Sermon Tone Analysis

*When You Feel Like a Nobody Going Nowhere*

*Psalm 139*

*Introduction:*

One of the most moving motion pictures I’ve seen is Mr. Holland’s Opus.

It tracks thirty years of a man’s life as he raises a family and teaches high school music.

But he goes beyond instructing his students; he pours his life into them.

As the story unfolds, we discover that he took the teaching job because he couldn’t make a living writing and performing his own music.

So this dream of composing a symphony was put on the back burner for more pressing matters.

But it was always there, vibrating just beneath the surface, waiting, hoping.

Then came the day when the music program at the high school was axed because of financial cutbacks.

As he struggles with being put aside by the school board after so many years, Mr. Holland is left questioning whether his life has mattered.

He put his dream on hold to take up the daily goal of trying to impact the lives of teenagers through music.

Now that too is gone.

Do you ever feel that way?

I mean, deep down, when it’s quiet and everybody else is in bed?

Or when you’re driving and you don’t have to pay much attention, do you start thinking about where your life is headed, what you’ve done or haven’t done?

Do you ever pause and add up what your life amounts to and…well, come up short?

Or maybe you just feel like a rat in a cage, turning the big wheel.

Life is a treadmill of the same-old, same-old.

You’re working hard, but it doesn’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.

You feel under-appreciated, overlooked, under-paid, or even unnecessary.

There are many versions of what Mr. Holland was going through.

It seems to me that most people who take the time to reflect on their lives struggle with these incomplete feelings and dead end thoughts.

Some people wrestle with them every day.

If you take stock of your life and say, “What difference does my life make?

Does anybody really know or care about me?”, then you’re in the right place at the right time this morning.

God has a word for you in Psalm 139.

He wants to show you a different picture of your life.

He wants to give you a view from the top, to help you see the meaning of your life from His perspective.

There are four truths that, if believed, are guaranteed to replace pity-parties with purposeful- pursuits as we learn the true value of our investment in others.

Get ready!

*Lesson #1: God Knows You*

In the opening six verses of Psalm 139, there are eight different Hebrew words that stack up to tell you that God knows your story intimately:  “O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away.

You observe my travels and my rest; You are aware of all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, LORD.

You have encircled me; You have placed Your hand on me.

This behind and before, and lay Your hand upon me.

[This] extraordinary knowledge is beyond me.

It is lofty; I am unable to [reach] it.”

Each of these words conveys a different layer of God’s knowledge of you.

Combined, they picture God like a detective, tracking even our most mundane activities, studying us even when we think we’re alone.

He dissects our inner world into parts, discerning what makes us tick and why we do what we do.

He has penetrated past our best foot forward.

He has such a grasp of each one of us on an programming level that He knows precisely what you will say or do next, as if it had already been uttered or performed.

So God knows your heart, your fears, your thoughts, motives, dreams, and frustrations.

He knows your past, present and your future.

He understands you.

He notices what’s going on around you, to you, inside you.

He gets you.

In fact, God has you pegged better than you do.

You think your motive for doing something is this, when God, who is not fooled, knows it is that.

That sounds unnerving, but you can rest assured about this: God knows, but He loves you still.

When David says that God has laid His hand upon him, he’s referring to an OT practice of bestowing a blessing on someone.

A wise father would place his hands on his children and speak words into their lives about who they are and will be, what their place in the family meant, and what their future will be.

This was one of the most important acts that happened in Hebrew families.

In the same way, your Heavenly Father who knows you bestows blessing on you, borne out of love, that marks your place in His family and what your future is all about.

In His family, nobodies are non-existent.

*Lesson #2: God Pursues You.*

When David affirmed God’s thorough knowledge of himself, he concluded in v. 6 that this is beyond me.

It is lofty; I am unable to [reach] it.”

What he meant is, “I just can’t deal with this.

It’s too overwhelming.

It’s out of my reach!.”

David’s first instinct is the same as ours—How can I escape?

Where can I hide?

If He knows all that, He knows I’m a hypocrite, He’s heard my lies, He saw what I did last week.”

In v. 7-12, he says: “Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?

Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.

If I live on the eastern horizon [or] settle at the western limits, even there Your hand will lead me; Your right hand will hold on to me.

If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to You.

The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to You.”

David’s fear of total exposure moved him to ponder if there was some retreat, geographically or spiritually, to which he could secret himself away.

But God will not let him run away.

“He tracks my path,” says David, “but not to point out what’s wrong or exact justice from me.

He is determined to give me grace, to be involved in my life.”

That’s what David is saying in v. 10 when he says, “If I could ride the sun’s rays and fly at blinding speeds to some remote place or bury myself under miles of ocean, even there, writes David, Your hand will lead me (that’s guidance); Your right hand will hold on to me (that’s security).

You know what this means, don’t you?

You are wanted by God.

Over and over in the Bible, we see this affirmed.

We are called God’s beloved, chosen, dearly loved children.

We are told that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

When you feel the crushing weight of loneliness and wonder if you would be missed if you were gone, remember this.

Mary Ann Bird writes that when she was growing up, she knew she was different.

“And I hated it,” she said.

“I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech.

“When schoolmates asked, ‘What happened to your lip?’ I'd tell them I'd fallen and cut it on a piece of glass.

Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different.

I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me.

There was, however, a teacher in the second grade whom we all adored--Mrs.

Leonard by name.

She was short, round, happy--a sparkling lady.

Annually we had a hearing test.

... Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn.

I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back--things like "The sky is blue" or "Do you have new shoes?"

I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life.

Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, "I wish you were my little girl.”

Oh how He loves you and me.

And He pledges to us that now that we belong to Him because of faith in Christ Jesus, we will never be separated again.