Songs of Summer: Psalm 139

Well, good morning. It's good to be with you guys. I have survived four months here now. Four whole months.

I am so glad you're excited about that, because I'm excited about that. Glad to be with you today. My name is Josh. If we haven't met, I would love to meet you. I will do my best to remember your name as all the thousands of names are swimming around in my head.

But great to be with you today. Just a quick question by raise of hands. How many of you have been to the Grand Canyon?

Most of the people in the room. All right, and how many of you who have been to the Grand Canyon, when you walked up to the edge and looked out, your first thought was, wow, this is much smaller than I thought, right? Nobody. Nobody walked up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and said to themselves, this is way smaller than I thought it was. Everyone who's ever been to the Grand Canyon stepped up to the edge and they said, wow, this is way bigger than I thought it was.

Right. But how do you describe the size of the Grand Canyon to somebody who has never been to the Grand Canyon? It's almost impossible, right? So I set out and I was like, okay, we gotta compare it to something that'll kind of help us get our heads around this. And I thought, water.

Well, how much water would fill the Grand Canyon? Maybe this is a relatable amount. So how many gallons of water would it take to fill the Grand Canyon? Well, they say between 1 and 2, quadrillion gallons of water. And we all know how many zeros that is, right?

I don't either. Yeah, no one knows how many. There was one guy in the first service, he must have been a mathematician or something, and he said he knows how many zeros go behind quadrillion. So this is completely unrelatable. So I was looking online how to describe how big the Grand Canyon is, and there's this group of people that set out to do to figure out how many people could fit in the Grand Canyon.

I was like, okay, that's interesting. How many people could fit in the Grand Canyon? So for reference, There are roughly 7.8 billion people in the world. The entire world, right now. How many of you believe that the entire world population would fit inside the Grand Canyon?

You guys are much less optimistic than the last service. That's a lot of people, right? 7.8 billion people. So accounting for the average size of a human being and how much space they take up and, you know, if we all laid down and there was space in between us. They figure that 61.3 trillion people could fit in the Grand Canyon.

That means you would have to multiply the entire population of the world by, get this, 7859. They could fit. The whole world could fit in the Grand Canyon, right? But they keep going with the numbers. So on average, about 6 million people a year visit the Grand Canyon.

So they said it would take 10 million years if everyone who visited the Grand Canyon every year just stayed in and got in. 10 million years, guys, this is insane. Right? They also believe that 113 billion people will have ever existed by the year 2050. And you'd have to take the entire world population that has ever existed by 2050 and multiply that by 542 to fill up the Grand Canyon.

So how big is the Grand Canyon? Right. Inconceivably big. Right? Now, I want to ask you another question.

How big is God?

Bigger. That's a good answer. That's a good answer. How big is. More specifically, how big is the God that you worship?

Here's the truth. All of us are worshiping a God that is smaller than the one true almighty God of the Bible.

AW Tozer has a great quote. He says, what a person thinks about God is the most important thing about that person. And Derek Webb, he's got this great song called I Repent. It's brutal. And in it he has this really cutting line.

He says, God, I repent of domesticating you to look just like me.

See, most of us, if we're honest, can see how we have shrunken God down to a far more palatable or relatable version of himself than what the Bible describes. Dr. Arthur Eggert wrote a great blog post online. I'll read part of it to you. He says it is sinful human nature for people to shrink their God or gods to a size that they can deal with. If they want something from their God, then their God must be big enough to provide it.

If they want to feel good about themselves, then their God must be big enough to comfort them if, however, they want to act immorally. And then their God must be small enough to be incapable of judging them. In short, they want a God whom they can put into a closet or on a shelf and only bring out when necessary. Such a God is a crutch and not a real God. The Lord, the God of the Bible, is not such a God.

He does not let himself be recreated in. In a style that pleases sinful humans dwelling in his universe. He is the Lord. God Almighty. He is King of kings and Lord of Lords.

