Overcoming Heartache
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- I’m going to give you an identity crisis.
- With the question of ‘Who am I?’
- Especially when we discover that our earth is but a tiny speck in a vast universe
- I’m within that speck on an obscure planet located in a second rate galaxy among billions of other galaxies in a great universe.
To understand this
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- The sun is our nearest star. How big is the sun
compared to our earth? A million spheres the size of our earth can fit into the sun.
- How far away is the sun from the earth?
93 million miles.
- If one inch represented 10 million miles, how far would I have to go before I reached the sun. I could take one step and I’d be there.
- If I wanted to get to the next nearest star, I would have to walk forty miles.
- The second nearest star is 300,000 times as far away as the sun.
- Milky Way 100,000 light years across in diameter and
3000 light years thick
- The Milky Way galaxy .
- Compare a galaxy like a beach in space.
- Sand on the beach are stars (100 billion stars in this galaxy.)
- Going from beach to beach (Galaxy to galaxy)
A Speed of Light Viewpoint (186,000 miles per sec.)
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- Moon to Earth 1.2 sec.
- Earth to Sun 8.5 min
- Sun to Solar System 5:40 Hr.
- To our nearest star 4.3 years (Alpha Centauri)
- Across the Milky Way 100,000 years
- This could make me feel insignificant.
- Having absolute no value
- Then Ps 139 puts everything into perspective
- My true relationship with God
- If you are struggling with an identity crisis
- You are not sure just who you are
- You need to know Ps 139
- Broken into four parts of six verses each.
- In each part the psalmist faces a question about himself in relationship to God.
- Summery statements are given at the first and last of the Psalm
- God is searching us - v.1
- My desire to be searched by God - v.23
1) ‘How Well Does God Know Me?
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v. 1-6
- God knows everything about me
- What does that mean
• He Knows Everything I Do
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- v. 2- Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising
• He Knows My Every Thought
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- v.2 - Thou understandest my thoughts afar off
• He Knows Everywhere I Go
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- v. 3
- Compass - Circling around me.
(Heb. Winnow sifting)
- Scrutinizing me from every angle
• He Knows My Every Word
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- v. 4
- There are the Words we say
- Then the words we want to say the unspoken word
- Words have wide meaning
- The innuendoes are known “altogether”
- Knowing this about God can be frightening or encouraging
- Frightening because we want to hid our sin
- Encouraging because there is intimacy with Him
• What He Does With This Knowledge
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- v. 5
- “Beset Me” - Fortifies me with protection
- Gives me His stronghold
- He is also on the point and is covering our backside
• Never Caught by Surprise
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- v. 6
- He knows me perfectly
- He has every conceivable action to me covered
2) How Near Is God to Me?
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v. 7-12
• v. 7 Asks the question - Can I ever be away from God
- Question asked twice - Answer I am never alone
- Jonah tried to do this in Jonah 1:3
Any Limitations?
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• v.7-9
- As High & low
- Far & Wide – East & West
- Even if I could travel faster the light you are there with me
- v. 11-12
- Using ever conceivable means of hiding you are still now and still are there
- v. 10 Gives the promise assurance - He is there
3) How Can I Know All This For Sure?
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v.13-18
• Because of my creative design of my body.
- v. 13, 15-16
• Be impressed by the abundance of revelation from God
- v. 17-18 - The heart is the strongest muscle in the body, beating an average of 100,000 times a day. Weighing less than a pound, it pumps blood through the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the body.
- Scientists now calculate that if the electronic energy in the hydrogen atoms of our body could be utilized, you could supply all of the electrical needs of a large, industrialized country for nearly a week. A DuPont scientist said that the atoms of your body contain a potential energy of more than 11,000,000-kilowatt hours per pound of body weight. By this estimate, the average person is worth about $85,000,000!
- [The Miraculous Human Body, Citation: Jeff Arthurs; references Dr. John Medina, genetic engineer, University of Washington, in 1995 lecture at Multnomah Bible College, Portland, Oregon]
- HEART pumps over 1,000 gallons a day, over 55 million gallons in a lifetime.
- Enough to fill 13 super tankers.
- It never sleeps, beating 2.5 billion times in a lifetime.
- LUNGS contain 1,000 miles of capillaries.
The process of exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide is so complicated that "it is more difficult to exchange O2 (Oxygen) for CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) than for a man shot out of a cannon to carve the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin as he passes by."
- DNA contains about 2,000 genes per chromosome ( one of the threadlike "packages" of genes and other DNA in the nucleus of a cell.)
—1.8 meters of DNA are folded into each cell nucleus.
- A nucleus is 6 microns long.
- This is like putting 30 miles of fishing line into a cherry pit.
- It isn’t simply stuffed in. It is folded in.
- If folded one way, the cell becomes a skin cell.
- If another way, a liver cell, and so forth.
- CELLS To write out the information in one cell would take 300 volumes, each volume 500 pages thick.
- The human body contains enough DNA that if it were
stretched out, it would circle the sun 260 times.
- BODY USES ENERGY EFFICIENTLY.
- If an average adult rides a bike for 1 hour at 10 mph,
- It uses the amount of energy contained in 3 ounces of carbohydrate.
- If a car were this efficient with gasoline, it would get 900 miles to the gallon.
• v. 14 - Be in aw with Praise in the forming of a human being.
4) How Do I Stay Close?
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v.19-24
1. Ask God to take care of the evil around me
2 . Show me my own sin in my own heart,
3. Pray for guidance in the way that leads to a full life
