We turn in God's Word this evening to Psalm 139. Psalm 139. The text tonight that we focus on is verses 17 and 18, 17 and 18 of Psalm 139, but let us read the whole psalm, the psalm of David. Hear the Word of God. O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from Thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with Thee. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God. Depart from me, therefore, ye bloody men, for they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. We read that far in God's inspired Word. Now let's reread that text, verses 17 and 18. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee. Before us we have one of the most dearly beloved psalms in Scripture, Psalm 139. And the main thought that runs throughout the whole psalm of Psalm 139 is the thought on God's omniscience. It's the attribute of God or the characteristic of God that He knows all things. He has a comprehensive knowledge of everything. Children, God's omniscience means that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that is not known by God. There is no exception. And David in this psalm marvels at this amazing mind of God that comprehends all things, that knows all things. At the beginning of the psalm, David marvels at how God is able to know everything of our actions. All our actions, our down sitting and our uprising, when we lay down in bed at night and where we go, wherever we go, when we sleep, all our actions, nothing can be hid from Him. David marvels also at how God knows all our words. That's verse 4. Every word of my tongue, before, before it is spoken, thou knowest it altogether, he says. Every word spoken, God knows. Every word that I'm about to say to you, He knows, even before it's spoken. And David marvels, he marvels not only at the knowledge of God, of all our actions and our words, but third, how God knows all our thoughts, even the things that we do not reveal to others, the secret thoughts of our hearts. Verse 2, thou understandest my thoughts afar off, even before I began to think of them. And perhaps the most awesome part of Psalm 139, the part that we might be most familiar with is the part starting in verse 13 and following where the psalmist speaks about how God knows us or knew us even while we were still in our mother's womb. When we were a speck yet, a little dot in the womb of our mother. God is such a great God who has skillfully wrought, so skillfully worked in a fearfully and wonderfully, wonderful way, fearful and wonderful way, we read. Each one of us in our mother's womb, and David marvels at that, the maker and the one who not only skillfully, that's what curiously means, skillfully made us in our mother's womb, but knew every part of us before He fashioned us. Verse 16, thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. For some, this truth of God's omniscience brings fear. for a few moments bring fear or trembling to your heart, because if God knows everything and He sees every sinful thought, every sinful word, every sinful action, even if others do not see it, and that might bring a trembling to our souls at first, and it does to one who is not having his eye of faith on God's precious thought, as we consider tonight. But for the child of God, living by faith, who looks with his eye of faith, To God, to Jesus Christ, this is not a matter for fear. It's a matter of great comfort. And for great praise, as David shows us. That's the text. It's a praise. The exclamation points at the end of each sentence in verse 17 shows it. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! David is praising God for such magnificent thoughts. How precious it is to know that God knows everything. Today, let us marvel along with the psalmist at God's thoughts toward us. Consider with me this text, God's precious thoughts unto me, just two points. First, His thoughts of me, and then secondly, my thoughts or our thoughts of Him. His thoughts of me and then my thoughts of Him. When David is a believer, an inspired writer of this psalm, looked upon his whole life, he marvels at God's thoughts. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, he exclaims. Notice now with me how David speaks of seven, seven characteristics, really eight, but we'll start with the seven, seven characteristics of God's thoughts toward him and toward us, his people. seven that start with P to help you remember. God's thoughts, which David speaks of here, most obviously are precious thoughts. Precious thoughts, what's that mean? How precious are thy thoughts? That first of all means that God, think carefully, God thinks of you and me, who are His people, as precious. And the word precious means valuable or costly. God thinks of you and me as precious things to Him, like rubies and gems and jewels, but more precious than that. He thinks of us as precious. When the psalmist says this, how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God. Yes, he does mean also that he thinks of God as precious and he thinks of God's thoughts as precious. But first and foremost, we must realize that