God And You - [Psalms 139]

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and only one knew that the chemical was H2O water.
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The title of his prize -winning project? How gullible are we? And sometimes
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I think we as Christians are gullible in a different realm, and this is the realm we fall into, gullibility.
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We, by the world's lie, that we're the center of the universe. We think everything revolves around us.
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We're the terminal, the end point. You know, does the world revolve around the sun, heliocentric?
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Around the world, geocentric? And sometimes we can think that the world revolves around Mike.
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It's microcentric, it's geocentric, that everything is about us. And so today we're going to look at a psalm in the
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Bible that makes us direct our eyes properly, not inwardly, not outwardly, but we're going to look up to this great
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God. We've talked about His faithfulness in some of the hymns, some of the praise songs, who is this God? If you'll take your
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Bibles and turn to Psalm 139, we're going to look at one of the favorite passages in all the
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Bible, Psalm 139. We'll look at this passage this week and next week, then
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Evan Burns will be here preaching, then back to the book of Ecclesiastes. I don't think there's many times in our life where we really have a feeling of awe, a sense of just your mouth drops and you think, this is unbelievable.
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Maybe when I saw my children born, I was in awe. Maybe the first time you go to Niagara Falls or the
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Grand Canyon or something like that, you think, this is just simply incredible. This psalm pulls that out of us.
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It pulls out of us, God is awesome. Our God is an awesome God. He's different,
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He's above us, He's transcendent, He's glorious. And you think, okay, I'm just going to reflect and think about how great this
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God is. And what's wonderful about this psalm, as you know, if you've read it before, ladies, I think you've memorized it.
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How many ladies memorized this this summer? Some younger ones are raising their hand more, but I know several ladies did.
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You think to yourself, while it's theological, and of course we like theology because theology is practical,
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God's practical, God's relevant, sin's relevant, hell's relevant, heaven's relevant,
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Jesus dying for us is relevant. But this doctrine is put in this psalm in a way that's very, very personal.
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Very, very, oh, it's kind of like applied theology. Sometimes people say, well, was the sermon very practical?
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Well, a lot of times the sermon is about who Jesus is, so we think about Him rightly. That's practical. But this, in a very, very real way, makes you think, this
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God I serve is great, and it's very practical. And sometimes I think, we use that word great too often, don't we?
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We're awesome. Everybody's the greatest these days. When I was a kid, I'd watch Johnny Carson, and they had this kind of magician, and he was called the great what?
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Kreskin. There's the great Houdini. Alexander the Great. Catherine the
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Great. Muhammad Ali said, I am the greatest. You know, it's not just a regular circus.
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It's the greatest show on earth. Everybody's great. Well, you'll see in this psalm the greatness of God.
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And then you'll say, if God is this great and so large, I'm really nothing but that this great
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God would love somebody like me, would care for me, would send His Son to die for me.
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That is amazing. So it's not just a transcendent God who's distant and far away.
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No, no, a transcendent God who knows His people, and He knows them well, and He's given them everything, including eternal life through Jesus Christ the
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Lord. This psalm is pretty simple in its outline.
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There are 24 verses, if you see in your English Bible, and there are four sections, and each section has six verses.
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So it's super simple. If you want an outline, there are just four sections, six verses in each section.
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We're going to get to the first two sections today, and then we'll work our way through the last two sections next week.
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What the psalmist does is he says in the first section that God knows.
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This is called God's omniscience. He knows everything, and He wants you to realize that He knows you.
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Not just He knows about, but He knows you. He knows David, the king who wrote it. You can see it at the very beginning of Psalm 139, above verse 1, to the choir master, a psalm of David.
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This is meant to be sung. This is meant to be a praise psalm. This is meant to have the congregation get together and talk about how great
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God is. And so the first section, 1 to 6, is God's knowledge, or omnipresence.
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The second section is God's omnipresence. He's everywhere. And one leads to the next.
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How could He know everything about me if He's not everywhere? So that's the next verses, 7 through 12,
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His omnipresence. And then we talk about God's power in verses 13 through 18.
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That's God's omnipotence. He's powerful toward us. And then finally, how it should affect us.
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And we'll talk about God's holiness in verses 19 through 24. So four easy sections, if you like to take notes.
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We're going to get to the first two sections today. God knows you, Christian, and God is with you, Christian. And everything is designed for you to say, that's comforting.
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Now sometimes when we think about God's knowledge of us and God's omnipresence, we might be kind of afraid because if God's everywhere and He knows everything, that should restrain us from sin.
