Psalm 139 - Search Me Series

A little movie trivia. I want to see if anybody remembers a movie that was filmed in 1966. A movie called “Fantastic Voyage”. It starred Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch. I think I even found the movie poster. This movie was filmed during what they would call the Cold War Era. We weren’t getting along with Russia, and unfortunately we still don’t get along real well with the Russian government. Anyway, the plot is quite simple. It is about a scientist that has figured out how to miniaturize people to make them microscopic. The Russians are nervous that if the Americans get ahold of this technology they might use it against them. The scientist is making his way back to the United States and these Russian assassins come after him and shoot him and critically wound him in his brain and developed into some sort of inoperable blood clot. These doctors agree to be miniaturized to be injected into his body to try to repair it. This starts this fantastic journey through the human body into the brain. I actually found a movie clip, the trailer from that movie. (Trailer played here.) Awesome visual effects. It has been well over 50 years and they have yet to figure out how to miniaturize people. I don’t know about you, but that is perfectly fine for me because I don’t want anybody getting inside my body. There are too many people already in my head. I don’t need you in my body too.

The good news is that, as we find out in Psalm 139 today, God doesn’t need to get in a little miniature submarine and be injected into our body. To God, we are transparent to him. God has the ability to isolate any problems in our body, soul, or spirit pretty quickly and to deal with that impurity before it tends to affect our walk. You may recall we have been in the summer of the Psalms. Today is actually the last Psalm we will be looking at before we head towards the fall and begin to look at some of our vision and our values for the church. We looked last week at Psalm 8 which is about the majesty of God. The title was “What is Man?” In other words, what is man in light of this great, grand universe? What is man that you would consider him? We went on to talk about that man is very significant in his universe. Both man and woman bear the image of God and have a distinct purpose in this world to oversee God’s creation. We talked about the whole idea that God made man. Today, we are carrying on a little bit of that theme. Not only did God make man but God knows man in a very intimate way. In fact, we will find out that we are pretty much an open book before God. If we open ourselves to him, if we allow God to search us out, God will identify any of those impurities, any of those things within us that may be affecting our walk with him. We are going to read through the entire Psalm 139 and then as usual we will go back and highlight a few key verses. Starting at Psalm 139:1. (Scripture read here.)

Hopefully, with reading through that Psalm, you get the initial understanding that God knows us very well. He knows us inside and out. In fact, there is an attribute of God that theologians refer to. It is called his omniscience. Omniscience basically means the attribute that denotes God’s knowing all things. Omniscience means that all events are present to the divine mind. That is God has direct cognition of everything in creation. In short, he knows us. He knows us completely. We all have friends and family members that know us pretty well. I have two good friends. I have a good friend on the East Coast, Jose, and I have a very good friend on the West Coast, Brian. They know a lot about me. They have been out here to visit. Of course, my wife Debbie, she knows quite a bit about me. She can pretty much predict how I am going to react to certain circumstances during the week. She knows pretty much what I am going to want to eat. If we go to a restaurant, she knows what I am going to pick from the menu. She knows the clothes that I am going to pick out on Sunday morning, and then she proceeds to tell me what to wear like any good wife because men don’t know what to wear. All kidding aside, God knows us. Even though our spouse knows us, even though our friends know us, even though our family knows us, no one knows us like God. The Psalmist goes on to pretty much spell that out. He says “You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely.” He knows us. He knows where we are going to sit down and when we are going to rise up. He knows when we are going to sit down on the couch and watch TV. He knows whether we are going to sit on a bar stool with a Jackman Inn or someplace. He knows that. He knows when we are going to rise up. He knows what is going to cause us to get up from that seat. Whether it is to pick up the remote control. Whether it is to pick up another slice of pizza or possibly pick up the stranger across the room. He knows that. He knows us completely. He not only knows when we are going to rise up and sit down, he knows the exact moment that we are going to wake up on any given day. He knows the exact moment that we are going to go to sleep at night. He knows who we are going to sleep with. He knows a lot about us. He knows the words that are going to come off of our tongue before they go off of our tongue, which is a scary thing for guys like me who tend to put my foot in my mouth occasionally. Some of you know I like to preach without notes. That is very freeing, but at the same time it is very scary because sometimes I don’t know what I am going to say until after I say it. They say words are like toothpaste. It is easy to get out of the tube but try putting it back in. It is the same with words. It is very difficult once they go out. God knows exactly what is going to proceed from our mouth. He knows whether we are going to say a word of blessing such as God bless you or thank you or whatever or a word of cursing such as the heck with you or around here it could be worse. He knows those exact words that are going to come out of our mouth before we even say them.