Search Me: Escaping The Trap Of Hidden Sin - Psalm 139:23-24 Series

Psalm 139:1 O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. 5 You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, behold, you! 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Introduction - Join God in Reality

The only thoughts God has about you are true ones. And so if you want to be near to God - if you want to draw close to Him, and walk with Him, and have close fellowship with Him, you have to join Him in His way of thinking. And His way of thinking deals only in reality, which means we cannot be near Him or have fellowship with Him if we are living in a fantasy world. If I am believing things about myself that are not true, then I am living in a world that is not the same world as God is living in. And God will not join me in my fantasy world. If I want to be close to Him I am going to have to let go of the fantasy and join Him in reality. If I want to walk with God, I will have to wake up from whatever dream world I am in and come back to reality.

The problem comes when I don’t know the truth about myself.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

1 Corinthians 4:4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

Proverbs 21:2 All a man's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart.

Proverbs 28:26 He who trusts his own heart is a fool.

David was a man who had pretty good insight into the condition of his own heart - probably better than most. And yet even he had to cry out to God for help in discovering what was really in there. The last four weeks we have been studying Psalm 139, and we come this morning to the final two verses:

Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Why Pray for This?

If you go back to verse 1 you will see the very first line in this psalm is this:

1 O Lord, you have searched me and you have known me.

And now at the end of the psalm, David asks God to search and know him. If God is already doing it, why ask Him to do it? The answer is David is asking for something different in verse 23 than what God is doing in verse 1. Back in verse 1 the purpose was to show how much interest God takes in David’s life. That is a wonderful, comforting truth. But now David is asking for something else. The purpose of the searching David is requesting in verse 23 is so that the hidden sin in David’s heart can be revealed to David. He is saying, “God, search me and tell me the results.” I get that from verse 24.