God Knows You
Intro
Does God known you and I personally?
• There are approximately just over 7 billion (The U.S. census bureau estimates the world population passed 7 billion on March 12, 2012)people on this planet and how can we be assured that He thinks of us or even knows us personally? To answer this question lets look at the Word of God in Psalm 139
Text
Psalm 139: 1-18 Message
1 A David psalm. GOD, investigate my life; get all the facts first-hand.
(O Lord, You have searched me and known me.) NKJV
2 I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
3 You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight.
4 You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence.
5 I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too-- your reassuring presence, coming and going.
6 This is too much, too wonderful-- I can't take it all in!
7 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight?
8 If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there!
9 If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon,
10 You'd find me in a minute-- you're already there waiting!
11 Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!"
12 It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.
13 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.
14 I thank you, High God--you're breath taking! Body and soul, I am marvellously made! I worship in adoration--what a creation!
15 You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
16 Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.
17 Your thoughts--how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them!
18 I couldn't even begin to count them-- any more than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
Body
1 How much does God care about you?
• He truly knows you, knows when you sit, when you rise, knows your every thought, knows when you go out, when you sleep and is familiar with all your ways.
• God not only gave His only Son Jesus to die in our place and give us life He also sent us the Holy Spirit to fill our heart and life with His love and to be our helper and guide.
John 3:16For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever[fill in your name] believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
• We are so significant to the Father that He indeed calls us by name.
John 10:3 says: “He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.”
God saw to every detail of your birth before , in and after the womb.
• Medical Fact: A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months
Psalm 139 : 13-17 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvellous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
2 How much care has God taken to plan your life?
Acts 17:24-26
God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
And He has made from one blood] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
Job 10:11You have clothed me with skin and flesh and have knit me together with bones and sinews.
You were assigned your name at birth by your parents and your name has a meaning and is descriptive of who you are Just like God gave Jesus His Name which is above every Name
The day you became a born again child of God the angels rejoiced in Heaven
Luke 15:10Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents
Your life has a blue print similar to a new house being built has a blue print or plan from which all the details (from foundation to roof) can be determined. God took great care in creating your body, emotions, character, talents, gifting’s and calling. He is not in the’ Cookie Cutter’ business. You have been fashioned by God very uniquely:
Psalm 33:15aHe fashions their hearts individually;
When Jesus died on the cross at Calvary for you He had to know everything about your life PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE in order to fully atone for you. God knows everything about you inside and out:
Ephesians 1:4-5 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
John 1:1-4In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Psalm 139: 16Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.
John 6:39And this is the will of Him Who sent Me, that I should not lose any of all that He has given Me, but that I should give new life and raise [them all] up at the last day.
Your life was planned by God before time began. Just like He planned and mapped out the lives of Jeremiah and Paul so God has planned, purposed and called you:
Jeremiah 1:5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."
Galatinas 1:15-16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace,
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,
Ephesians 2:10 [AMP]For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].
3 How valuable are you to God the Father?
• When we think of the value of something from a human viewpoint, we tend to measure value in monetary terms (what it is worth) and the benefit it can bring us (what can it do for me).
• When God looks at us He sees in an entirely different light: His point of reference when looking at us is love and compassion
Psalm 8:3-5When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?
(Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? MESSAGE)
For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honour.
Matt 6:26 declares that you are of more value than the birds of the air and look how well they are taken care of by God HE LOVES YOU!!!!
From birth to old age God carries you:
Isaiah 46: 3-4 (MESSAGE) "Listen to me, family of Jacob, everyone that's left of the family of Israel. I've been carrying you on my back from the day you were born,
And I'll keep on carrying you when you're old. I'll be there, bearing you when you're old and grey. I've done it and will keep on doing it, carrying you on my back, saving you.
4 How much does God care about the salvation of one soul and to what extremes will He go in order to ensure that someone He created will be saved?
Ivan panin He was a mathematical genius who died a Harvard scholar and a citizen of the United States in 1942.IvanPaninparticipated in plots against the Czar and his government and was exiled from Russia. And after spending a number of years studying in Germany, he went to the United States where he became an outstanding lecturer on literary criticism.
Panin was known as a firm agnostic - so well known that when he discarded his agnosticism and accepted the Christian faith, the newspapers carried headlines telling of his conversion.
It was in 1890 that Panin made the discovery of the mathematical structure underlining the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament. He was casually reading the first verse of the gospel of John in the Greek: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with the God and the Word was God...".
Panin was curious as to why the Greek word for "the"' preceded the word "God"' in one case and not the other. In examining the text he became aware of a number relationship. This was the first of the discoveries that led to his conversion and uncovered the extensive numeric code.
Panin found his proof in the oldest and most accurate manuscripts - the Received Hebrew Text and the Westcott and Hort Text.