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That's true. We should be thinking, wherever I go, in the dark, on my computer, if I travel around the world, wherever I am,
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God knows and God is there. So sometimes knowing these attributes helps us to say no to sin.
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That's good and right and fair. But this psalm isn't talking about that. This psalm is talking about the comforting side.
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That you go through a trial, you go through troubles, there's intense persecution, something's going on in your life, any difficulty because of the fall or our own sin and stupidity.
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Here's who God is and He's comforting. This was all set in the realm of David's in a trial.
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Do you see verse 19 of the psalm? We'll get to next week. But this kind of gives us a context of why
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David needed to know that God knows him and God's with him. O that you would slay the wicked,
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O God. O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain.
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Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
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I hate them with a complete hatred. I count them as my enemies. David, the king, had enemies.
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They were trying to kill him. We learned about some of the demonic hatred of the Jews even in Esther 5, did we not?
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And so David's on the run. David's persecuted. David's in a tight spot. And what does he need?
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What we all need when we are going through trouble. We need to know about who God is. Because we're too gullible sometimes and we look around for only solutions.
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And we look inward for solutions. But we need to say to ourselves, our gaze needs to be lifted up.
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Get the blinders off. And remember, there's a God who knows me and is with me.
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That's really the key to every trial. Say, how do I count it joy, my brethren, when I experience various trials in James 1?
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How could that be? Here's the answer to the question. How do I live well? How do
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I deal with loved ones that aren't saved? How do I die well? How do I get through my cancer and my this and my that?
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This is the answer to the question. Because the question is, who's God? And God is the answer to what we ask.
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So we're going to go through first section, second section. And my design and my goal for you really is to say,
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God is great. God is wonderful. May Jesus Christ be praised. And when I say God, of course,
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I'm talking about the triune God. Right? When you see the word Lord here in the very first verse, L -O -R -D, all capital, that's the personal name of God.
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And He's a triune God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. The God of the Father who sends the
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Son to go die for His people. And the Spirit of God applies those benefits to His people.
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If you see the word God, for instance, in verse 17, that's talking about the
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Creator God, powerful God, sovereign God. And that sovereign God is triune, Father, Son, and the
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Spirit. So let's look at the first one, verses 1 through 6. God knows, dear
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Christian, everything about you and concerning you. Of course, it's true if you're not a believer and you're here today,
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God knows everything about you as well. And instead of getting comfort from that, it should make you scared enough to repent and trust in the
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Lord Jesus. Because judgment's coming. He knows everything you've ever done. But for us, we look today as Christians at these verses, 1 through 6, with comfort as we go to the passage and think, does
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God really know? Does God really care? And the answer is yes, verse 1. O Lord, Yahweh, that's the personal name of God.
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O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
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You know everything. You know everything about me. Now, David was a king, right?
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Listen to what the Bible says about kings and their hearts in Proverbs 25. As the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of a king is unsearchable.
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Kings, if you approach the king, they set out a scepter, you may approach. And now you approach, the king didn't have to talk.
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The king didn't have to give his name. You had no idea what he was thinking about. And all of a sudden, David knows, even though my heart is unsearchable by other people, those in my kingdom, when it comes to the
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God who made me and created me, it's an open book. He knows everything about me. The language there is interesting.
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You've searched me. It means to dig. It's not just God kind of looked. No, no, he's really dug in there to kind of examine.
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And you're trying to get in close. This is the language of when I was flying from South Africa to Logan, and I know
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I'm not supposed to bring any meat products, but somebody gave me some biltong, some jerky. And I thought, what am
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I going to do? What every pastor does, lie. No, just kidding. So I said, all right,
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I'm going to bring the jerky, and I'm going to write on that form, less than $500 of gifts, no plants, no this, no that, but I have jerky.
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That way if they ask, okay, they just take it away. And so I'm thinking,
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I made it, I made it, I made it, I've got my luggage, I made it, I made it. And pretty soon a little beagle comes over and does some sniffing and sits right down by my luggage.
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That beagle was digging into my suitcase through his nose, of course, and he would understand.
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This is that kind of language. He knows everything about you, God does. Every single thing.
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He knows you. That means he knows your trials and your successes and your joys and everything else.
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You've searched me, you've known me. Like this x -ray, he knows. Perfect knowledge.
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It's like God scours every detail and he knows. And this is supposed to give comfort to David and it's supposed to give comfort to us.
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I read a while ago that knowledge is expanding at such a rate people can't keep up.
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Matter of fact, one man said, if you read 24 hours a day from age 21 to age 70 and retained all that you read, you would be one and a half million years behind when you finished.
