Introduction:
One of the key thoughts in all the Old Testament is the idea of knowing God. God said through Jeremiah, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me." (Jeremiah 9:23-24). God says the one thing that we can take pride in is the fact that we know him.
Following this same line of thought, Jesus said, "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3). So, eternal life is based on whether or not we’ve come to know God.
But, having read these passages, and incidentally there are many more that convey the same thought, let me suggest to you that it’s possible for a person to know a great deal about God without ever knowing God. And I think too often we’ve confused the two.
We have managed to come up with this list of qualities about God -- he’s eternal, holy, all-loving, all-wise, omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), omni-present (everywhere at the same time). And we somehow come to the conclusion that if we understand all these qualities about God, then we know God. But that’s knowing about God and it doesn’t really apply to whether or not I know him.
You may know, for example, that I was born in Washington, D.C., that I graduated from high school in Jacksonville, Florida, that I attended Freed-Hardeman College in Tennessee, that I was married in 1977 and that I have three children. But knowing all that doesn’t mean that you know me; it merely means that you know something about me.
In order to know God, we must be willing to commit our lives to following his will. John wrote, "Now by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, ’I know him’, and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him." (I John 2:3-4).
But even doing what God commands is no guarantee that we really know him. To the people of Israel long ago, God said through Hosea, "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6:6). You see, the people of Israel were going through all the right motions, but they didn’t really know God.
When it comes to knowing God, we have no right to demand that God, the Almighty God who brought this world into existence by speaking the word -- we have no right to demand that God open himself up to us, to demand that God be on close and intimate terms with us. And yet that’s exactly what he has chosen to do. And I think that’s why God said through Jeremiah, "But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me." Because it’s a tremendous privilege to have the opportunity to know God.
But, again, we need to be careful lest we confuse knowing about God with knowing God. If you’ve ever been to a Christian college, it’s like going through a freshman survey class. You go through the Old Testament and you learn names and dates and events. What happened on the fifth day of creation, who were Moses’ parents, who was the second judge, what objects were in the ark, and so on?
You come away from a class like that thinking that you know God, but you may never pause to ask, am I really growing closer to him? As I study, as I meditate, as I worship, is there a sense that I’m coming to know him as I know my wife, as I know my children?
To know God is not just to have an intellectual knowledge about God; it’s to have an intimate personal relationship with God, which is the most important relationship in our life.
I heard about a young man by the name of Dennis Wise He has spent his whole life collecting Elvis memorabilia. Elvis Presley is his hero. Dennis has bought his clothes, records, photographs. He even underwent plastic surgery to try to look more like Elvis. But his great regret was that he never got to meet the man he adored.
A similar but greater tragedy with many Christians is that they spend years listening to sermons, reading scriptures, maybe even teaching Bible class, but they fail to enjoy a close relationship with God. And, if we’re not careful, we’ll end up like the Israelites in Hosea’s day who went through all the right motions, but they never really knew God.
Having said all of this to emphasize the importance of us knowing God, I want to turn to Psalm 139 and see that God already knows us. Even before we know God, even before we make the effort to know God, God knows us inside and out. That’s a thought that can be a bit frightening or it can be comforting, depending on our perspective.
I. God Knows Us
I want you to think for a moment about what would it be like for somebody to know everything about you. Do you think you’d like that? It’s not unusual to hear someone complain, "Nobody really knows me, nobody understands me." And it’s true that there is generally a shallowness to our relationships. When someone asks how we’re doing, the socially acceptable answer is, "fine". Inside we may be thinking, "the kids are really driving me crazy, I’m about to shoot my husband, I can’t take any more", but you say, "I’m doing fine." And you smile.
We think we’d like to have someone who understands us fully. But are we sure about that? Can you imagine having someone who really does know you? Such a person would have access to every thought, every action, and every mistake in your life. Imagine not having anything secret!
This past week, Mr. Newt Gingrinch was in the news. It seems that someone overheard one of his phone conversations on a police scanner, taped it, and it ended up being printed word-for-word in the Washington Post. It made me wonder, how would you like to have your private conversations printed in the newspaper for everyone to read?
Or let’s take it one step further. We have a white wall over here. Suppose we set up a movie projector, and on this movie film we have a five-minute insight into your life. Now we’d probably edit out most of the good parts. We don’t have time for that; we’re really more interested in the trash. And so we have a little five-minute segment here of all the sins in your life or at least from the past few years.
All those words that slipped out, the things you did in private thinking nobody would ever see, even the thoughts that zipped through your mind for just a moment. We’ve got it all here, a five-minute segment and everybody’s going to know everything about you. So we flip on the switch and there it goes on the screen. Would you enjoy that? I know I would -- as long as it’s one of you who is the star of the movie. But when you get to my film clip, I’m out of here.
I don’t really want you to know that. I don’t want to open all that up. It would be frightening to have someone know everything about us, and yet when you come to Psalm 139, that’s exactly the picture you get of God. God knows more than we’d care to have known if given the choice. He sees every nook and cranny of my life. Everything is subject to his scrutiny.
