INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• Do you have someone in your life who knows you to your core? They know you inside and out. They can tell you what you are thinking, they can maybe even finish your sentence.
• We call this intimacy.
• Many are so afraid to allow intimacy to happen.
• Have you had someone in your life that knew you in that way, but then burned you?
• When we are burned enough in life, we tend to go into protection mode. When we are in protection mode, we do our best to not allow anyone to get too close to us because we are afraid of being hurt again.
• One of the results of shutting down is that we become lonely and isolated.
• When things in life hit us, anxiety can overwhelm us because we feel that we have no one to turn to or nowhere to go.
• I have some good news for you today.
• You do not have to feel alone, you do not have to allow anxiety to rule your life because you have someone in your life who knows you better than you know yourself.
• You have someone in your life with whom you can give your anxieties.
• You have someone in your life who knows you and loves you in spite of knowing you.
• You do not have to, nor can you hide anything from Him.
• Knowing this is both comforting as well as intimidating.
• It is a comfort to know there is someone who is there for you, but it is also a bit overwhelming to know that someone knows you better than you know yourself.
• We also need to know that the one who knows you in this manner will never burn you or hurt you.
• As we land in week two of our series, Deliverance, Psalms of Thanksgiving, we can see that we can be thankful that when we feel alone, we have a God who knows us intimately and sees us regularly.
• In this psalm, David mixes wisdom and praise to describe specific attributes of God that convey how He relates to humankind on an intimate level.
• God’s knowledge is from far off, yet His knowledge is also deeply personal.
• God has a deep and unending capacity to know us fully; therefore, we should be thankful that He never misunderstands us or leaves us alone.
• When we go through times of confusion, struggling to know how to deal with our emotions, or how to overcome our negative thoughts and habits, we can surrender and thank God for knowing when we don’t.
• God's intimate knowledge of us can bring profound relief amid anxiety, stress, and self-deprecating thoughts.
• Let’s begin with verses 1-2 of our passage.
• SLIDE #2
• Psalm 139:1–2 (CSB) — 1 LORD, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. God’s knowledge understands me.
• David could find comfort in his time of anxiety by knowing that God’s knowledge allowed God to UNDERSTAND him.
• In the same way, you can take comfort in the fact that God understands YOU!
• I have dealt with many people throughout my life who wanted nothing more than to be understood.
• This is a cry out from someone who wants to be KNOWN, who wants to be relevant.
• David took comfort in knowing that to God, David MATTERED!
• If you are going to know someone, it takes effort.
• Have you been around folks who have been with someone for years, yet knew very little about the other person?
• Maybe this is you? Perhaps you have been around someone for a long time, yet know little about them, or perhaps you are the one who knows everything about the other person, yet they have never put forth the effort to get to know you?
• That hurts. That scenario happens when a person is too absorbed in themselves to take the time to get to know you.
• David said that YOU HAVE SEARCHED ME AND KNOWN ME.
• The word SEARCH means to consider in detail and subject to an analysis to discover essential features or meaning.
• It can mean to search out in a cross-examination.
• This word implies a great effort put forth to get at the truth of the matter.
• Because of the effort to search David, God knows David.
• The word used for KNOWN means to become familiar with something through experience. It indicates there is nothing that God does not know about David.
• The UNDERSTANDING God has concerning David is comprehensive.
• When David writes in verse 2, You know when I sit down and when I stand up...
• David is so important to God that God knows David’s everyday activities.
• Then verse 2 continues; you understand my thoughts from far away.
• So not only are David’s activities known to God but all of his thoughts as well, even though God is far away in the heavens!
• I do not know about you, but some things go on in my mind I would rather God NOT know!
• But knowing that God loves me this much is comforting. I used to struggle with the concept of God loving me, I felt unworthy.
• Think about this for a second. How many of the people in your life would still love you today if they knew your EVERY thought?
• God does, and God loves you because of WHO He IS, not who you are.
• Have you ever done something and when asked why you did it, your reply was, YOU WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND? Well, that does not fly with God because He knows you better than you know yourself!
• You do not have to fear Him, you do not have to fear exposure.
• I read a few articles that saddened me about Christian Comedian John Crist.
• John had some serious struggles that came to light just recently.
• In one of the articles I read, he acknowledged the sin that was the foundation of his struggle.