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There's just so much in the Library of Congress and everything else. God just knows it all. And he knows the data, yes, but he knows you.
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You see, the personal language, it's he's known me. And when I sit down, when I rise up, you search out my path.
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This is a personal relationship with David and the triune God. And by the way, this is elegant poetry, not only in Hebrew, but in English.
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For those that say, oh, the Bible's written by a bunch of shepherds like David, some shepherd boy, what does he know? Or some of the
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New Testament by Hick, Galileans, and like Peter. No, no, this is brilliant poetry inspired by the
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Spirit of God. And you say, well, God knows me, but what exactly does he know about me?
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Let me give you five areas, the extent of God's knowledge still in verses one through six.
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Generally speaking, God knows you. Let me give you the five areas, and you don't even have to take a preaching class to make this outline, because it's just there, one, two, three, four, five, it's super simple.
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How does God know me? What's the extent of his knowledge? Verse two, God knows what you do.
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Verse two, you know when I sit down and when I rise up. You know everything.
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Now, you, congregation, know what a merism is, isn't it? I know we have some visitors, we want to impress them.
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What's a merism, or how many people know what a merism is? Well, a merism is a figure of speech with language, especially poetry, and instead of saying,
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I've searched everywhere, I say, I've searched high and low. Instead of saying God created every little thing, he created the heavens and the earth.
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That means the heavens, the earth, and everything in between. It's the same thing here. What does the text say? You know when
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I sit down, passive language, laying, sleeping, resting, relaxing.
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You know when I sit down and when I rise up, working, shopping, driving, walking, working out.
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He knows my passive life, he knows my active life, and everything in between. Good shepherds know their sheep, do they not?
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Does God care? Yes, and he knows, and he knows everything about you. Arthur Pink said,
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He's perfectly acquainted with every detail in the life of every being in heaven, in earth, and in hell.
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Nothing escapes his notice. Nothing can be hidden from him. Nothing is forgotten by him. He never errs, never changes, never overlooks anything.
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And not only does he know what you do, secondly, in the second part of verse two, he knows what you think.
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He knows what you think. Isn't that amazing? You discern my thoughts from afar.
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I mean, who can read motives? I've probably had to say to people before, and they've probably said it to me, you know,
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I don't think you can read my motives. I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. Well, God knows the intents of the heart. He searches, he knows.
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He knows exactly what our motivations are. He understands everything about us.
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Not only that, verse three, he knows what you do, he knows what you think, he knows where you go, or will go for that matter.
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Verse three, you search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
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You search it out, you know everything. This is the language of a shepherd, and you'd have some grain and there'd be some husk or hole on there, the chaff, and you'd take a winnowing fork and you'd throw the grain up and the wind would come by and blow all the chaff away.
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It's that kind of language of getting down to the bare kernel, to the essence. This is exactly what happens.
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He knows when we go out, he knows when we lie down, he knows our public life, he knows our private life.
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Spurgeon said, I may sleep and forget thee, but thou, God, dost never slumber. Can't you kind of feel the tug here, if I just stop for a minute and be pastoral?
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Can't you kind of get the sense, if you're a Christian you should say to yourself, then why am I so worried all the time?
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Why am I so full of anxiety and sweat and toil and frustration?
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God knows me, he cares for me. Verse 4, he knows what you'll say.
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What you do, what you think, where you'll go and what you'll say. Verse 4, even before a word is on my tongue, behold,
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O Lord, personal name of God, Yahweh, you know it all together. Now, I don't know if it's true or not, but I've read some people that say men and women talk the same amount.
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I've also heard that sometimes women talk twice as much as men. Just what
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I've read, that's all. But if ladies speak an average of 20 ,000 words a day, and according to this research, men 13 ,000 a day.
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If we just pick 10 ,000 a day, 365 days per year, 300 million -ish people in the
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United States, think about all the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise.
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And God knows everything. And even before we say it, he knows what we're going to say. That's pretty amazing.
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I mean, I can't get my mind wrapped around that, so I always think to myself, in the days when I would go watch the
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University of Nebraska football team, that's where I went to college, and I could sit there now and think, there are 80 ,000 people at Memorial Stadium, when
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Nebraska had a real football team. And God knows every thought, everything.
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That's how comprehensive. He knows everything of everybody that they're thinking. What they've said, what they will do.
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That's amazing. And every language. Fifthly, verse 5,
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God knows what you need. See for David, remember those later verses? He's on the run.
