Known By God
Psalm 139 TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID.
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 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.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
There is a story of two young men from Duke University who were taking Organic Chemistry. They had done pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, going into the final they actually had an A average. They were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week, even though the Chem. final was on Monday, they decided to go up to the University of Virginia and visit with their friends there before they headed home for the summer.
So they did this and were how you say, overzealous in their partying and with their hangovers and everything they overslept all day on Sunday and did not make it back to Duke until early Monday morning. Rather than take the final then, they spoke with their professor after the final and explained to him why they missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVA for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study for the final, but that on the way back they had a flat tire and didn’t have a spare and couldn’t get help for a long time and so were late getting back to campus.
The professor thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the next day. The two guys were elated and relieved. So they studied like crazy on Monday night and went in on Tuesday at the time the professor had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet and told them the test would consist of two questions and to begin.
They looked and the first problem which was something simple and was worth 5 points. “Cool” they thought, “this is going to be easy.” They did the problem and then turned the page. They were unprepared for what they saw. It read, please be specific for “(95 points) “Which tire?”
People can work really hard in order to hide to try and make up for or hide their mistakes. They may fool people at times, but you cannot fool God. We are in a psalm that speaks about God’s knowledge, his complete and full knowledge of us and all we do.
Knowledge is power. To know something, to see it, to understand it, gives you leverage over that thing. Being known can bring accountability. Being known may elicit fear. Being known is also the key to finding love. Can't truly love what you do not know. This psalm brings us into the terrifying knowledge of God and leads us to the possibility of being loved by God.
- Exhaustive Knowledge of God
O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Exhaustive is comprehensive and thorough, tending to exhaust or drain resources. God knows all but is not exhausted by it. He knows you and he knows when you rise and sit.
God searches for his people. Search is to probe, test, examine. Before you buy a diamond ring you might test it to see what it is really worth. Clarity, color, and cut. Is it really what it says that it is. God examines his people.
God wants to know you. God has come looking for him. Come to do a little inspecting. See how you have been cleaning your room. Did you actually do it, or did you just hide everything under your bed? Like God coming to look for Adam (Gen 3:9), Where are you?” God is searching but God already knows.
Acquainted with all my ways. God knows it all. Knows when you sit and rise. Can fool a teacher, possibly. But you cannot fool God.
He is familiar. I forget people’s names. God not only knows your names and your friends' names, he knows all your ways. It is to have intimate knowledge of a person. Two parties know one another. They have searched the other out, understand each other, they sign a contract. Basketball. Know him. Know his character. Know his capability. LEts do this.
What exactly does God know? Everything!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether
- Omniscience
Omni is all. Science. To know. All knowing. Science is a discipline of learning a posterior. People learn through experience. Observation and from that deducing generalities. God knows all things and needs no experience or lessons. He does not grow in wisdom and knowledge because if he did it would mean that at some point he was not all knowing. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Science is limited. We are limited. God is not.
“God fully knows himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and eternal act.” Wayne Grudem. ST. p192.
Going to the creek to play. Parents knew when I had fallen in the water. It was uncanny. Didnt touch my shoes or pants. Often I would wait for my pants to dry before going home. They would still figure it out. Only later did I come to learn that the creek stunk and they could smell it on my clothes. No wonder they said dont play in the creek!
Abe Lincoln:~ You cant fool everybody all the time, but you can fool a few people long enough to run a small nation.
X ray vision. God sees through all things. It bigger than the surveillance state of the 5G network, greater than the Eye of Sauron in Lord of the rings. He knows what you have done, knows your thoughts on why you did it.
The fact that God knows all you do is a fearful thing. The next thing mentioned after contemplating the omniscience of God is running away. It is scary. God knows your words before they even form. There is no hiding from him.
Hiding. Being known. Naked. Adam hid himself from the presence of God. There is shame. We hid. People hid from God. Go to the far side of the sea. But even there his presence resides.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
Fleeing is from the awareness of our own sin, misery, inadequacy. Peter was in the boat with Jesus and when he recognized the greatness of Jesus fell down crying away from me I am a sinful man.
