Psalm 139 — Daniel Punnose

Everyone loves a treasure hunt. There are so many movies like National Treasure 1 and 2, Pirates of the Caribbean, even cartoons like Pirate Jake, Treasure Island, even Muppet Treasure Island. All of these mysteries kind of stir up in us this idea of buried treasure or lost treasure and if we can go on an adventure we can find it.

Maybe there's gold bars and all kinds of things. Maybe the fountain of youth that will keep us young forever. All these fictional stories based on pirates and treasures and battles and all kinds of things have entertained young kids and older people also for a very long time.

Asking God to Search the Heart

There's an interesting thing that David prays in Psalm 139. He says, Search my heart, O God, and see if there's any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting. Psalm 139 begins by asking God to search our heart and ends the psalm by asking God to search our heart.

Very often it's a frightening thing to pray, Lord search my heart, because you know what? It may not be good things that are discovered there. A lot of times in our life we don't want to bring up things we would call skeletons in the closet or failures from the past or struggles and difficulties even now.

And for us to pray and say, Lord search my heart, it's almost like a treasure chest being found on a pirate story. You really don't know what's inside there. Now when we ask God to search our hearts, sometimes what God shows us is all the work that he has done in our character building us up, working with us, molding us, and making us.

Oftentimes when we pray, Lord search my heart, it will be that there are negative things. We find unkindness and bitterness and jealousy and anger and spite in there. And it is by revealing those things which are buried sometimes very deep, that God is able to bring to the surface so that it can be dealt with.

Character Change Beyond Psychological Counseling

Now I'm not talking about just psychological counseling and trying to share your problems so that you share all the things and the counselor can help you deal with things from your past. Now those are always good things to talk and get those things out.

But I'm talking about character things, not just experiences, but things that are rooted in our character. And unless God changes our character, things will not change. I remember as a young student in kindergarten in my class, Mrs. Melloway, the teacher, brought a small fish tank, but it had no fish in it.

And we looked inside of it and there was grass and leaves and there was little cocoons that had been spun by these monarch butterfly caterpillars. The caterpillars would crawl around and eat the special leaves.

And eventually they would spin a cocoon and inside the cocoon a chrysalis is there and it would change from a caterpillar to a butterfly and metamorphosis would take place. This goo would be inside and all of a sudden from that goo, this beautiful butterfly would emerge.

Now when you watch the caterpillar, the characteristic of a caterpillar is to crawl, eat, and eat, and eat. All the job of the caterpillar to do is simply get fat and eat and eat as much as you can. And after it has eaten so much, this big fat caterpillar is moving around and it spins a cocoon and then a metamorphosis, a change, takes place.

No longer is the nature of the caterpillar simply to crawl around and eat, but now it becomes a beautiful butterfly and its purpose is different. It is to float around and flutter in the air and go from flower to flower and using its long tongue like a straw to catch the nectar and pollinating the flowers.

It is a change of nature. When we pray and ask God to search our hearts and see if there's anything inside that needs to change, often God will show us things that God has already been working in our life and he will show us things that still need to be worked on in our life.

The Ongoing Refining Work of God

The Bible tells us that God's work in our life is an everyday, year-by-year, rest-of-our-life event. It is a not a one-time thing. Sometimes we will go to church or we will hear a message or read a book and the Lord will use that to stir our heart to make some decision or some aspect of our life we see a need that needs to be changed and God does a great work in us and we think, okay good, now it's over.

But in fact, God wants to refine other areas of our life and sometimes the same area is refined over and over and over again. If you have ever come across a brass mirror, they are very unique and very special.

Back in the day, very long ago, people did not have mirrors like we would think today. A piece of glass with a very thin piece of polished aluminum or some other metal on the back and that it would be kept for years but they would have brass or some other material, usually brass, and they would polish it to such a beautiful shine, it would be like a beautiful mirror and that's what people would use to see the reflection besides looking to water where they see the reflection.

To get brass or any metal to shine like a mirror, you have to take a rough grit and sand it. And so you sand with the rough grit that gets all the main big pieces off and kind of smooths it over. And then you take a smaller grit and you shine it more and you take a smaller grit and you shine it more and you take a smaller grit and you shine it more and you keep doing that over and over and over again and each grit, as it gets smaller in size and roughness, takes off just a little bit less, a little bit less.

So rather than making strong grooves, it takes off just a little bit and finally you have this consistent, polished, beautiful brass mirror that you can look into and see your beautiful reflection in.

And they're very valuable sometimes. But think about it in that way. God is consistently working in our life to refine us and he uses a stronger, thicker grit and he rubs off some of the rough parts but then he uses a smaller grit to polish it even more and a smaller grit and a smaller grit to polish it even more.

And the areas of love, faith, patience, kindness, and those areas of character building, faithfulness, hardworking, loyalty, those are the areas that God consistently refines in our life. It's not a one-time event that takes place.

