Psalm 139 The Knowledge of God

 

Introduction

 

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?

 

These are some of life’s most important questions. However, in the busyness of our daily lives we rarely consider these questions in any depth. But today we are going to seek to answer these questions by studying Psalm 139.

Now, as with many Psalms, we can think we know what this Psalm is about without ever really understanding it- and the difference it can make to our lives. And so, I have found the words of Christopher Ash very helpful as I have prepared to preach this Psalm:

Parts of this psalm are great favourites; they appear on devotional calendars and Instagram pics, and we love them. But there are two parts we are apt to omit. First, we tremble when we reach verses 19 to 22, and we wish that this section was not there … And we also forget that it is headed “Of David”. We need to remember, as ever, that this was first a psalm of David—and therefore also later a psalm of Jesus; and we must understand how it was sung by the king before it can be sung by us, as men and women united to the king by faith.

So we must read Psalm 139 through David’s eyes, then Jesus’ eyes, before we can fully appreciate how it applies to us today.

Psalm 139 can be easily broken up into four sections of six verses each:

Personal Knowledge (verses 1 to 6)

Persistent Presence (verses 7 to 12)

Purposeful Creation (verses 13 to 18)

Passionate Prayer (verses 19 to 24)

In God’s Word today we are reminded that Almighty God doesn’t love from a distance but searches us and knows us, sending His Son to lay down His life for us in order that we may also know Him. As Believers, then, we are called to live with an ever-increasing appreciation of God’s presence and prayerfully seeking His purposes for our lives.

Let us see that, firstly, in verses 1 to 6… Personal Knowledge.

I wonder how many people in your life really ‘know’ you? Or do they just ‘know about’ you?

Social media has made it very easy to feel that lots of people know us when they only know about us. Many people see our carefully crafted profiles with the family portraits that look straight out of a magazine or movies. Fewer people, if any, know the real stories behind those profiles and the deep wounds and daily frustrations we edit out.

In Psalm 139 we meet the God who knows us- intimately, personally- and so in verses 1 and 2 we read:

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

The word that David uses for ‘searched’ pictures an archaeologist digging deeply to reveal his findings. God’s knowledge of His People goes beyond a surface level ‘knowing about’ them.

God searches the very depths of our souls and there is absolutely nothing that is hidden from Him. God is not merely ‘acquainted’ with His People like one of our so-called ‘Facebook Friends’.

We are known intimately by the all-knowing, all-wise God. This is how we are to understand our lives.

God’s knowledge dominates this first section. In verses 1 to 6 David uses words like, ‘searched’, ‘perceive’, ‘discern’, ‘knowledge’. But Psalm 139 is not simply speaking about the truth that God knows all things. God does know all things, but here David speaks of God’s personal knowledge of David: God does not just know about David but knows David personally.

In verses 2 to 4 David, the king of God’s choosing, captures the totality of God’s knowledge through using vivid word pictures. He knows David’s movements and thoughts, He knows David’s public life (‘going out’) and private life (‘lying down’), and He knows what David will say and why (‘completely’). God knows David, his king, intimately because He is the LORD, the covenant God, and is in covenant relationship with David.

God knows the thoughts, words and deeds of His People. But He even knows the motivations behind our words, thoughts and actions! He knows the deep pangs of our hearts- our hopes and dreams- and He knows the ongoing concerns of our souls.

How that makes you feel?

In verses 5 to 6 David responds with awe and wonder at being known so intimately and personally by God:

You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

David is overwhelmed by God’s personal knowledge of Him. David is moved to joyous praise when he ponders God’s personal care and concern for him.

David rejoices in God personal knowledge and care for His king. And, in doing so, he points us forward to Jesus- God’s True-King. Remember how, in Matthew 11, Jesus says: No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son. Supremely it is Jesus who sings verses 1 to 6 with awe and wonder at how deeply the Father knows Him.

But- and this is wonderful- Jesus the Son went on to say: No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. In Christ, and only in Christ, we too have come to be known by God with this deeply personal knowledge.

God knows all about every human being; but He knows His People in Christ intimately. If I am a Believer, then in Christ I am known and loved in the most personal and intimate, loving and caring way.

We should often ponder how God knows us- not just about us. He knows our cares and concerns, our failings and our frailties. He knows all about us and, in Christ, He loves us with an awe-inspiring love and a devotion that defies description.

So, let us spend time pondering God’s personal knowledge of His People in Christ. And, secondly, let us consider God’s… Persistent Presence.

I wonder have you ever thought about running away from God?

Have you thought about where you could go to hide from God- the various places God may not be find you?

It is, in one sense, an interesting mental exercise. But, the Psalmist says, it is a pointless exercise; in verse 7 we read:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

Now, given the context of verse 6, and then later in verse 10, we know David has an actual desire to escape from God’s presence. Instead, what David is doing here is reflecting upon, and taking comfort from, the fact that his God is everywhere with His People.

David declares his confidence that God is with His People wherever they may go and whatever they may face. In verses 7 and 8 David essentially says: Whether I go as high as is possible or as low as is imaginable (and everywhere in between), you will be there with me. Then, in verses 9 to 10, David says: Suppose I go to the very far east, or to the very far west, or anywhere in between; even there I will know God’s protecting and guiding presence.