God thinks of us as precious. It goes along with Psalm 36 verse 7, how excellent, and the same word is located there in Psalm 36 verse 7, how excellent or how precious is thy loving kindness, O God. Or Isaiah 43 verse 4, God says, since thou was precious in my sight. Thou has been honorable and I have loved Thee, therefore will I give men for Thee and people for Thy life. Thou art precious in my sight." We began with that word, omniscience. When you think about omniscience, We think that God knows everything, and that's true, and God knows children more than you, young people more than you. You think you might know a whole lot. He knows far more than the most intelligent scientists and the teacher that teaches you and all the brains in the world put together. He knows all the facts. He knows the number of stars in the sky and knows them all by name. He knows every fact in history, every fact in geography, every fact in science, in every subject. He knows everything. But when we speak here and David speaks here of God knowing him, it's more than just merely knowing facts, you see. It is a relational kind of knowledge or the knowledge of love and intimacy. God knows us, not just about us, but He knows us with a precious knowledge. That's what David means. To give you another little illustration, when you walk out of church afterwards or when you converse in the narthex, some of you might say to another person, I'm thinking of you. I'm going to touch you in the elbow and shake your hand and say, I'm thinking of you. And you don't mean that you're thinking about facts about that guy's life or that woman's life, but you mean, I'm thinking caring, compassionate, gracious, precious thoughts toward you that mean something. And that's what God's revealing to us in this psalm. I'm thinking of you, he says. I'm mere facts about you. I have precious thoughts, I think of you as precious. It's amazing enough that God knows everything, but it's even more amazing that He has such a special manner of thinking of us. Secondly, God's thoughts in our text are personal, personal. To me, David says. How precious are thy thoughts to me. Now David, understand, recognizes, he recognizes that he is not the center of the universe. Sometimes in our American culture, we're encouraged to think of ourselves, children, as though we're the center of the universe. We get everything we want and we're entitled to everything. When God thinks of me, He only thinks of me. He doesn't really think of too many other people. That's not what David's seeing. Of course, David understands and you need to understand that God has His people everywhere. It's not just me, myself, and I in the church. We're not just a small group here in Grand Rapids and God's church is only here in Michigan. His church is everywhere. It's wider. But now, having said that, while God does think of all kinds of different people, many, many people. Yet David says, also in addition to that, God thinks of me too, of me as an individual with a unique personality. And each one of us who is a child of God can say that. There is a personal relationship that God has with David and God has with you that is unique, unique and different from the personal relationship that He has with someone else, the other person sitting next to you in the pew. It's a different relationship. You are not a number to God like we are to the U.S. government. but He has specific, special, unique, and different thoughts, distinct thoughts toward you than to others. To me, you may say. God has personally had precious thoughts to me with a specific DNA, with a specific makeup, with a specific face, with specific weaknesses and strengths, an ADHD personality perhaps or a laid-back personality, with a soul that has been fearfully and wonderfully made. To me personally, God has precious, precious thoughts. Precious, personal, and particular, particular, which is to say also not to everyone, not to everyone. God has precious personal thoughts to you and me who are elect, to you and me who are believers, who listen by faith. But not to all, and the rest of the psalm proves that, doesn't it? It's the part of the psalm that we don't like so much, perhaps, but David continues, remember, in verses 19 and following. who is an inspired writer, I hate them that hate thee, not with a personal kind of hatred because that person has hurt him, but with a God-glorifying anger at those who hate God. That means there are reprobates. That means that God does not have precious thoughts to word and for every single person. And we could at this point, in knowing election and reprobation, tune the minister out because we know it already, or another response to it is this, we don't like that so much. We get frustrated with God's plan. Why, we might say, challenging God's will, does He not have precious thoughts to everyone? Why not to that person that I want Him to love and have precious thoughts towards? But that would do us no good because the Scriptures simply have that answer, who art thou, O man, that reply us against God, against His perfect