God Knows You

Psalm 139  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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God knows us.

Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bible, or your Bible app, please go ahead and turn to the book of Psalms, chapter 139.
PRAY
Background: This morning we’re going to begin what will be a five week series as we examine the relationship between God and ourselves.
Reading this Psalm, it’s very relational. And as we will see in our passage today, the first six verses, there’s a lot of “You” meaning God, and “Me” meaning the Psalmist. 
There is a very deep revelation of God’s character and insight, how he interacts with us is all included in this chapter. It’s going to show us over and over that God knows us, He sees us, He designs us, He hears us, and He desires to lead us closer to Himself.
So we begin this morning by reading verses 1 through 6, if you will, follow along.
Text: Psalm 139:1–6. 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.
Intro:  We traditionally consider David to be the writer of this particular Psalm, so that’s what we’ll go with throughout the series. However, one manuscript of the Septuagint ascribes the Psalm to the prophet Zechariah.
There are even some resemblances to the book of Job, and so the original writer is sometimes questioned, but David was most likely the one who originally penned the words.
One translation gives the Psalm the title “The Hound of Heaven,” which of course is a reference to Francis Thompson’s poem about the Holy Spirit, and His pursuit of us.
And it truly is a beautiful poem, I will quote some of it as we go along today, but I’d also encourage you to look it up some time and read it if you’ve never done it before. 
It’s a classic piece of Christian literature, if nothing else.
And it demonstrates, as does Psalm 139, the fact that God loves us. But He does not do so out of ignorance.
He knows us. And that’s the sermon title today, God knows You.
Mark Lowry, the Christian comedian and singer, used to tell of his childhood, when he was a hyperactive kid before anyone knew what having ADD, or ADHD was.
He said he had a teacher, who - to help him focus - would sometimes take him for a walk around the school, and she would tell him that God loved him, but God also liked him.
Mark said he’d never thought of that before. God loves us, sure, the Bible is full of that statement. God is love, 1 John tells us, that’s sort of His thing.
But He likes you. We don’t think of that often, and for good reason! It can easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted.
He does not like our sin, He does not like our wicked thoughts, or our idolatry, our selfish motives… but He knows us, at our core.
And He likes us. Jesus called His disciples His friends. If you have a relationship with Him, He likes you.
There’s no reason to feel condemned - you may feel convicted, but if you truly belong to Christ, you truly seek to grow in Him, you’re truly covered under the blood of the cross - He likes you. Not because of our goodness or because we’re a likeable people.
There is nobody good, none but God, Jesus makes that clear. In spite of our our un-goodness, and because of His goodness, He still makes it a priority time to know us. Through Christ we are reconciled to Him, and He genuinely cares for us.
And hear me today, if you get nothing else from this sermon, please write this down.

Thesis: God knows you, and He knows you thoroughly.

He knows you because He searches you, because He surrounds you, and because He relates to you.