Sin and shame cause us to hide. Adam hid in the garden. Jonah disobeyed God, and then got out of dodge. Fled from the presence of God. How did that work for him???
At times we feel our insufficiency, our inadequacy, our failures, and sins, and we want to run and hide.
People will try to be things they are not to make up for their perceived shortcomings. Dont want people to know who you really hard.
Hide. Run away. Pretend to be something we are not. Addictions. We fear who we are. We fear what we cannot control. We run to things to mask the hurt, the pain, the insecurity.
Some people throw themselves into work. Dont like who they are so they seek to remake themselves through their career. Overcome their weaknesses and truly be somebody. They fled the approval of God and just want to be honored and esteemed in their work.
Blame. Let me point out the faults of others to hide my own faults.
Disinterest. When I was a teen I ran from things by pretending to not care. I tried not to seem interested in things so that people would expect less of me.
Nap. I just want to shut out all the noise. I don’t know what to do. I dont want to make another decision. I m running from my responsibility and calling.
Where there is shame there is hiding. Addictions, are a mask. Hiding who we are. Shame. Fear. Alienated from God, the one who gloriously created all things, and so we are alienated from his design of all things.
- Omnipresence
God’s Omnipresence. Prevents your running from being effective. God does not have spatial dimensions. He is present in every part of space at ever point in space. He cannot be contained by any space. Not even the highest heaven can contain him (1 Kings 8:27). He is fully present, not just a part of him, and not like a gum that when stretched out gets too thin. He is fully present everywhere. It is not pantheism that sees that everything is God. No, God is distinct from creation. He is Spirit and he is everywhere.
You cannot run from God’s omniscience because he is omnipresent. He is everywhere. Far side of the sea. Think about this. David is in Israel. He knew the sea. He likely did not know what was on the far side of the sea. He did know Spain and America, but he knew the presence of God would be there. Many things you dont know in life. Let what you do know guide you. This will cause you to face your fears.
S. Lewis is spot on: “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito” (Letters to Malcolm, 101). Daniel L. Akin, Johnny M. Hunt, and Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Psalms 101–150, ed. David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida, Christ-Centered Exposition (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2021), 287.
But now notice the tone of this psalm. Its not one of fearfully getting caught. It is not one of fear that the police are going to catch you, that the teacher is on to your, or that the hall monitor found out your walk broke into a run and you are going to get detention! There is a knowledge, a terrifying indepth knowledge, but it is also one of care.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Hem me in behind and before me. You lay your hand upon me. Makes me think of the care I would give to my kids. Tucking them in. Caring for them. Affectionate. God knows everything about us, and yet he cares for us. This shows us that God knows everything about us. He searches us not to discover something he doesnt know. Many times he searches us so that we might know what we are and where we stand.
Something amazing to see in this. With God we can be fully known. And fully loved.
Tim Keller has a great quote on marriage and a spouse knowing and loving the other and how it connects to our relationship with God. He says,
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”
God knows you. And God loves you. Your life is filled with expression of his love. Knows everything about you and still provides you food, clothing, a house, and breath. That is his goodness. HIs love is most expressed in the gift of his Son. You may reject him and his love, and there are dire consequences for rejecting him and his love. But you cannot say he has not shown you his love.
Wrong ideas about God will inevitably lead to wrong ideas about ourselves. Wrong thinking can tragically lead to wrong decisions, leading to the wrong path, resulting in the wrong eternal destiny
Have to see who God is. He is way bigger than what people think. He is altogether different from us.
I and he almost 50 times. Some form of the word know dominates the whole passage, occurring seven times (vv. 1, 2, 4, 6, 14, 23).
- Eternality.
What God’s omnipresence is to space, God’s eternality is to time. His knowledge of you is not based on the present. He knew you from all eternity.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 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.