Several years ago, Bette Midler came out with a beautiful song called "From a Distance". In part of that song, she sings "God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us from a distance." I’ve always had mixed feelings about that song because I couldn’t tell whether the emphasis was on the fact that God is watching us or the fact that God isn’t anywhere nearby. But it certainly is true that God is watching us.
I remember, as a child, being impressed by an awesome image of God’s presence. When I was a teen-ager we used to sing a song that’s not in our songbooks here, "There’s an all-seeing eye watching you; Watching you, watching you, Every day mind the course you pursue." Actually, it’s a wonderful song if you understand what it’s saying, but I used to hate it. All I can picture is this big eyeball in the sky that looks down on you and sees everything. You don’t get away with anything. "There’s an all-seeing eye watching you."
In Psalm 139:1-6, David wrote, "O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it."
In this passage, as much as we say we’d like to be known, this is a real frightening psalm. And I think one of the reasons it’s so frightening is because it’s hard to find much comfort in it. Here is this God who sees everything there is to know about us, even what we’re thinking.
David uses some descriptive words to talk about how God knows us. And it’s not just that God knows everything. We sometimes say that God is omniscient, and by that we mean that God knows everything there is to know. And that’s certainly true. You can read in Job 38-39, where God says to Job, "Do you know how the foundations of the earth were laid and do you know how the sun sits in the sky and do you know how this happens and that happens?" The answer that Job gives is obviously, "No." And the implication is that God does know all that. He knows everything.
But that’s not David’s point here. His point is not that God knows all the mysteries of history and the riddles of the universe. Rather, David’s point is that God knows me. He knows everything about me. And in my desire to know God, I need to remember that he knows me before I can know him.
David uses six terms to describe the fact that God knows us.
1. God has searched me
"O Lord, you have searched me..." (Psalm 139:1). The Hebrew term here originally meant "to explore" and sometimes conveyed the idea of digging into something. It’s the word that’s used in Judges 18 for spying out the land. It’s used in Job 28 for digging for mineral ore. It’s an intent looking. David says here, "God, you have searched me, you have dug down into my life."
Have any of you lost anything recently -- keys, wallet, remote control for the TV, glasses? Your glasses are the worst things to lose because you need them to find them. I understand that Jo can tell you a story about losing some plane tickets. But whenever you misplace something, you go all over, looking desperately, turning things upside down. Looking here, looking there, all over, searching.
That’s the first word David uses here Lord, you have searched me. God digs into your life, he looks intently.
2. He knows me
The second half of verse 1 says, "You know me." It’s repeated again in verse 2: "You know my sitting down and my rising up." Not "know" in the sense of just knowing something about us, he knows me in the sense that my best friend knows me. God knows me more than I can even imagine, more than I want at times. Whether I’m taking it easy or whether I’m on the move. It doesn’t matter; God knows me.
3. He understands my thoughts
The latter part of verse 2: "You understand my thoughts from afar." The idea is that God can get inside of my head. He can see what’s going on there. You know, doctors can do some amazing things with the technology that’s available today. They can take a tube and stick it down your throat and look at your insides. That’s amazing. But magnify that a billion times. You’ve got God seeing everything inside, not just my physical body but even my thoughts. God knows everything you’ve ever thought about. Think about that for a moment, and see if it doesn’t begin to scare you just a little bit.
4. He comprehends my comings and goings
In the beginning of verse 3: "You comprehend my path and my lying down." The New American Standard translation says, "Thou dost scrutinize my path..." God examines us thoroughly -- and I mean thoroughly!
5. He is familiar with my ways
Then at the end of verse 3: “And are acquainted with all my ways.” It comes out just a little bit stronger maybe in the Hebrew. “I can’t get away with anything” is my loose translation. God knows my habits, my strengths, my weaknesses. He knows all my business.
6. He knows my words before they’re on my tongue
Perhaps most amazing of all, in verse 4, "For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it altogether." Even before I speak a word, God knows what I’m going to say! Have you ever been so close to somebody that they know what you’re going to say before you even say it? I think that’s one of the most irritating things about marriage. You can never have an original statement because you start a sentence and pause and your spouse finishes it for you. After knowing you for 10, 20 or 30 years, they know what’s coming. They know what you’re going to say, they can predict you. It’s that way even more so with God. David says, "Before it even reaches my tongue, he knows."
God knows so much about us. In Matthew 10:30, Jesus said, "The very hairs of your head are numbered." That’s amazing. Granted, for some of us it’s more amazing than others. But the idea is not that God concerns himself with mental trivia; it’s simply that he’s all-knowing, that he’s aware of everything about you, everything you do and everything you think. He knows what goes on in private as well as what you do in public. He knows more about you than you want him to know.
Verse 6, loosely translated, says, "That blows me away!" "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it." To realize that God knows us, he scrutinizes us, he studies us 24 hours a day. It blows our mind to try to comprehend it.