I. God Knows You Because He Searches You

(v. 1) 1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
When we see in our Bible, the word “LORD” - in all caps - that typically means that in the original Hebrew, the name of God was used. “Yahweh” was placed there. Many of you probably already know this.
But what this - using His name- is saying to us, from the outside looking in, is that while God knows us, David, the writer of this Psalm, was also intimately acquainted with God. The Bible calls David a man after God’s own heart. (1 Samuel 13:14).
If we have no desire to intimately know the God of the Bible, then knowing what the Bible says about Him, and His knowledge of us, is irrelevant.
What does it matter?
But, when we seek to know Him, we begin to understand He seeks to know us. David said you have searched me and known me!
The word “searched” is the Hebrew word “haqar”, and it means to “thoroughly explore, to locate anything of value or weakness, to consider a subject in detail.”
We see it again in Jeremiah 17:10, “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
It’s the same word. It’s like testing something to find its limits, testing, trying to find out its whole value and worth.
Which is a scary thought if God is your enemy!  But the word that follows, when David says “you’ve known me” is the Hebrew word “yada” and it’s a word that indicates someone knows you intimately, as though you’re their friend.
He knows you, and He is aware of your shortcomings - yet He loves us in spite of our failings, in spite of our weaknesses, in spite of our limited worth, and in spite of our sins.
And that’s not an easy thought.
In Jeremiah 12:3, the prophet is crying out to God because he feels he is so surrounded by wicked men, and he exclaims, “But you, Yahweh, know me; you see me, and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter.”
And God’s reply, “Oh really, Jeremiah? You’re not so great either. (v. 5) “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?”
To summarize the rest of God’s response, “You’re right Jeremiah, I do know you, and if you can’t handle this now, I know you can’t handle it when things get worse, because Babylon is KNOCKING AT THE DOOR and about to invade and stuff’s gonna get real, you can’t even trust your own family, but you’re questioning ME?”
So Jeremiah closes his mouth, and he trusts the Lord, and gets his life back on track, and doesn’t question God’s justice again.
It’s hard to stay upset with someone when they’ve called  you out and you know they’re right.
When your friend stabs you in the back, you know they’re not being a friend, but if they love you enough to stab you in the front, it’ll hurt but at least they love you enough to be honest with you.
God is honest with Jeremiah, because He knows Him intimately and thoroughly.
We see this in Christ, in the New Testament. When He tells the paralytic his sins were forgiven, and the scribes think He’s blaspheming...
Matthew 9:4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?
Then He heals the guy anyway, to show He has the power to both heal the body that’ll decay anyway, and the soul that needed cleansing.
(Here’s a shameless plug for Wednesday evenings) In Revelation 2, when writing to the Church of Thyatira, John describes Jesus - he describes Him as “The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire...” (Revelation 2:18b) and that refers to the fact that He sees everything.
His gaze pierces to our core, burning through all the masks we’ve put on, all the stuff we’ve tried to hide ourselves in, all the fake, all the phony, He sees the real us.
In fact, He will go on to say, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart” (v. 23)
He knows when we sit down and when we rise up...
In short, what David is saying here is that God knows our actions, not just when we do something, but where we do it - and if aren’t careful, we’ll miss the fact that God even knows why we do what we do.
When He “discerns my thoughts from afar.
The word for “discerns” is the Hebrew word “beahn” indicates God is gazing directly at us, with full attention. Our “thoughts” is the word “rhay-ah” and it means “the content of our thoughts”... in other words our intentions.
Last week, I quoted Isaiah 55:8-9, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (55:8-9)
But our thoughts, He gives His full attention. Terrifying if He’s against us, but Romans 8:31 reminds us, God is for us.
He’s a good Father, longing for a relationship with His children. He chases us down, He searches our hearts, He calls us to Him.
In that famous, old poem I mentioned a moment ago, by Francis Thompson, “The Hound Of Heaven,” the narrator is being pursued by the Holy Spirit, and he says: 
I fled him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurried chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat - and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet - 
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”
God is pursing Him, and as the man runs, He loses everything, he becomes shattered, and broken, but in the Savior, He finds all He ever truly wanted or needed.
Because that’s Who God is. That’s what He is for us. 
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44)
It’s like the merchant of fine pearls, “who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:46)
Him finding us is not the treasure, because He already does that, it is in His nature to pursue and search and seek us.
It is NOT in our nature to seek Him out but to run from Him, to fill our lives with everything but Him, hoping it will satisfy our souls. It is our nature to rebel, to sin - we’ve done that since the beginning.
It was CS Lewis that said, “All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
But in that moment when the scales fall off our eyes, and we realize the Holy Spirit has been pursuing us, pushing us, calling to us, and then we find ourselves finding, and accepting Him.
That is the treasure, the pearl of great value - and it’s worth the cost of everything we’ve got.
Jeremiah 29:13 reminds us, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
He’s not hard to find, we just have to be willing to do it. He’s not hard to find because He is already there, searching, and seeking us.
He knows us, because He seeks us, but the question we must ask is are we seeking after Him?

II. God Knows You Because He Surrounds You

(v. 3–5) 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.
Reading this, I was reminded of the old “Footprints in the Sand” poem, that my grandma once tried to tell me was in the Bible - it’s not, by the way.
I saw a comic strip about that once, where a guy said to Jesus, “Hey, how come over there my footprints are behind yours?” And Jesus says, “That’s where I walked ahead of you, preparing the way.”
“Oh, okay, but Jesus, what about over there, where your footprints were behind mine?” and Jesus says, “Well, that’s where I followed after you, cleaning up your mess.” 
And the guy says, “Yeah, I guess the best times were when your footprints were right beside mine, when we walked together.” And Jesus nods his head. 
“But, last question Jesus, what’s that small trench over there?” And Jesus says, “Oh, that’s where you really dug in and I had to drag you kicking and screaming…”
If He searches your path, then He knows where you are headed.
He knows where you’re going, because He’s gone before you, paving the way for you. I mentioned Jeremiah 12, that God knew what was coming for Jeremiah.
God was using current circumstances to prepare the prophet for the worse things yet to come.
Deuteronomy 31:8 It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
God tells Joshua at least 3 times, “be strong and courageous” but why? Because God knew what was waiting for him on the battlefield.
Joshua 1:6–7 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 
(v. 9) Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
He’s acquainted with all our ways. Nothing anyone does, nothing any creature does is hidden from Him. Jesus said 5 sparrows sold for 2 pennies - almost worthless, yet God doesn’t forget a single one, “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Luke 12:6-7
Hebrews 4:13 reminds us no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are … exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.”
He knows your path, He knows your future, not just because He’s scouted it, but because He’s already there. Which verse 4 makes clear - even before we mutter a word, God already knows what will be said.