Now we keep trying to describe and understand God, just like we would if we had received a postcard of the Grand Canyon and thought that we could describe it. But the very act of comparing him to something shrinks him, because there is nothing comparable to Him. The greatest, biggest, most amazing, most awesome, most powerful, whatever is a pale shadow of the real thing.

Isaiah 40, starting in verse 12. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Who did he consult? Who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice and and taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding.

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales. Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon, which was known for massive forests of enormous cedar trees. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him.

They are accounted by him as less than nothing in emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these. He's talking about the starry host, the planets and the star, stars and moon.

He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. He goes on, in Isaiah 46, this is God talking, to whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? For I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me.

So, amen. So how do we begin to even start to understand this God, this God that the church suggests? We can have a personal relationship at some level. How could we possibly even begin to approach him at all if he's incomparable? Well, this is where the Bible comes into play.

The Bible is God's revelation of Himself to us. It's what he chooses to reveal to us about Himself, but only in part. We will never fully comprehend and have a complete view of God as He is in his entirety. Actually, I believe that one of the reasons that we could possibly be able to worship him in eternity, for an eternity is because there's Always more of him left to be revealed. I don't know where we got this idea that we show up to heaven and then the curtain comes off and then we understand all things.

The Bible doesn't suggest that at all. I think that there will be more and more and more and more and more, that every day we'll wake up and step to the edge of the Grand Canyon, as it were, and go, wow, this is bigger than I thought it was. Every minute we'll step up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and say, wow, this is bigger than I thought it was. That's how we can praise him for eternity, because he's an endless God. Now the Bible does give us glimpses to help us know about God.

And as much as we might wish to know him in whole, I would argue, first, if he could be known in whole by finite human beings, he wouldn't be much of a God at all. And second, if we would merely, I say merely, tongue in cheek, if we would merely trust what the Bible has to say about him, if we actually understood that and grasped it just the part that he chooses to reveal, our minds would be so blown by who he is and our faith would be expanded all the more. So I want to ask, as I ask the question, how big is God? I want to answer it with another question. What if God is at least what the Bible says He is?

How would that change our faith? How would that expand our view of Him? It's in this context that I want to get into our scripture for Today it's Psalm 139. Psalm 139. It was written by King David.

And Psalm 139 uncovers some really explosive and huge realities about who God is and his character and his likeness. And, and so I think that all of us, no matter how big our view of God is today, if we grasp Psalm 139, it can grow even more. So let's jump in. Actually, before I do full disclosure, two of my favorite preachers have covered Psalm 139. They chose to do it in a four week series.

We're going to knock it out in a day. Okay, so hang on, hang on. We're going to cover a bunch. It won't be as good as theirs, but I'll do my best. Psalm 139, starting in verse one.

O Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all My ways even before a word is on my tongue. Behold, O Lord, is. You know it all together.

This first section talks about something that theologians call God's omniscience, that he knows all things. This isn't like he knows all things that humans know, all things that humans have ever known. He knows that it's not like AI, where he's a combination of all the things that everybody knows. He knows everything. Everything.

He knows everything that is yet to be discovered as a problem that anybody doesn't know the answer to yet. He knows the solution to every problem that exists and will ever exist. Dr. Strange has nothing on him, okay? He knows every possible outcome of every possible decision by every possible person for all options, for all the future and all the past.

When we say God knows everything, we really mean he knows everything. Things that are not even yet knowable. God knows even the number of hairs on our heads, the Bible says, which for some of us, that's not impressive. I get that. For others, it's very impressive.

He knows the number of hairs that used to be on my head. See, not only does God know everything that there is to know, David drops a bombshell here and says, he knows you. He knows you. He doesn't just know things in the broad sense. He knows you intricately and personally.

Every detail of our activities in a day. And even crazier, he knows what we're thinking before we even even speak. God doesn't just know everything in a broad sense. He knows us deeply. Hebrews 4:13 says, no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him, to whom we must give account.

There's this beautiful, revealing moment in John chapter 1. Jesus is gathering the disciples. At this point, he's already called Philip. And then Philip goes and tells his friend Nathanael, he says, you've got to come meet Jesus of Nazareth. It's crazy.

