Psalm 139: Knowing We Are Known (Se0 2, 2006)

Psalm 139 Knowing We Are Known September 2, 2006

(Use candle as prop)

In the movie the Count of Monte Cristo Edmond is falsely accused of treason by a man who is jealous of him. Edmond is arrested, and thrown into a remote island prison, called Chateau D'if.

Before he thrown into his cell he’s about to whipped by the prison warden:

Show movie clip here (where Edmond says God is everywhere).

Have you wondered if God is really present?

Is God everywhere or not?

This is the question, we want to explore this morning.

Let’s allow the words of Scripture to answer…

If you have your Bibles, please turn to Psalm 139…

David his meditation with the words:
1 You have searched me, LORD,
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, LORD, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
David is aware that his life is wholly known by
God…
The book of Proverbs tells us that that all a person’s ways are in full view of God…
David says you know when I sit and when I rise…
You discern my going out and my lying down… you are familiar with all my ways.
God is aware of our every movement, our sitting, our standing, our going out, our coming home…
He’s familiar with all our ways…
David also speaks of how God he has been with us from the very beginning of our existence…
David says in vs. 13.
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.
In Hebrew the idea comes through his passage is that from the time we were in embryo, God has known us.
He has made us in a way that’s wonderful…
Most people would not think of pop singer Christina Aguilera as a worship leader… but when she sings “I am beautiful… words can’t bring me down.”
It reminds of what David, who says I am fearfully wonderfully made…
This past summer, my wife and I saw some beautiful things in nature and in art. She’s learning to see through her art studies said several times this summer said the most beautiful thing is a human face. I said every face? Every human face, if you really look, is beautiful.
When you understand you’ve been fearfully and wonderfully made by God you can say or sing, “I am beautiful…”
In vs. 2 David says, “You perceive my thoughts from afar.” In vs. 4 David says “Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, LORD…”
Jesus said in Matthew 6, even before we ask, our heaven father knows what we need…
He knows what is going on in our minds and hearts; he knows our thoughts, both those that are clear and distinctly formed as well as our “stream of consciousness…”
The fact that God sees everything bothers some people.
In Knowing and Being, the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre described “God” disdainfully as the “unviewed viewer…”
One time when Sartre was sweeping a floor… He thought God can see me but I can’t see God… this bother him.
It may us trouble us that God can see everything…
But it can also be deeply comforting…
Because there is a sense in which we all need to be seen…
Not long ago I spent 4 days with a new a five-year old friend…
Throughout the day, he’d show me something and say look or he’d want play a game with me… He kept saying lets go fishing—we went early one morning took out the dinghy, but caught nothing…
Kids have a need to be seen.
So do adults… we’re just more discreet about it…
When Lou Little coached football at Georgetown University, he had a player of average ability who rarely got into the game. Yet he was fond of him. Shortly before the big contest with Fordham, the boy's mother called the coach with news that her husband had died that morning of a heart attack. "Will you break the news to my son?" she asked. "He'll take it better from you."
The student went home heavy hearted, but three days later he was back. "Coach," he pleaded, "will you start me in the Fordham game?” I think this my dad would have wanted.
After a moment's hesitation, Little said, "Okay, but only for a play or two." True to his word, he put the boy in—but never took him out. For 60 action-packed minutes, that inspired young man ran and blocked like an All-Star. After the game, Little praised him, "Son, you were terrific! You've never played like that before. What got into you?"
"But my father was totally blind. Today was the first time he ever saw me play!"
We need people to see us..
God see us…
Now if something is glaring us, or looking with hostility to exploit us… that’s bothers us…
But is someone looks with love, gratitude, admiration… that life-giving…
And because God looks with deep, love… it’s life giving…
The one who knows you best, loves you most… that’s life giving.

A few months ago, two people whose opinions I really respect told me that they saw they perceived an angel standing by me, they were describing their seeing this at the same time, same place…

I felt both comforted and also a little disturbed.

I thought if the angel is with me—then even when I totally alone I can never sin.

I thought God is with ALL the time and I’ve live with integrity all the time.

But that’s also really comforting.

The Bible teaches that angels are with you and God is with you all the time.

A truth that ought a disturbing but mostly comfort because the one who knows you best loves you most.
David in reflecting on the fact that God knows and is with him says in vs. 17:
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God (or as the Hebrew can read how precious to me are you thoughts about me)!

How vast is the sum of them!
In the Hebrew…the idea is precious in the sense of as gems: diamonds, rubies, sapphires… how precious to me are your thoughts oh 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.
David knows that the one who knows me best, loves me most and is always with me.