In the original languages of the Bible, mostly Hebrew and Greek, there are no separate symbols for numbers, letters of the alphabet are also used to indicate numbers.
The numeric value of a word is the sum total of all its letters. It was curiosity that first caused Panin to begin toying with the numbers behind the texts. Sequences and patterns began to emerge. These created such a stirring in the heart of the Russian that he dedicated 50 years of his life to painstakingly comb the pages of the Bible.
This complex system of numbering visibly and invisibly saturates every book of the scriptures emphasizing certain passages and illustrating deeper or further meaning in types and shadows. The 66 books of the Bible 39 in the Old and 27 in the New were written by 33 different people.
Those authors were scattered throughout various countries of the world and from widely different backgrounds. Many of them had little or no schooling. The whole Bible was written over a period of 1500 years with a 400 year silence apart from the Apocrypha between the two testaments. Despite the handicaps the biblical books are found to be a harmonious record, each in accord with the other.
Panin says the laws of probability are exceeded into the billions when we try and rationalize the authorship of the Bible as the work of man. He once said: "If human logic is worth anything at all we are simply driven to the conclusion that if my facts I have presented are true, man could never have done this.
"We must assume that a Power higher than man guided the writers in such a way, whether they knew it or not, they did it and the Great God inspired them to do it''.
Let's take the number seven as an illustration of the way the patterns work. Seven is the most prolific of the mathematical series which binds scripture together. The very first verse of the Bible "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1), contains over 30 different combinations of seven. Seven is often referred to as "God's seal" or the number of spiritual perfection.
This verse has seven Hebrew words having a total of 28 letters 4 x 7. The numeric value of the three nouns "God", "heaven" and "earth" totals 777. Any number in triplicate expresses complete, ultimate or total meaning.
Also tightly sealed up with sevens are the genealogy of Jesus, the account of the virgin birth and the resurrection. Seven occurs as a number 187 times in the Bible (41 x 7), the phrase "seven-fold" occurs seven times and "seventy" occurs 56 times (7 x 8).
The Bible has declared man's years to be (70). The development of the human embryo is in exact periods of sevens or 28 days (4 x 7). Medical science tells us the human body is renewed cell for cell every seven years.
We're told the pulse beats slower every seven days as if it were in accord with the seventh day of rest proclaimed in the Genesis creation week. And God formed man of the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7); science confirms the human body is made of the same 14 elements (2 x 7) found in your average handful of dust.
The light of the sun is made up of seven distinct colours as shown in the rainbow. In music there are seven distinct notes which climax in a chord or octave at the beginning of a new seven.
In almost all animals the incubation or pregnancy period is divisible by seven.
Eight is the number of new life or "resurrection". It is the personal number of Jesus. When we add together the letter values of the name Jesus in the Greek we get 888. Jesus was called The Christ, the numeric value of this title is 1480 (185 x 8). He was Savior which has the value 1408 (2 x 8 x 88).
Jesus is also Lord which again is a multiple of eight being 800 (100 x 8). Messiah has the numeric value 656 (82 x8). Jesus also called himself the Son of man. The term occurs 88 times and is valued at 2960 (370 x 8).
Jesus said "I am the truth": the numeric value of "the truth" is 64 (8 x 8). The last book in the Bible is the Revelation of Jesus Christ which has exactly 888 Greek words. Eight persons were saved in the Ark at the great Noahic flood. God made a covenant with Abraham that every male Jewish child was to be circumcised on the eighth day of his life.
The works of Ivan Panin have been put before the experts many times. Panin once challenged nine noted rationalists and Bible critics through the medium of the New York Sun newspaper November 9, 1899. He dared them to publicly refute or give explanation for a few of his presented facts. Four made lame excuses. The rest were silent.
Panin issued a challenge throughout leading newspapers of the world asking for a natural explanation or rebuttal of the facts. Not a single person accepted. He died at Aldershot, Ontario Canada on October 30th, 1942, aged 87.
• God knew before time that Panin would deny His existence and thus made the Bible in such a way that even this mathematician could not deny God’s existence or His love for mankind.
Illustration
Does God known where to find you , every minute of the day, when He needs you?
Ken Gaub wrote about an experience he had back in the 1990s:
"At the time I was driving on 1-75 near Dayton, Ohio, with my wife and children. We turned off the highway for a rest and refreshment stop. My wife Barbara and children went into the restaurant. I suddenly felt the need to stretch my legs, so waved them off ahead saying I’d join them later.
"I bought a soft drink, and as I walked toward the rest room, with feelings of self-pity I loved the Lord and my ministry, but I felt drained, burdened. My cup was empty.