II. Trying to Hide From God
But, having said all that, let’s try to reduce the amount by which we are known. Let’s try to get away from God and shield ourselves for a while. Is there some way to hide from this penetrating look? Can we, like children, pull blankets over our heads so we’ll be "safe"? David asks, "Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?" Maybe we could head upward -- no, God is in the heavens. What about the other direction? Let’s go to Sheol, the place of departed spirits. Nope, God is there, too.
Well, let’s try the east and the west. Let’s take the wings of the morning, that’s toward the east. We head that way but it doesn’t help. So let’s go to where the sea is. If you’re in Palestine, the sea is to the west. But God’s there, too. So trying all the different directions isn’t going to do much for us. "Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me."
Well, let’s just wait out the daytime and let the darkness protect us. That won’t help either, because God can see in the dark. In verse 11, "If I say, ’Surely the darkness shall fall on me,’ even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to you." It doesn’t help to put up a steel-plated wall with God. He can see through it. There’s nothing that stops his vision. Night won’t help, hiding won’t help, jumping on a ship to Tarshish won’t help.
Verses 13 and following are significant for several reasons. For one, I think it does have something to say about the value of life before birth. But especially here David is saying, "Even before my Mom gave birth to me, you were present, your Spirit was there. You were knitting me together, it wasn’t just some outgrowth of evolution. But you were right there in the womb. I couldn’t get away from you even before I was born."
And so, again, a summary statement in verse 18: "....When I awake, I am still with you."
Now it may be that this psalm bothers you because you can’t find much comfort in it. David says to God, "You search me, you discern me, you’re familiar with me, you know me. You even know my private thoughts. I can’t escape you. I try up and down, east and west, and I can’t get away from you." Do you understand how disturbing that is, that God knows everything about you?
In his conclusion to the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon said, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
In I Corinthians 4:5, Paul said, "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts." That five-minute film clip that we talked about earlier -- God knows about all that trash in my life and a whole bunch more.
For someone who is not living in a right relationship with God, that should be a sobering thought. Because when you stand before God on the day of judgment, there are going to be no secrets, there’s going to be no hope that God didn’t pay much attention to what your life was all about. He knows. Trust me, he knows.
III. A Wink of Approval
But for a faithful child of God, that thought is not nearly so frightening. In fact, it’s rather comforting. And I think the comfort of it all comes out at the very end of the psalm. The last two verses set the context -- a context of security and acceptance. In verses 23-24, David says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." David says to God, "Search me even more." It’s the same word that we looked at in verse one. David wants God to penetrate his outer shell and dig down deeply within him.
Why would David invite God to continue searching? Isn’t that kinda like being audited by the IRS and you say to them, "Oh by the way, why don’t you go ahead and pull out my returns for the past seven years and take a look at them while you’re at it. Go ahead and search a little more thoroughly."?
You would never invite anybody to do that if you didn’t know they were going to come at you with a little bit of care and love. The eyeball that I saw for so many years was looking for faults and ready to condemn. But you wouldn’t invite that eyeball to peer down on you any more. But David said him, "Search me, O God, and know my heart."
There is one relationship in my life that has helped me to understand why David might welcome God’s continuing search. There is one person who knows more about my shortcomings and my sins than anyone else, and yet, at the same time, it is the one relationship where I am loved the most. I think that’s one of the great insights of marriage. You may think you know a good many of my faults, but after 19 years of marriage, let me tell you Sueanne could write a book about them. I hope she doesn’t, but she could. And yet she still loves me, more than anybody on the face of this earth.
And perhaps that’s where the word of grace comes. You’ve got this whole psalm where you say, "God, I can’t get away from you. You’re searching, looking, digging." And then at the end you beg him to search a little more, beg him to test you, to see if there’s anything not pleasing. You say, “God, find out those thoughts that carry me away from fellowship with you. Show them to me so that I can understand them and their effect on my walk with you.” I just don’t think you’d say that to somebody who you didn’t know loved you.
"Search me and know my heart" could only be spoken by someone who feels completely loved and accepted. These words could only be spoken to someone who unconditionally loves the person he is watching. He sees every square inch of my life -- and still he loves me. He knows my successes and my failures; he sees my strengths and my weaknesses; he understands how holy and unholy I can be. And even though he expects me to bring my life closer and closer to what he would like for me to be, he never withholds his love.
So, God is an all-seeing eye, but not quite the eye I envisioned as a teenager. Psalm 139 describes not the eye of a critic that is searching for an opportunity to put you down. Rather it is the eye of a loving parent or a true friend.
Conclusion:
Sometimes we feel the penetrating gaze of God, because of things that we have done that are wrong and we do want God to deal with those. Being a godly person includes occasions where you expose your entire inner being to God’s searching and you welcome any insight he might give you, regardless of the difficulty involved in facing it.
But even in those penetrating moments, we know that God is looking down on us in love. One of the things that I can be sure of is that I am absolutely positively loved by God. And what he tells us is, "I see you, I know you, and yet I still love you."
Getting back to where we began this lesson, it’s obvious that God knows you. The important question now is, "Do you know God?" "Now by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, ’I know him’, and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him." (I John 2:3-4).