Why God Leaves Believers on Earth

The question you must ask yourself, if salvation and going to heaven and the forgiveness of sin is the only reason for Jesus coming to the cross, why did God leave us here during our lifetime? Wouldn't it make more sense that as soon as we're saved, suddenly we disappear and we're in heaven?

God leaves us here for a couple of reasons. One is so that we can tell other people about the good news of Jesus Christ. But second, that we would consistently be prepared for the time that we see Jesus that our life is refined and our character is refined and we learn the grace of God in that refining process.

Just like a goldsmith or silversmith will melt gold or silver and they put hot fire under that gold in that crucible and the metals, all the slag and the roughness comes to the top and the gold sinks and they pull off all that roughness and they make something beautiful out of it.

Gold rings or earrings or necklaces or some other item. And it is so beautiful. Why? Because all the impurities are moved away. Now one of the things I like is photography. Of course I use my phone for taking lots of pictures and I post them up.

Reflecting Christ Through Careful Refinement

But one of the things I like to do is take my Nikon and shoot. And I have friends who shoot Canon. So Nikons and Canons, I'm not against either one. Both are excellent cameras. I just have a Nikon. That's why I use it.

But one of the things I see once in a while while I'm traveling, especially through some airport or through some specialty shop, is I will see a Leica camera. Now Leicas are world-renowned. Not simply because they look nice, which they do, and not simply because they have prime lenses, which means lenses that don't zoom in and out and change the aperture.

But they're prime lenses. And one of the nice lenses is a 50mm lens, which makes very beautiful pictures. But the cameras are so special not simply because the technology in the camera itself with the chips, but the effort that goes into the glass that is in the lenses.

The Leica lenses, the glass is only made once a year. It is one of the most prestigious and clear glasses that you can actually get in a lens. Extremely sharp. Your camera is only as good as your lens.

You can have a very expensive camera and yet the glass in the lenses may be dull or not as good and your images will be dull also. The more clear the glass is, the less air there is in there. That it's very beautiful and transparent allows more light to come through.

Those of you who do bird watching and you have binoculars, you pay for what you get. You pay a little bit more money and you get binoculars with better glass in it and it is extremely clear and helps you to do your job of bird watching even better.

And in our life there is a refining process that God wants to do so that our life clearly reflects the nature of Christ to others. See, Leica lenses are so amazing and can bring in so much light because they are given so much care in the production of the glass.

That's one of the reasons why they are extremely, extremely expensive. And in our life, God refines us like a goldsmith refining gold. Like someone who works with precious stones. They take that rough diamond, that emerald, that ruby, that sapphire and they begin to cut away and make this stone into a beautiful shining gem that is worth so much more than it was before.

A rough diamond is valuable but a cut diamond is extremely valuable. Gold is valuable but refined gold and made into something else becomes even more valuable. Why? Because you are paying not only for the gold, you are paying for what it is made into and you're paying for the hard work that the person did.

When God works in our life, it is a loving, refining process of polishing, refining, pulling the slag away, making our life extremely clear so that his nature shines through. We read in Psalm 139, David says this.

David's Prayer for God's Omniscient Presence

I want you to listen as I read. When word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord. You have him me in behind and before. You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me.

Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go into heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of 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. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light becomes night around me. Even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day, for darkness is light to you.

For you created my innermost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. 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.

Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I'm still with you. If only you would slay the wicked, O God. Away from me, you bloodthirsty men. They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you?

I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting.".

And here David is asking God to search his heart. He says, listen, I know that you know me so well through and through. You know my thoughts. You know my intentions. You know my actions even before I do anything.

You know the words I speak before I even speak them. You know everything about me. And he says, Lord, still search me and test me. Why would we ask God to search us? Is it for God's sake or for our sake?

It's for our sake to know. Once we know, we can ask God to help us. David says that he knows that all of God's thoughts are good towards him and it outnumbers the grains of the sand of the earth. Can you imagine that?

If you were to calculate how much sand there is on earth and each grain of sand represents a good thought of God towards you, there is not even the ability to imagine that God loves us that much, and yet it is true.

God's Love Revealed in Christ

It's proven in John's Gospel chapter 3, verse 16,. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

There is no greater friend than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd that lays down his life for the sheep. God proved His love to us by sending Jesus to be the Savior, taking the sins upon Himself, enduring the cross for the joy that was set before Him, dying, going to the grave for three days, and on the third day He rose again from that tomb.

Responding to What God Reveals

My brother, my sister, when we say, search me, O God, and know my heart, whatever God reveals to you, take it in a positive way. Maybe you say, Lord, would you search my heart and show me the areas that I am missing and lacking?

And He says, there is unforgiveness in your life, there is bitterness in your life, there is pride in arrogance, there is a lack of love. You don't have mercy for others. You are rebellious. You gossip.