He'll blow your mind. You gotta come meet him. And Nathanael has this famous line, nazareth, could anything good come from Nazareth? Right? And I love how Philip just says, philip knows Jesus at this point.

He just says, come and see. Come and see for yourself. So they go and see Jesus, and this is what happens. John 1:47. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit.

Nathanael said to him, how do you know me? Literally, he says, you don't know me. Why do you think you know me? Jesus answered him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I Saw you. Nathanael answered him, rabbi, you are the Son of God.

You are the King of Israel. I don't know what happened under the fig tree, but it seems like Nathanael, or yes, Nathanael was there under the fig tree alone, having some sort of moment. Maybe it was a moment of grief, maybe it was a moment of doubt. Maybe it was a moment where he was crying out to God and saying, if you're real, then would you reveal yourself? Whatever it was, it was alone Jesus could not have known.

And just the fact that Jesus said, I saw you there under the tree. I saw you there. That's all Jesus had to say. And Nathanael said, you are the Messiah. You must be the Messiah.

You can't know what you just said, and it changes him. God is omniscient. He knows everything there is to know. And he knows you. He knows me.

Now, this information is likely either comforting or terrifying that he knows everything about us. He knew everything about us long before we existed. He knows every thought that we would not want anyone else to know exists. He knows every word that's coming from our mouths, every action we will take or would have taken. He looked at all of that, and here is the good news.

Here's the good news. He looked at all of that, knowing everything about you. And he said, you're worth it. He said, you're worth it. He said, I know every sin that they will take part in, every word that they will say that will hurt my heart, and I am sending my son because they're worth it.

He knew what he was purchasing. He knew what he was purchasing. And he is absolutely the great inspector. And he knew and said that you were worth it. This is not a fluffy bedtime story.

This is not feel good. This is not telling ourselves something to salve our sorrow. And this is the gospel message in the pages of Scripture. He knew you and he chose you anyway.

Let's keep reading. Verse 5. You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high.

I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

That word Sheol just means the grave in the ground. David's saying, God, you surround me. You're everywhere. If I flew up into the skies and into space itself, you would be there. If I was buried in the depths of the earth, you are there.

He goes on, if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. He says, whether I go far to the east, where the sun rises from the horizon, or I go far to the west, as far as we know, to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, you are there. He continues, if I say, surely darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you, the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. David's saying there is no place he can go.

There is no distance or darkness or covering that is going to keep God from viewing David and knowing him and seeing all the way into him. The big theologian word for this is God's omnipresent. Omnipresent. It means that God is everywhere. It doesn't mean that he can be wherever he wants, whenever he wants.

It certainly does mean that. It means that 100% of him can be in 100% all places, all the time. In that way, he is very unlike us. We can not even think about two things at one time, let alone be in multiple places at one time. There's this really sad but relatable statistic that says the vast majority of us, when we sit down and turn on the tv, very shortly after that, we pull out our phone to be on a second screen at the same time.

You're laughing because it's true, right? Right. In this sense, we are neither watching TV nor on our phones. We. We are in nowhere, we're nowhere, all at the same time.

God is not like this. He cannot be divided and he cannot be deluded in any way. Let's keep reading. Verse 13, he says, for you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, but for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, which when as yet, there was none of them.

There is a tremendous amount packed into this little section here that I don't have time to completely parse. But I want to hit two things. Two things. First is this. Do not miss this.

God made you. God made you. You are not an accidental collision of sperm and egg as a result of of intercourse. He made you intricately woven. Even when our mothers didn't know that we had been conceived.

He knew us. He was embroidering, intricately embroidering. That's the language there. Intricately embroidering the cells in our bodies connecting in form, forming our vascular system, uniquely designing each one of our fingerprints, creatively choosing the palette of colors that would paint our irises, and placing parts of his likeness in each of us. Even before our mothers knew that we had been conceived, God knew all the days of our lives, every moment of every.