"Suddenly the impatient ringing of a telephone nearby jarred me out of my doldrums. It was coming from a phone booth at a service station on the corner. Wasn’t anyone going to answer the phone?
"Noise from the traffic flowing through the busy intersection must have drowned out the sound because the service station attendant continued looking after his customers, oblivious to the ringing. 'Why doesn’t somebody answer that phone?' I muttered.
"I began reasoning. It may be important. What if it’s an emergency? Curiosity overcame my indifference. I stepped inside the booth and picked up the phone. 'Hello?' I said casually and took a big sip of my drink.
"The operator said: 'Long distance call for Ken Gaub.'
"My eyes widened, and I almost choked on a chunk of ice, 'This can’t be! I was walking down the road, not bothering anyone, and the phone was ringing... '
"'Is Ken Gaub there?' the operator interrupted, 'I have a long distance call for him.'
"It took a moment to gain control of my babbling, but I finally replied, 'Yes, he is here.' Searching for a possible explanation, I wondered if I could possibly be on Candid Camera!
"Still shaken, perplexed, I asked, 'How in the world did you reach me here? I was walking down the road, the pay phone started ringing, and I just answered it on chance. You can’t mean me.'
"'Well,' the operator asked, 'Is Mr.Gaub there or isn’t he?'
"Yes, I am Ken Gaub," I said, finally convinced by the tone of her voice that the call was real.
"Then I heard another voice say, 'Yes, that’s him, operator. That’s Ken Gaub.'
"I listened dumbfounded to a strange voice identify herself. 'I’m Millie from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. You don’t know me, Mr.Gaub, but I’m desperate. Please help me.'
"'What can I do for you?'
"She began weeping. Finally she regained control and continued. 'I was about to commit suicide and had just finished writing a note, when I began to pray and tell God I really didn’t want to do this. Then I suddenly remembered seeing you on television and thought if I could just talk to you, you could help me. I knew that was impossible because I didn’t know how to reach you, I didn’t know anyone who could help me find you. Then some numbers came to my mind, and I scribbled them down.'
"At this point she began weeping again, and I prayed silently for wisdom to help her. She continued, 'I looked at the numbers and thought, "Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had a miracle from God, and He has given me Ken’s phone number?" I decided to try calling it. I can’t believe I’m talking to you. Are you in your office in California?'
"I replied, 'Lady, I don’t have an office in California. My office is in, Washington.'
"A little surprised, she asked, 'Oh really, then where are you?'
"'Don’t you know?' I responded. 'You made the call.'
"She explained, 'But I don’t even know what area I’m calling. I just dialled the number that I had on this paper.'
"'Ma’am, you won’t believe this, but I’m in a phone booth in, Ohio!'
"'Really?' she exclaimed. 'Well, what are you doing there?'
"I kidded her gently, 'Well, I’m answering the phone. It was ringing as I walked by, so I answered it.'
"Knowing this encounter could only have been arranged by God, I began to counsel the woman. As she told me of her despair and frustration, the presence of the Holy Spirit flooded the phone booth giving me words of wisdom beyond my ability. In a matter of moments, she prayed the sinner’s prayer and met the One who would lead her out of her situation into a new life. I walked away from that telephone booth with an electrifying sense of our Heavenly Father’s concern for each of His children.
"What were the astronomical odds of this happening? With all the millions of phones and innumerable combinations of numbers, only an all-knowing God could have caused that woman to call that number in that phone booth at that moment in time. Forgetting my drink and nearly bursting with exhilaration, I headed back to my family, wondering if they would believe my story. Maybe I better not tell this, I thought, but I couldn’t contain it.
After he hung up the phone and found his wife he exclaimed to her:
" you won’t believe this! God knows where I am!'"
Conclusion and Close
If God our Father knows us this well, do we know Him intimately too? Do we take the time to get to know our loving Father the way He does us?
God knows where you are right now and every moment of every day. He is right by your side thinking of you and guiding you by the Holy Spirit into His plan and will for your life Nothing in your life is hidden from The Father. He sees , understands and is with you constantly
God is able to keep you through every circumstance or trial
You are continually on the Father’s mind even if you feel He has forgotten you He has not and never will . Allow the Holy Spirit to confirm this to you in your heart.
Isaiah 49:15-16 "Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Nahum 1:8 AMP “The Lord is good, a Strength and Stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows (recognizes, has knowledge of, and understands) those who take refuge and trust in Him.
As we begin to get to know God more intimately as he knows us, He can reveal so much more of Himself and His word to us. Let’s celebrate the goodness of God daily as He celebrates and brags about us every day. God is a Good God
Jeremiah 9:24: AMP But let him who glories glory in this: that he understands and knows Me [personally and practically, directly discerning and recognizing My character], that I am the Lord, Who practices loving-kindness, judgement, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.
Amen
Let’s Pray