will. It is good simply to marvel, as David did, that He has precious thoughts toward me. He who did not have to have any thought, any precious thoughts toward anyone, including me, He has in His love, in His grace, a thought on me, a sinner. And that makes, you see, the particularity. of God's precious thoughts makes His thoughts all the more precious, all the more special. For it wouldn't be that special if He did have love for every single person head for head. It's particular and therefore more precious, which brings us to the fourth point of God's thoughts. God's thoughts are preexistent. Preexistent. from eternity before we even existed, He had such thoughts. As eternal as God is. Marvel at this, people of God. So eternal has His thoughts been toward us. And you and I don't understand eternity. He has always thought of us in this way. There never was a point in God's existence that He didn't have such precious thoughts, personal thoughts, particular thoughts toward us. And then yes, in time, as He was shaping you and me in our mother's womb, this is the context, remember. As He was shaping you in your mother's womb, as He was shaping your child, Your covenant child in your womb, in your wife's womb, He did so with such preexistent thoughts toward that unformed baby. While abortionists had evil thoughts toward you, refusing to acknowledge you as a baby, as a soul. While your parents didn't even have a thought perhaps that you existed. God had thoughts, precious thoughts, many thoughts, wonderful thoughts toward you. Precious, personal, particular, preexistent, faith, purposeful, purposeful, thoughts. The word thoughts in our text means literally aims or purposes. How precious, David could have said, and we could translate, how precious are thy purposes toward me. Jeremiah puts it this way in Jeremiah 29.11, for I know, God says, the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts or plans of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. When God had thoughts toward us, He always had a specific purpose, a specific purposes for each thought. Every part of your human anatomy, every strand of your hair and my hair, Each flaw that you stare at in the mirror every day and despise, each learning difficulty, each conflict that you're frustrated about in your family relationships, each dislocated bone, broken bone, repaired or unrepaired, each protein in your body, cancer. Each sin, each tear, He has thought of, not randomly, has thought of, has fitted in His perfect plan, one that He fully understands even though we do not. Here into being, we will sing, I was brought. Thine eye did see, and in thy thought, my life in all its perfect plan was ordered ere my days began. Purposeful thoughts, the good purpose for each thing that happens. Sixth, powerful. We make plans. I make plans to go to a different country, to move. Day by day, we make plans to do this or that. And God has His way, doesn't He, of saying, your plans are not powerful. It ain't going to happen as you thought. It's not going to happen as you put on your calendar. But with God, His plans are never frustrated. They're effectual. Isaiah 46, 9 and 10, I am God, there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient time to things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. Every precious, personal, particular, preexistent, purposeful thought is powerfully accomplished by His omnipotent sovereign hand. He's not just omniscient, He's omnipotent. That's His thoughts toward us. And seventh, God's thoughts are perpetual, perpetual, constant, not only from eternity but to eternity. Although He has planned all things and all will happen according to that flawless, effectual It is not, and this is a misunderstanding I've heard too often in Reformed circles, even our Reformed circles, so listen carefully, people of God. It is not as though God has a plan and He, as it were, plugs it into some sort of computer system and lets it run. God is not a deterministic God. He's not, this is deism, He's not a deism, He is not a deist God. And this is the difference between deism and determinism. When God thinks thoughts toward us, it's not thoughts that He lays aside and lets run by themselves, but it's thoughts that He constantly thinks toward us day by day. When a parent, to illustrate, cares for his or her son or daughter, And when a friend thinks of his or her friend, they say, I'll think of you, I'm thinking of you, and they're caring of that person. But from our human point of view, a human mind cannot constantly think about their child. The human mind cannot constantly think about their friend. Because as much as we might deny it, we cannot think of more than one thing at one time. We really cannot multitask. Because we're not God. When God says, I think my thoughts toward you, means He's never stopping in His precious thinking of you. Yes, and everyone else who are His. But He's pondering upon you every day, perpetually. But there's one more description. I said there were seven Ps, but one more which is implied now, but needs to be made