Every second, every decision, every thought. He knew it.

The second thing is this. I cannot think of a more poignant section of Scripture to point to the fact that unique life and personhood begins at the moment of conception. I don't have time to dive into this. I have no intentions of making this a political thing at this point. But I was having a conversation with a family member about this sermon.

And as part of her story, she had an abortion when she was a teenager. And she and I were talking about this. I was asking her thoughts on this. And also part of her story is at this point, she's in her 60s now and through throughout her life, she has chosen to let God use her story to care for, love, and minister to other women who have found themselves in the same situation that she has. And after we talked, she texted me, and I want to read you this text that she sent me.

She said, there will be many women in attendance who have had an abortion. Christian women, especially, seem to carry guilt over this. They need to be told that forgiveness is there for the asking. Even though they may have been told this time and time again, they're still carrying the guilt and it is hindering them from becoming who God is calling them to become. If this is part of your story today, hear me loud and clear.

There is grace enough for you, too. There is grace enough for you, too.

And if this is the first time you've heard that or the hundredth time that you've heard that, I am pleading with you to live and accept that grace, to live in that grace, to find peace and comfort and forgiveness in that grace. And for all of us. If you believe that God's grace isn't big enough to cover every sin that has ever been or will ever be, then your God is far too small. And you certainly do not worship the God of the Bible who says that there is grace enough for all sin through the blood of Jesus. Now, I have to keep moving, but make no mistake, you are no accident.

You were made by God, and there's grace enough for you. Too.

He knows us. He surrounds us. He formed us. Let's pick up in verse 17. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God.

How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with you. Most commentators believe that David is not just talking about God's knowledge and thoughts in general, but he's talking about God's specific thoughts about David, about himself. And that when David considers that he is ever on the mind of God, that the number of thoughts that God has about us is like the sand on the shore, like how comforting and beautiful is that that God, omnipresent, omniscient God could be thinking about all of us all the time.

We could be ever on his mind. That's beautiful. And then we get to verse 19 and it seems like someone slammed on the E brake and we took a hard left turn. Like it's this very weird thing that happens here, but I think there's a good explanation for this. Verse 19.

Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God. O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? We need to sing songs like this. I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. That'd make a good worship song, wouldn't it?

I don't know if it's a good church growth model, but it would be fun for some of us. Some of you are like, this guy's lost his mind now. I think all of us have someone in our lives that while you're having a conversation with them, they take a hard left turn and change the topic. And. And you have to catch up.

Like the people that need to raise their hand when they change. Some of you are laughing at the person sitting next to you right now. This is what it feels like David just did. Like, wait, did you change topics? Because I gotta catch up here.

But I think there's something going on here that makes sense. Alistair Begg is a great preacher. He's up in the Cleveland area. This is what he says about this. He says verses 19 and 20 are not in an inappropriate intrusion to this psalm, but rather are an appropriate conclusion to this psalm.

That as David takes the time to consider how awesome and mighty and powerful and big God is, how worthy of our praise, how perfect God is, that it's in the face of all of that that evil looks all the more evil that his hunger and thirst for God shows him his distaste and disgust for evil. This is a pale example, but it's like as if we had been eating dog food our whole lives and satisfied with it in one day. We eat amazing, delicious food, and now suddenly that food that used to be enough is no longer enough. It's disgusting, right? This is what is happening with David.

You might compare this to this innate concern that we parents have for the protection of our children. Like, what would you be unwilling to do to protect your child from someone who is acting as a predator toward them? They the amount of angst and hatred that would come out of you would be very strong, right? But interestingly enough, David's hatred for evil isn't just external. It's not just for others.

We read in verses 23 and 24 that David recognizes deeply that there's also evil in him and it's disgusting to him. And he prays this prayer to God. In verse 23, he says, Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. He's not just looking internally in seeing evil or externally in seeing evil. He's looking internally and seeing evil.

And it's really interesting to me that David says, judge me, judge me. How many times have you said or heard the words, don't judge me? Who are you to judge me? Who do you think you are? Don't you judge me?