You're not careful with your words. You don't fix your mind and your thoughts on positive things, but you're always fixing your minds on wrong things. Your intentions are evil. Whatever He reveals to us, whether it's one thing or many things, our response should be this, Lord, thank you for revealing those things to me so that now I can trust you to help me deal with this.

Freedom From Unforgiveness and Bitterness

For example, if God shows you that you find unforgiveness in your life and you're holding on to that, what is your response? Lord, help me. Give me the strength so that I can forgive or I need to ask forgiveness.

It may be very difficult and you say, Lord, how can I forgive this person who hurt me physically or with words or emotionally? I'm not saying it's easy or simply you have to muster up the courage to go do this because the Bible says it.

What I'm saying is God promises to help you. Anything in the Word of God is guaranteed that He helps us to live it out and empowers us to be able to obey. Nothing is to be done in our own strength or our own power.

And so if you find there is unforgiveness in your life, say, Lord, I see this and it is ruining me. Please help me. Give me the strength to forgive and I will do this by faith knowing that you will help me.

The thing about bitterness and unforgiveness, it is a prison that binds the person who is unforgiving and binds the person who is bitter. Just because you don't forgive someone else does not mean they are harmed.

It harms ourselves in that cage and prison of unforgiveness and the only way that we can be free, we hold the key in our hand, is to forgive and the doors of the cell swing wide open. But God helps us.

Taking Thoughts Captive

Maybe we find that God reveals to us that our mind is always fixed on wrong things and negative and lustful things or always thinking negative about people or always slandering people in our hearts and our minds and God says you need to deal with that.

And we say, Lord, I understand that. Would you please help me to think correctly, to take my thoughts captive, to recognize when I'm thinking wrongly and I take scripture verses and rather than thinking about those wrong things, I will think about things from scripture, the promises of God.

I will think about positive things. I will spend time thanking you and blessing you and worshiping you. Maybe we find that God reveals that our words are hurtful or full of gossip or full of slander and we say, oh Lord, thank you for revealing that to me.

Purifying Words and Changing the Heart

I feel so ashamed that every word I speak is hurting someone and gossip and lying. Would you please purify my words? Jesus said from out of the heart, the mouth speaks. So it's not just simply controlling our words and trying to behave ourself.

It is a character change on the inside that needs to take place and we say, Lord, change my nature. Change my character. Help me to be a person that speaks love and praise and things that encourage others.

Overcoming Anger Through God's Help

Lord, change my nature. Maybe God reveals to us that we are short tempered and angry and we have no excuse for this angerness inside. And we say, Lord, I'm tired of being an angry person. It does not bring honor and glory to you.

Would you change my nature? Please help me. And you will find God will help you. Now what happens if you fail? If you have prayed this and you're trusting God and you're walking by faith and you find that you fail, do you simply give up?

God's Encouragement After Failure

My son the other day was running and he fell down and he scraped his knee. And he started crying. There was a little bit of blood and of course I washed it and cleaned it, put some antiseptic on it and put a band-aid on it.

And I said, it's okay, don't worry. And I gave him a big hug and I said, you can do this. Keep going. And so he ran again and he went to go play with his cousin David. Now it would be a very sad thing for me to say, yes, yes, you know, you should not run.

You got hurt. Just stay down. When God deals with us, when we fail, he embraces us and says, I love you. I'm going to put a band-aid on that. I forgive you. Now get up and go again. I'm with you. God never pushes us down or kicks us when we're on the ground.

Instead, he encourages us and says, keep going. I'm with you. So if you find that you get angry and you find that you gossiped and you find that you thought wrong things and you find that you're unforgiving once again, again, run back to Lord and repent and say, Lord, would you help me?

I have done this again. Please stand with me. Change my heart and I promise you that you will find the Lord helping you. Why? That prayer. Search my heart and know my anxieties. See if there's anything wicked inside that needs to change.

Becoming More Like Christ by Grace

Lord, change my nature. Just like the change of nature of a caterpillar to a butterfly. Lord, change me. I no longer want to be consumed with myself, but I want to bring honor and glory to you. And God will do this by his grace.

Let's pray and thank the Lord that he will do this in our life. Father, we thank you that you are so faithful and so kind that we can pray and say, search me, oh God, and know my heart. And you already know our hearts, but we pray those things so that you can reveal them to us.

And I ask that you would help us, Lord, to trust you as you work in our life, changing our nature to become more and more like Jesus. And we thank you for the refining process, the polishing process of love and grace and kindness and all these aspects that point people to you.

I pray for your blessings upon each of my brothers and sisters, their families. In Jesus' name, amen. My brother, my sister, remember this. The Bible has the answers for life and God's promises always comes true.

May the Lord bless you as you experience his power and grace and strength in your life, as he reveals your heart to yourself, showing you areas of your life that he will help you to change.