Do you think if he knows what’s going to come out of a child’s mouth, he’s surprised by any enemy, any obstacle, a problem, a trial, a tribulation in your life? 

I don't even know what’s going to come out of my mouth sometimes, but He does.
He is omniscient. He is eternal. He exists far beyond our scope of time. Yet He knows your path, He knows your thoughts, He knows when and where you even relax.
The phrase “acquainted with all our ways” can be translated to mean “He knows your character.”
I read something recently that said, “Don’t be as concerned with your reputation, as much as you are your character. Your reputation is what other people think of you, but your character is who you are. When you take care to be a person of good character, a good reputation will follow.”
He knows who you are at the core. He doesn’t care about your reputation, not merely as much as He cares about your salvation, your sanctification, your relationship with Him. 
Is THAT a part of your character?
Is there evidence of Him in your life?
Because He knows the absence of His involvement in your life as much as He is aware of how much He is master of it, and church, either He is Master of all of your life, or He is not Your Master at all.
Romans 8:9–11 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
If we are not in Him, He is not in us, and while He still knows us, the tragedy is if we do not search after Him, we will not know Him.
In verse 5, it’s interesting that David writes that while God surrounds us, He also specifically lays his hand upon us.
He says, “and lay your hand upon me.” There’s something about touching someone, and how it is done that speaks volumes about their relationship. 

If that doesn’t make sense to you, just think about all the people you’d shake hands with that you definitely would not want to kiss them on the mouth!

Hugs can be nice, but they can also be awkward, uncomfortable, even painful if you believe Pro Wrestling is real.
But God lays His hand on us. In Job 9:33, Job is desperately crying out for a Redeemer, a Mediator, who will do this very thing. He says, There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.
But there is such a person, such an arbiter, someone who intercedes on our behalf. The writer of Hebrews makes it clear that this is what Christ does for us now. 
And Jesus isn’t afraid to get His hands dirty, He isn’t afraid to touch the untouchables. To show love, and grace, to those society would reject.
In Matthew 8, a leper comes to Jesus. To touch a leper would make Jesus ceremonially unclean, under the Law.
And this leper comes, and kneels before Him, and says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” “And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. (Matthew 8:2-3)
That man had likely not been touched for years, birthdays, holidays, feasts, had all gone by without anyone even wanting him in the room, yet the first time anyone dares to go near him, it’s a rabbi, with the calloused hands of a carpenter, that touches Him.
And rather than infecting Jesus, Jesus cleanses the leper with just a touch.

Do you understand...

The fact He surrounds us, that makes Him omnipresent

The fact He exists through time before us, and behind us, makes Him omnipotent.

The fact He knows us through and through makes Him omniscient.

But the fact He is willing to touch us, to interact in our lives, that makes Him personal. 

God knows us because He surrounds us, but we have to ask, does He still touch us? Do we still ask Him to?