• One thing he said that caught my attention. Basically, he said the fear that his sin would be exposed haunted him.
• You know what, it is exposed, but before John’s sin was exposed, God knew what John was doing, and God still loves John.
• Let’s look at verse s 3-4.
• SLIDE #4
• Psalm 139:3–4 (CSB) — 3 You observe my travels and my rest; you are aware of all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, LORD.
• SLIDE #5
II. God’s knowledge is aware of me.
• This thought is similar to the previous idea.
• However, verses 3-4 takes it a bit deeper.
• David said that God OBSERVES his travels and rest. To observe means to be cognizant or aware of a fact or a specific piece of information.
• Have you ever realized how many times you are photographed and videotaped throughout the day?
• “An average American citizen can be caught on camera more than 75 times a day.
• You probably don’t even notice it happening.
• From your neighbor’s home surveillance, to traffic cameras, to hidden lenses in the office elevator—tracking your whereabouts isn’t hard with the recent advancements in surveillance technology” (“Eyes on You: How Many Times Are You Caught on Surveillance Cameras per Day?,” Crime Feed, Investigation Discovery, February 17, 2015, http://crimefeed.com/2015/02/eyes-many-times-caught-surveillance-cameras-per-day/).
• Do you know how unnerving it can be to realize how often we are photographed without our knowledge?
• God has us under an even more precise microscope, and we can't go back to manipulate the footage!
• It gets even deeper.
• The height of God’s knowledge as it relates to the human being is that God can read the very thoughts of an individual before those thoughts are spoken!
• When you are anxious, why do you think you cannot go to God? Do you feel shame?
• Are you afraid He will reject you?
• What I am trying to get all of us to see is that when we feel alone, when we are packed full of anxiety, we can be thankful we have a God who knows us intimately and sees us constantly.
• I know we crave to be relevant, to have someone in our life who cares enough to know us intimately.
• Let’s turn to verses 5-12
• SLIDE #6
• Psalm 139:5–12 (CSB) — 5 You have encircled me; you have placed your hand on me. 6 This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable to reach it. 7 Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, 10 even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night”— 12 even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to you.
• SLIDE #7
III. God’s knowledge is all-powerful.
• I am going to keep this one short and to the point.
• You may wonder how God can know you the way He does, how He can observe you the way He does, and how He has the ability to not only know you but everyone else on the planet?
• The answer is simple, God’s knowledge is all-powerful (omnipotent) because it is based on Him being all-present (omnipresent), and all-knowing (omniscience).
• We live in a world where sin has had a negative effect on intimacy and the way we view intimacy, whether in marriage or with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
• In verses 7–8, we see a similar reaction to God's omnipresence from David as we see in Genesis 3:9 when the Lord calls out to Adam.
• David expresses all of the different ways in which the Lord knows him and knows about him.
• The amount of intimacy the Lord has with David seems to almost overwhelm David's life, so much so that he asks the question, "Where can I flee from your presence?" (v. 7).
• No matter where we are, there is always a set of eyes on us, aware of our every move, and even our thoughts.
• If we learned the beauty of true intimacy—the beauty of being unashamed in his presence, we could have much stronger relationships with our spouses and with the body of Christ.
• Shame is a condemning quality that doesn’t allow freedom to reign; gratitude blocks shame from our lives.
• When we become thankful that God shows us consistent, intimate love, we can walk with no shame, and we can be more able to build up the body of Christ.
• We should be thankful that our weaknesses are so intimately known by God, and yet he still wants to be in relationship with us.
• Some friends would run away if they knew all of our secret thoughts, the places we’ve gone, and our past and present daily habits.
• Yet God knows our past and the things we currently struggle with while remaining steadfast in his pursuit of us, even in all His holiness.
• David praises God and thanks him for his overwhelming presence. God has not condemned him or gone away.
CONCLUSION
• The knowledge and constant presence of God can help us with our anxious thoughts of the future or even our daily habits.
• When we acknowledge that God knows our every thought and every move, we can become much more thankful that he continually pursues us despite our wrongdoings and wrong thoughts.
• We should be thankful that when we aren’t honest with ourselves,
• God can be truthful with us concerning our lifestyle because he knows us.
• When we are confused, we can be thankful that God knows exactly what’s going on, even if we don’t.
• The point of application for this passage is simple. We can trust God with our life and future because his intimate knowledge of us shows him to be trustworthy.
