might try to hide from God is very simply the shame and the guilt that sin brings. Think of Adam and Eve in the garden. When they knew their nakedness and they were ashamed, they covered themselves and they hid themselves, thinking to hide themselves from God. And so too, throughout all of history, man has sought to escape the watchful eye of God, and we too do it in our own lives. Think of a person, for instance, who might be living with some kind of indwelling sin that is weighing so heavily upon them, and so they avoid the people of God. They avoid contact with the church that they once called home, with friends who they used to call brother and sister. And why? They don't want to be confronted with their sin. They don't want to be rebuked, or they don't want to go to a place where they might think, well, all those people have it together, and I am just a mess. I'm just a wreck. I'm not good enough for God to accept me. And in that kind of activity, are we not ultimately hiding from or running from God? Well, such behavior, just as Jonah discovered, is foolish and futile. We can't escape God. And in His mercy, He often shows us this in ways that bring us back and bring us to repentance. And so David would conclude his psalm with this refrain, 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. You see, what David shows us is that the right response to God's knowledge is not to run and hide, but to lay ourselves bare before Him. To come before Him in repentance and to seek His mercy and His grace in our time of need. I would be remiss not to say a brief word about verses 19 through 22. Skip to the end, but we don't have time to dwell on these verses. But what we see is something that's perhaps shocking. where David has what we would call an imprecation, or he pronounces his hatred of the enemies of God. And what I simply want you to see here is that this is a picture of someone who is not running from God, but who is standing and shaking his fist at the Lord. Someone who is so opposed to him that David can say, they speak against you with malicious intent. What I would simply say about this is that it is consistent with what God reveals is the ultimate end of those who don't come to Him in repentance and faith. that they will be judged for their sin and for their opposition to Him. We see it all throughout the Psalms from the very first Psalm where we're told that the wicked will not stand in the congregation of the righteous. We see it all throughout Scripture to the very end where Christ returns and executes judgment on the earth. So I'm not saying that we should look at these verses and put them, include them as part of our prayer life in some kind of vindictive way. But rather we can see in these a call for ourselves, for us to repent of our own sin and to align ourselves with God not as those who stand against Him, shaking their fist at Him, but as those who come to Him and say like David, Lord search me, search out my ways and find any grievous way in me. Lord, like the Apostle John tells us in 1 John 1, come to Him confessing our sin. And He assures us, if you confess your sin, then God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so I have one application for this text for us tonight. Because God knows you, because He cares for you, Come to Him in repentance and faith that He might lead you in the way everlasting. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we come to You tonight knowing that all our thoughts are ever before You. All our thoughts are laid bare and nothing in our lives can be hidden from You. We pray that You would search us out as David wrote so many years ago that you would find the sin in our life and root it out, that you would conform us to the image of your Son, that you would sanctify us. that you would be present with us. We thank you for your love and your care for us. And Lord, we pray that you would help us to know that presence, know that care, and to be aware that your knowledge of us is not something that should cause us anxiety, but that should give us great cause to rejoice and to praise you. We thank you, Lord, for your Son who you sent to die for our sins and we pray that you would fix our eyes on Him in all things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.