Now, David is not simply talking about God being here and there and everywhere. No, David is rejoicing in the fact that God is there for him- personally present to hold and guard him. David is saying he cannot find any place in the universe where God is not with him- this is God’s personal, persistent presence.

There is no dark corner of the experience of God’s People where God is not to be found. He leads His People in and through every place and circumstance. Our God is one who is with His People all the time.

In verses 11 and 12 God’s king meditates on this comforting truth. Sometimes he feels himself in darkness and fears that he will be hidden in darkness, with no more hope of light. That is a fearful anxiety. But, wonderfully, even in the deepest darkness the God who is light will be there. No darkness can overcome the God who is life and light; and this God will be persistently present with His king.

What a comfort this must have been to the Lord Jesus! As He dwelt in a land of deep darkness, and as finally He plunged into the shadow of death upon the Cross, even there He could be confident that God would watch over Him and bring Him through death into resurrection life.

In Christ, and in Christ alone, the loving presence of God our Heavenly Father is with us however dark the valley into which we may be led. For nothing in all creation, not even the deep darkness of death itself, ‘…will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’.

Whatever we face we can know God’s personal knowledge of us, His persistent presence with us, and thirdly, His… Purposeful Creation.

Now we come to perhaps the most well-known verses in Psalm 139. In verses 13 to 18 David celebrates God’s personal, purposeful creative work. These verses are full of creative words: ‘created’, ‘made’, ‘woven together’.

There is a precious general truth here: every human being is made in the image of God and so precious in His sight from the very moment of conception. Human beings are crafted by an all-powerful Creator and are not the result of chance and favourable circumstance.

Human life is precious to God because He is intimately involved in the forming of every tissue, sinew, muscle and bone of every person. Each human being has inherent worth and value because we are ‘…fearfully and wonderfully made…’- the work of His hands and the result of His eternal, divine design

However, we must be careful to discern that the true focus of these verses is Christ and those in Christ. In verses 15 and 16 we read:

 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

God’s creative power did not only extend to the past, before David was born. It also extended to the future, with God knowing all the days of David’s life before he had even lived them. David’s life was marked by deliberate and intentional care and planning by His God.

Long before David was anointed king by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 16), God knit him together, cell by cell, in the womb of his mother. David was the handiwork of God. He was shaped for the kingship, and every day of his reign was written beforehand in God’s book.

And God’s careful, purposeful shaping of David anticipated a greater, more wonderful, shaping within the virgin womb of Mary. Our lord Jesus was formed, cell by cell, into a fully human man who was yet fully divine. This knitting-together was the greatest miracle in the whole of human history.

And every day and night of the life of Jesus on earth was written in the Father’s book before it came to be. This is why the prophets could write so fully about him centuries before, for they were inspired by the Spirit of the God who had shaped and ordained those days before they came to be.

In verses 17 and 18, David meditates on his own creation:

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.

David was filled with amazement and adoration by considering how God knew and cared for him.

And so, Brothers and Sisters, rejoice in the truth that our God is always thinking of us-precious thoughts of care and love, and grace and mercy. It is precious that God should think of us at all; it is beyond precious that He would think well of us and think so often of us.

And, in Christ, each man and woman may say of themselves: Our days are numbered and God has plans for us. We are not a cosmic accident and our lives our not ruled by chance. We are masterpieces in God’s masterplan.

And so, we trust that, in Christ, God has shaped us just as He has planned for us to be, and He has plans for us that are good and perfect.

We are perfectly designed by the Perfect and Powerful Creator. Such a thought should provoke us to praise and worship in and through every part of our lives. And so, our lives must be lived in continual devotion and submission to God and what He has planned for us. He loves us and knows what is best for us- we can and we must trust Him with our lives.

We close, briefly, reflecting on David’s… Passionate Prayer.

When we first read this final section, it looks out of place- the tone and language very different from what comes before. However, we should see verses 19 to 24 as the passionate response of one who knows and loves his covenant God: God’s enemies are David’s enemies.

Much more could be said about verses 19 to 22- we will leave that for another day. For now, we focus on verses 23 and 24 as a fitting conclusion to Psalm 139 and our time together.

And so, in verses 23 and 24 we read:

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Here the king prays that the God who searches hearts will search his heart. His passionate desire is that God would search his heart, to know and test what is there, and to ensure that anything that is offensive to God will be removed so that true fellowship with God might be fully enjoyed.

As we close this psalm, Jesus leads us to open ourselves afresh to the God who searches and knows us, that He may again search and know us.

In Christ, as you and I pray this psalm, we bring to mind the amazingly intimate knowledge that God has- personal knowledge of each of us in all the depths of our thoughts and hopes and fears and imaginations. We are deeply assured again that, in Christ, there is no place in the universe, be it ever so dark, that can separate us from the Father’s love and care. We treasure the infinite wisdom with which our heavenly Creator Father knit us together and ordained for us every day and night of our life on earth. And we open ourselves afresh to his searching eyes of love, that He may purify us and lead us in the way to everlasting life, where all evil will finally be ended.

 

Conclusion

Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?

 

Here is how I would answer these questions in light of God’s Word:

In Christ I am known and loved by the God who made me for His glory. In Christ my sinful past is dealt with and my future is secure in Glory. For now, I leave each day mindful that I am God’s personal loving handiwork, created by God, in Christ Jesus, so that I may do precisely the good works He has prepared in advance for me to do.