III. God Knows You Because He Relates To You

(v. 6) Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.
This passage makes it abundantly clear - we can not know what He knows, we can not fathom what He comprehends. It’s too great, it’s too vast.
There is a reason He is called The Almighty. There is nothing, there is no one greater.
How can we even begin to relate to Him?
We glimpsed this last week when we read, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
He is eternal, He is vast, He is powerful… the Bible constantly reminds us of this: Psalm 92:5, “How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep!”
We can not reach those depths. It may be enough to drive us to ask, like David in Psalm 8 - “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (v. 3)
And that’s a good question. Why does He bother? Psalm 23 tells us: (v. 3) He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”
It is for Him, that He does this. That He may be worshiped. “Well, that sounds very selfish of him,” no, it isn’t.
If God is truly the most holy, most righteous, and most powerful being in the universe, then He must not tolerate unholiness, unrighteousness, or weakness and wickedness.
But to remain all of those thins and still be fair, Him to remain a just God, He must allow those who choose such things as unholiness and unrighteousness to have an opportunity to also become holy, and righteous. 
So He provided a law, in which these acts of rebellion, called Sin, are atoned for through sacrifices, but all that ends up happening is the people rebel from the law, or they become obsessed with the law to the point the law becomes their idol.
This is what happens to the Pharisees in the time of Jesus.
The law is a guardian, of sorts, but Paul writes in Galatians 3:24 but it’s just a temporary guardian.  So God, the Son, stepped down out of Heaven and takes the wrath of this Holy, Just, righteous God upon Himself.
And through THAT sacrifice, we are washed clean of that unrighteousness, that wickedness, that Sin, because as a substitute for my sins and your sins, the wrath of God was satisfied by the Son of God on the cross.
At that time, Matthew 27:51 tells us the curtain in the temple was torn, from top to bottom. The curtain that hid the ark, the presence of the Almighty God.
There’s no need for that curtain, because now, we are able to experience His presence anywhere, always. We now can live in Him, for Him, and through Him as He is God with us.
Relating to us.
How can we relate to Him? It is through the Son, who became one of us and relates to us.
Now here’s where it gets real good. When Christ arose, He was the first of the resurrection. And - as a small side point - what’s He one of the first things He does? He goes to His disciples, His friends, as he referred to them in John 15:13.
The people He has been relating to for the past 3 years of His earthly existence.
And because of His resurrection, we, too, will be resurrected. The apostle Paul says it like this: 1 Corinthians 15:42-43, So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”
Why? John tells us in Revelation 21, “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (v. 7)
It’s not selfish of God to love us, or relate to us, or save us for “His name’s sake”.
You see - it’s love. Love for His creation. His children. Love for us. When His name is honored, when He is glorified, He is shared, His word is spread, and others have the opportunity to accept Him, to join his ekklesia, His called out people.
Hebrews tells us we do not have a high priest who can not sympathize with us, “with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
He was tempted as we are, yet He stayed holy. He relates to us, but He is never tainted by us.
He died for us, that we may live eternally in a relationship with Him. In fact, one of the definitions of Hell is that it’s simply to be completely cast out from the presence of God.
The Beatitudes in Matthew 5 (3-11), Jesus is not just stating how Christians should act, He will model all of these things.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Greek word is ptoxoi, this is someone who is humble before God - and if you remember “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:8.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
And God mourns. In Genesis 6, it’s not because He was angry He sent the flood, but the Bible tells us He “grieved him to his heart” when He saw what mankind had become.
Jesus mourns at Lazarus’ tomb in John 11. God mourns over the flock of Israel for what the people in charge of them had done to them in Ezekiel 34.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
In John 13, Jesus got up, laid aside his outer garments, and took a towel, tied it around His waste, and began to wash the disciple’s feet.
Footwashing was regarded as so lowly a task that it could not even be required of a Hebrew slave. But Jesus does it.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”, and Jesus got hungry and thirsty, but it’s not talking about food, but righteousness.
Righteousness there, it’s the Greek word “dikiasunen”, and it means “virtuous justice,” and that is why He went to the cross, and died, that sin would be paid for, once and for all.
By the only one worthy for the justice to be carried out upon, satisfying God’s wrath upon Him, and what did He call it? He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42) And He drinks of that cup.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
And God is merciful! I said earlier, that Jeremiah never again questioned God’s justice, but that doesn’t mean the prophet didn’t still feel pain, or hurt, he wrote an entire book filled with Lament. It’s called Lamentations.
And in the middle of it all, he writes, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
And Jesus will go on, “blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the persecuted for righteousness sake” and these all describe Him who committed no sin, who brought peace to earth and they crucified, they persecuted Him for it.
There is nothing in your life He can not relate to, because not only did He experience His share of suffering, He is going through your suffering with you!
And we must ask ourselves, if God relates to us, how are we relating to Him?
Conclusion
I’m going to move to close this morning, but as we do, I’d ask you to simply pray something.
God knows you. He knows you because He searches you, He surrounds you, and He relates to you. 
But He desperately wants you to know Him. To relate to Him. To be in Him. And to seek Him.
This morning, I’m not going to do a formal altar call or anything like that, but I want to challenge you to take some time, where you are - or, if you’d like to use the altar area, too, that is fine - take some time to be alone with Him.
Find a place here in the sanctuary, and give Him just five minutes, undivided attention. Pray. Worship Him. Tell Him what is on your mind, even though He already knows.
And ask Him to confirm what you already believe to be true, that He knows you, He knows your struggle, your heartache, your pain… And ask Him to begin to use it for His glory.
Don’t ask Him to fix it, to take it away, or replace it. Like Jeremiah, that may be there to prepare you for something, and it may be there for it to be healed, like the paralytic, but ask Him to use it for His glory. 
And patiently watch as God begins to glorify Himself through you, in your life.
Are we seeking Him? Are we in Him? Are we relating to Him? Don’t leave here today without being able to say Yes to all 3 of those questions.
PRAY
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