His love and care are expressed in his creation of you. He formed you. He knew your frame. Woven together in the depths. Saw your unformed substance before it ever was. Knows all your days before one even began.
I am not a knitter. When someone finishes knitting they have an intimate awareness of the thing they made. Their work was a joy and their work produced something they love. God knit you for a purpose.
He created us. Inmost parts. It is the kidneys. He shapes them and forms them.
What about your defects? God is unchanging. You change. He created you to grow, so your life now is not just who you are. God has created you for another world and another time.
**Those present defects will work for your eternal wholeness.**
I don't fully understand why God does what he does. If any one says they do they are a liar. His ways are mysterious. We should be able to say that now. He knit me together.
- Unblockable
19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent
your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Many liberal commentators try to maintain a vague and distinctionless faith in God while explaining away most of the Bible, so they come to this part of the psalm and are like this psalm could never…
I believe this part of the psalm is what makes it so amazing, and the theology of knowing God so real, so relevant, so amazing. There are many people who reject God. They reject him and do evil. They are against him.
David does not want to have anything to do with them (“stay away from me”). They are evil in their actions. They are evil with their words (v. 20). They may use religion in their evil schemes (take his name in vain). They use the name of God for false and deceptive purposes. They are religious liars and hypocrites. These men are evil in their agenda (v. 21). To put it simply, they hate the Lord. Their plans and goals are not his. They “rebel” against the Lord.
When our lives come into their lives there may be pain and hurt. Our suffering is not beyond the sight of God, nor is our hurt beyond his healing, and their wrong is not beyond the reach of his justice. They cannot hide, they cannot run, they cannot make excuses. He will bring them to account. They may get away for a time, but it will not be forever.
The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Calls God to judge those who hurt him, and oppose God. God promises to do that. If we reject him we reject his love and in turn receive his judgment. A terrible trade.
- Complete Surrender to God
Contemplated God’s greatness. Contemplated his finiteness.Contemplated the craziness of life.
Comes to a place of rest. Rest in God’s greatness, power, knowledge, plan. And lays himself open before God. Does not flee. Doesn’t run. Doesn’t complain. Doesn’t make excuses. Submits to God.
SEarch me oh God, know my heart. See me.
That is a submission to what God is doing. Here I am. I won't hide. I won't resist. I won’t fret. I wont blame others. It is futile. I am yours. I trust you. You to hold me, hem me in, protect and provide.
There is a confession. An admission I am not perfect. I am humbled. Those people are doing wrong. It does not excuse my shortcomings. It doesn't make me right. I need help. I need you. Building.
People are always trying to be more than they are. Thomas Acquinas spoke of this in his imitation of Christ, “a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars.” p2 Know my heart. I wont hide from it. I wont excuse it.
Lead me. Means to guide me, rule over me. It is an earnest desire to know God and walk with him. People who dislike church, dislike Bible study, they dislike God. Not just trying to manipulate God to get my way. True surrender. He knows best.
Have you come to this place? Do you mock God by not wanting to change? Do your prayer request mock him? We will stand before judgment and give an account of all we have done. Why were your prayer requests so fake.
See if there is any offensive way in me, ways of idols lead me in the way ever lasting. There is a way that leads to death. There is a way that leads to life. Cant reject God and then end up in his blessing.
Concern to follow him. Adam lost paradise because he disobeyed God. Moses wasn't allowed to enter the promised land because he struck the rock twice. Peter was rebuked for not understanding Jesus' messiahship. Obedience is a big thing. It matters. If it didn’t matter then you wouldnt need forgiveness. God help me to see myself as you see me.
We can humble ourselves because we know he cares for us. He has a plan and he cares for his people. He cared enough that he would send his Son, born of a woman, conceived by the Spirit, formed according to his plan, lived a perfectly pleasing life and never wandered from his Father, and entered into the darkness to pull us out of it. He was crucified and died, that those who believe may not perish but have eternal life.