Right? This is the mantra of our day. No one gets to judge me except me, because nobody knows my intentions but me, right? Interestingly, David knows something that most of us are unwilling to admit. The only qualified judge is God.

David is confessing that there he knows there are parts of him that he doesn't even see, he doesn't even know about. There are recesses down in there that we would all go to counseling for and try to get out and do something with that. David is saying, God, turn on the light in every crevice, every corner, and show me what's in there. Show me the evil in me, because it's disgusting and I have a distaste for it and I want it uprooted. David asks God to show him the parts that he can't even see and replace them with righteousness.

But see, the only way that David can conclude with a prayer like this is because of everything that we've already talked about. God knows David. He knows everything about him. He loves him Anyway, God is surrounding David. He's ever present.

He knows every thought and he is there with him in every situation. God formed David. No one knows David more intricately and specifically than God does. And only God can judge David righteously. Why?

Because God is the only judge who has ever existed or will ever exist that is operating without a bias and with no broken information. He is the only judge ever that will exist, that has all of the evidence and no bias. Every other judge, including you, about you, is working with flawed and incomplete knowledge, but not God. In David's mind, he has established that if God is who he says he is, then whatever God says is, and that's it. That God's standard is the standard if he is who he says he is.

David sees God like one who has been to the edge of the Grand Canyon and stepped out and saw it for himself only in part, but he saw it for himself. And he cannot deny that God is far bigger than he imagined. So I'm going to ask this question again that we opened with. How big is the God that you worship? Do you worship the almighty God of the Bible?

The one who is all powerful, all present, all knowing, perfectly loving, perfectly trustworthy, the only credible judge? Or do you prefer to shrink your God down to a palatable size who is just big enough that he's incapable of judging you? A God that you place on the shelf or in a closet to pull out when you need to feel better about yourself? How big is the God that you worship? See, I think that the realities in Psalm 139 have the capacity, no matter where we are in our faith, to expand our view and our perspective on God.

Some of us might just be topped up on a very high level of faith and a giant view of God. Some of us might be stepping up to a next level today. Hopefully some of you are in this room saying today for the very first time, I want to consider that he might just be who he says he is, but all of us are worshiping a God that is smaller than the almighty God of the Bible. Because there's always more and more and more and more. More to be revealed, more to be understood, more to be worshiped.

And so I just want to take some time right now, and I want us to meditate on what we've been talking about. I want us to consider the realities of this. And so I'm just going to ask everyone some questions. And as I ask these questions, I want you to be dead honest with yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to the true answers to these questions. So just if you would, would you close your eyes and get still.

And I'm just going to ask. Holy Spirit, help us to see what we cannot see.

What if God is actually who he says he is?

How would this change the way that you get up in the morning?

How would this change the way that you worship?

How would this change the way that you spend your time and. And your money?

How would this change the way that you treat the people around you?

How would this change the way that you read your Bible?

If God is actually who he says he is? How would this change the way that you pray?

What if God truly knows everything? Everything. Everything, including knowing you more than you know yourself? That there's nothing hidden from Him?

That he knows every thought, every sin, every word.

That he knew what he was purchasing when he sent Jesus and he says that you were worth it?

What if that's actually true?

What if God is who he says he is, regardless of our circumstances, Regardless of what he does or does not do?

For those of us in the room today that are holding something against God that we cannot forgive, that we cannot let go, what if we started to view that as an accusation against him, that he's not who he says he is?

What if God's ways and judgments are perfect?

What if instead of viewing God as the cosmic rule maker and policeman, we viewed him as an all knowing, always and ever present, perfectly loving Father who knows us, surrounds us, provides for us, who forgives us.

What if it's true that there's grace enough not only for everyone else's brokenness, but for yours too?

How big is the God that you worship?

I want to close with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer from the Church of England. It's a very simple, short prayer, but it's just jam packed with potent words.

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, so that we may truly love you and worthily praise your holy name through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.