David prays:
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, you are there.
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.
There is no where we can go from God…
David says… if I go up to the heavens you are there…
If I make my bed in the depths you are there.
If I rise on the wings on the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast….
But even if we were to go up high on a mountain top, or to the bottom of the ocean, perhaps most remote the depths our heart—we’d find God there…
If go heights of joy we can find God there and if go to depths of despair there…
This past week Sharon Smith a member of this church observed the anniversary of very significant loss for her.
She’s now to come and share.
Shaz,
I love you so much. I always will.
Love
Alex

Ps: The pain just became too hard to handle

These were the last words written by my husband Alex last year on August, 31st before he hung himself.

Can you imagine anything worse? Well maybe a few things but not many. One of the first emotions that I can remember having was tremendous fear. I was afraid that: “surely the darkness would hide me and the light become night around me”.
I was so afraid that I would not be able to handle the grief that awaited me. I read every book that I could find on grief, on suicide survivors and adopted the Boy Scout motto “be prepared”.

I kept waiting, waiting for it to get worse. CS Lewis says in a Grief Observed that “Grief feels like suspense”. I was waiting to literally drown in sorrow. And you know I never did. The strange thing is that I only realize how hard it was and the depth of the despair looking back over it. While I was actually going through it, the Spirit was my daily comforter and I was able to walk through this dark night of grief one day at a time.

I thought I would share with you a few images and encounters that were meaningful to me as I walked in the darkness.

1. Toni Dolfo Smith visited our Tenth home group meeting in October last year and during a prayer time gave me a picture/image of a river that God was asking me to walk through. Toni said that sometimes the water would be ankle deep, sometimes it would be over my head. At times it would sit at my shoulders and not overwhelm me. But always God was with me AND I would in time feel the ground of the other side. And then the important words – keep walking, just keep walking.

2.
I listened to God’s words through Toni and kept walking through the river. I bought myself a rocking chair and whenever I had some time I would enter that space, listen to instrumental music and grieve. I read through all of Alex’s journals, I wrote letters to significant people and I revisited memories through photos and visualization. Each memory was only painful once and then the joy returned. I was no longer afraid of this place. Jesus was there. Each day we would reflect on my past together and He would comfort me and be with me through the night. It became my sanctuary.

3. There were some days where the heaviness and sorrow did envelop me. I call these my pajama days. These were days when I could not muster the strength to even get out of bed. As I look back and as I reread my journal from those months I see how on each of those days there were surprises of Christ through other people waiting for me. Let me share two:
a. One day I got up for literally 1 hour. I decided to go for a walk. I put on a coat and walked up two streets and who should I meet but my dear friend, Vania Levans. She was also going through a hard time and we greeted each other and then walked together in silence. When we got to my home I turned to her and I said as much to me as to her: “God is still good Vania” She nodded and said: “Yes Sharon, God is still good”. This image to me of two people journeying together trusting in the goodness of God even though we could not understand it and could not see it at that time is still so powerful to me. God’s surprises!
b. I remember one Thursday night I was alone. And through tears I cooked myself a dinner, lit a candle and sat down to eat. It was pointless, the food was sticking in my throat and I had lost my appetite. Then the phone rang. It was my dear friend Tracy Imbach. She was thinking about me. She also had her dinner in front of her. We decided to eat together that night on the phone. We said grace – described what food was on our plates and munched and chatted together. We even raised our glasses for a toast! God’s surprises!

“Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me
BUT
Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you”

Thanks be to God.

Silence
Silence
Reflect on the fact that God has been with us even in our darkness.
Reflect on the fact that God has been with a loved one in our darkness.
David reflecting on how amazing is, God cries out in vs. 19.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, 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.
David experiences such love and gratitude for God… he hates those who are in opposition to God.

Notices, he’s doesn’t say he hates sinners…. everyone is a sinner.

He hates those who are bloodthirsty and in rebellion against God.

In the World Cup Final this year, as we know Zindane the French captain late in the game headbuttted Materazzi perhaps costing France the cup…

We know from the replay that something was said by Materazzi to Zindane no one knows for what was said, expect those players… but if as it was speculated he said something about his dishonored Zidane mother or sister—while the head butting, may have been out of order, some kind of anger wasn’t out of order…

If someone tries to smear someone or something you love it not wrong to get angry… in fact wrong to not get angry….

Dorothy Sayers says… there sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, interferes with nothing, loves, nothing, hates nothing,

Because David he loves God, he hates those who are in rebellion against God…

But maybe he wonders have I gone to far… and God knows everything so prayers:

23 Search me, 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.
As we prepare to meet Christ at the communion table…

Let’s pray this prayer.

God of the universe knows us… he knows our hearts…

But because the one who knows us best loves us most and is always with us….

We can pray search me

23 Search me, 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.
Perhaps you’ve done something in secret that you feel has compromised you..

As you prepare to come to the table know that sin whatever it was has been covered by the blood of Christ and forgiven…

Benediction:

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)