explicit. These are saving thoughts, precious, personal, particular, preexistent, purposeful, powerful, perpetual, and saving thoughts toward us. What makes His thoughts toward me and toward you? Most precious, it's that He looks upon us in Jesus Christ, you see. And from eternity, and even while He was shaping us in our mother's womb, His loving, gracious thought has always been of us covered. in Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ. Why do you think, why do you think His thoughts are precious toward you? What is the reason for that? What is the basis for that? It's not because you were such a cute baby. It's not because you were so, so good in yourself. You weren't. Sinners were ugly. of ourselves. But you see, His thoughts were precious thoughts of us because of the precious blood of Jesus Christ that He saw as shed for us, and the precious righteousness that He saw as imputed to us, as even from eternity. First Peter 1.19 and 20 makes that clear. First Peter 1.19 says, that we were not bought with silver and gold, but now with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. And then this, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. For David, in the Old Testament, who wrote this psalm, even before Jesus came, for David and for all the Old Testament people, God saw them as precious, even before Jesus spilled his precious blood, because God saw them in Christ Jesus. Those Old Testament people did not go to purgatory, as the Roman Catholics claim, because as it is argued, Jesus had not yet come. But they went immediately to heaven because God had saving thoughts toward them. He saw them in Christ. He gave them lambs to picture that so that they would believe in this Jesus, the same Jesus we believe in today. He gave them the sign of circumcision, a bloody sign to show that that sign of cleansing through Jesus' blood was not only for adults but also for children, children of believers. And that leads us to another point of God's saving thoughts. David writes here not only as an Old Testament saint who believes that God had precious thoughts to him before Christ came, but he writes as one. who sees God's precious thoughts toward him as an infant, as a little child, as a baby yet in his mother's womb, who could not yet consciously believe. Thou hast covered me, verse 13, in my mother's womb. And at that point, God had precious thoughts. It didn't depend on David's thoughts of God, you see. God always had precious thoughts toward David, even in his mother's womb. Oh yes, yes, in my mother's womb, David also confessed in Psalm 51 verse 5, in my mother's womb, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin that my mother conceived me. And yet, and yet, in my mother's womb, God had precious thoughts toward me covered by the precious blood of Christ in God's mind. That's why we baptize children of believers. In baptism, we see the precious thought of God toward those as we are. Before we could think of him, he thought of us. And that is why parents who lose their children in a miscarriage or have their children die in infancy, can know God's precious thoughts toward us and our children, even when they could not think of Him. David confesses in another place, Psalm 229, Thou art He that took me from my mother's womb. Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon Thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. precious covenant thoughts toward us. What do you think? What do you think? What are your thoughts of Him as He shows you His thoughts of you? Three exhortations. First, think. Think on his thoughts toward you. As David shows as his example here, don't stop. Think of his thoughts toward you. After you leave here, you go out to the narthex and you leave those doors, you exit those doors and you go home. Don't stop. Don't stop. Think of God's thoughts toward you. There are many of them to ponder and meditate on. Think. Count them. In verse 18 you'll notice that the word if is in italics. David is not saying if. In the future I might count or think upon God's thoughts. The word if is not there in the original. What David is saying is, I do count them. And I will count them. And I am counting them. And as I count them, they are more in number. And when he says, I count them, children, he does not mean I count them as a number, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, and so on. But the word count is to recount, is to remember, is to meditate on God's thoughts. David, in fact, tells us what happens here as he recounts God's thoughts. There's so many. And in his human body and mind, he can't stay awake after a while. He falls asleep counting God's thoughts. In Psalm 63, he talks about meditating on God on his bed at night. So what we find here, David, you can picture him, David, maybe out in the wilderness. Maybe he's fleeing, maybe he is at home. He lays out his bed underneath the stars. He peers up at the stars. Perhaps his bed is laid out on the sand in the wilderness. He looks up, or he looks down, and he thinks of all of God's thoughts toward him, and he falls asleep pondering them, all the thoughts of God, as many as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the ground underneath him. So many. He falls asleep. And then notice that abrupt shift in thought in verse 18 between the word sand and when. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I'm still with thee." That indicates most probably that David falls asleep and he wakes up remembering that he has been thinking of God's thoughts and God is still with him. Beloved, count God's thoughts. Put away your devices. Don't take your phone to bed with you at night. Stop the social media, shallow thinking. Think in God's thoughts. Think in God's thoughts, not what everyone else is saying. Not what your mind is perhaps taking you to think of. away from God, not Satan's thoughts and his accusations toward you, but God's thoughts, His precious thoughts. Count them. Say with David, thy thoughts are precious, personal, particular, preexistent, purposeful, powerful, perpetual, saving thoughts. And fall asleep thinking on God's thoughts toward you. Second, as you count God's thoughts, marvel. Don't be bored by this. Marvel at God's thoughts. Worship Him. That's what David is doing in this text. They come in the form of questions, but the questions are to be questions of exclamation. How precious are they to me, O God? How great is the sum of them? And to help impress upon you how David marveled, and to help you marvel at God's thoughts. Notice that word God. Don't forget that word. David says, how precious unto me thy thoughts, O God. O God. How great is God? How great is God? Yes, you have forgotten. You have underestimated. How big is God? He's bigger than this universe. He's bigger than what we can imagine. He transcends and extends further than the limits of space and time. Think about all the sand. The text mentions sand. All the sand, children, and all the universe put together. You know what that would amount to? To God. It could fit on his finger. All the sand and all the world, let the greatness of God blow your mind, and you and I are like a grain of sand in comparison to the immensity of God. If you were God, and you're not, if you were God, how do you treat sand? You wouldn't care about it. You go to the beach, you step on it, you don't even think of it. You brush it off in annoyance. But this is our God. For every grain of sand that you and I are, He has precious thoughts toward you. For each grain of sand that you and I are, He has as many thoughts as the sand in this world. How great is the sum of them, David exclaims. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. How humbling, how awesome. David counts God's thoughts, he marvels at God's thoughts and he finds comfort, finally. Find comfort, beloved. Because while I call you to think upon God's marvelous, precious thoughts, here's what I know will happen, happens for me. It shouldn't, but it does. You will stop thinking God's thoughts. You will stop marveling. You will stop being thankful toward God in spite of all his precious thoughts toward you. You will fall asleep like David in your human frailty. And sometimes that sleep will be literal sleep, and sometimes that sleep will be a spiritual slumber. You will sin, and when you sin, your thoughts are not thoughts after God's thoughts. And one day that sleep will be the sleep of death. And here's my comfort, therefore, in yours. When I awake, I am still with thee. What David means is when I stop thinking of God, He has never stopped thinking of me. When I fall asleep, when my child falls asleep, unable to think of Him any longer, even though I am trying, He continues to think precious thoughts toward me. And when I awake, I remember that. When I stop thinking of Him because I stray into sin, He never stops thinking of me, and with His merciful, gracious hand, He leads me through sin back to repentance. that I may awake and by faith think of Him and His precious forgiving thoughts to me again. And one day when I sleep the sleep of death and when my loved one has slept the sleep of death and can no longer think with our human minds of Him, then we will awake. We'll awake with our soul and one day with our bodies also and we'll see. Yes, He has never stopped thinking of me. He has always been with me, near me, constantly thinking of me with precious thoughts. Oh, what a comfort, and oh how it makes me and it should make you want to exclaim more than before, how precious are thy thoughts unto me, oh God. How precious, how precious. May they be precious to you. Amen. Let's pray. O God, how great, how precious are Thy thoughts unto us. How great is the sum of them. We think and marvel, we find comfort in Thee. Never cease, O God, never cease to think upon us as Thou has promised. Enable us more and more to think upon Thee. Be Thou our vision, O God, Lord of our hearts. Let Thy name and Thy thoughts be the first in our heart and the treasure to us. Bless us with Thy Spirit, that He may affect that in our hearts as we leave here for the glory For the glory of thy name. In Jesus name. Amen.