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They're trying to kill him. What do I need? Yeah, I need escape. I need rescue temporarily. But I need to know who you are,
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God, that you're my God, that you know me, that you know the details, that you know the oppression, that you know all the things that are going on. And I need help.
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I need you. Remember what Jesus said? The Great Commission? Because you're going to need this great comfort knowing what you have to do at the
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Great Commission and preach the gospel to people and maybe get killed. And, of course, the disciples, they all did, except John the
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Beloved. Jesus said to them, And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
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And I know he's with me. I know he cares. He knows all about it. Here, verse 5, you hem me in, behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
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Maybe some of the younger people don't know what hemming is anymore because they don't have grandmothers who hem. You need to get new jeans and you just get new ones.
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I mean, I have socks that have been darned. I don't think I've ever said darned from the pulpit, but I'll say it in that regard.
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And hemming things and sewing things. This language is all of protection. Moses, you're not going to be able to withstand my glory, so let me just hem you in the cleft of the rock so my glory passes by and you're going to be okay.
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And here, David, with all the enemies, with all the turmoil, he knows he's protected.
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The hand of God is covering him, as it were, and protecting him. He's surrounded by God's mighty hand.
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As Moses knew that God's hand covered him until he passed by here, it's the same thing.
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This is the language and the idea that we see in the New Testament because we have the same
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God in the New Testament and the Old Testament. John 10, Jesus said, I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish.
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And no one shall snatch them out of My hand because I've hemmed them in by My powerful hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.
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That's protection. That's divine protection. And in light of all that, the
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Christian's response should be on good days, amazing, praise, wonderful.
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Here's the response, verse 6, such knowledge we just talked about is too wonderful for me.
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It's too high. God knows everything? Yes, everything. It's high. I cannot attain it. I can't believe what
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He believes. I can't know what He knows. And it's almost like I can't believe He knows that much, but I'm going to say to myself,
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God is God, and I'm sinful and a human and finite, and therefore I'm going to praise Him for what revealed truth teaches me.
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It's too wonderful for me. This is the same thing when Paul was so dumbstruck with the sovereign plan of justification by faith alone through Christ's perfect life, death, and resurrection.
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He says in Romans 11, Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable
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His judgments and His paths beyond tracing. This is that hymn.
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How great is our God. Sing it with me. How great is our God. It's too wonderful.
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It's too extraordinary. It's surpassing. This is the best of the best. We believe that by faith.
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Can you imagine the God who saved you? The God who declares the end from the beginning knows you? Can you imagine the
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God who loves you with an everlasting love? He knows the beginning from the end? God knows everything.
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One man said God's knowledge is infallible, never makes a mistake. His knowledge is instantaneous. He never has any kind of RAM memory, random access memory.
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He just knows. And His knowledge is retentive. He doesn't forget anything. Because He never learned anything.
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And I keep coming back saying, well then why am I afraid if you've laid your hand upon me and hand me in?
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And thinking like a Christian, since you've given me the greatest gift, salvation and Jesus Christ, forgiveness, justification, sanctification, one day glorification, adoption, reconciliation, redemption, propitiation, all the things that we learn about what the
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Lord Jesus has done for us. Why am I so worried? Why am I so afraid?
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People think, you know what? I think you can lose your salvation. People teach that. Really? Let's just think about knowledge for a second.
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If God knows everything you will ever do, past, present, future, and decides to love you anyway, what in the future is going to come up to make
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Him stop loving you? Divine omniscience or God's knowing helps us with the doctrine of security and perseverance.
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Is there anything in your life, Christian, that you could do that will come to life and God the
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Father say with the Son and the Spirit, I cast you out. When He already knows ahead of time,
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I've told you this story probably now a hundred times, and I'm just going to kind of blame COVID memory fog too, so I just repeat the stories over and over.
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I asked Him to marry me on May 6th. She married me on June 6th. Same year.
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Why? Well, to give an example to the young people on how to date properly. Just kidding. No.
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Looking back, I better hurry up. Let's seal the deal because she's going to find out the real me and is going to say no.
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But she's a woman of her word, and if she says till death do us part, I'm in. 33 years later.
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But God knows everything you've ever done and will do, and He still said, dear Christian, I love you.
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Jesus lived for you, died for you, was raised for you. That's amazing knowledge.
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Pink said, the whole of my life stood open to His view from the beginning. He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding, yet nevertheless fixed
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His heart upon me. Oh, how the realization of this should make me bow in wonder and worship before Him.
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God knows you. And that's not all. Verses 7 through 12, we come to the next section. God is with you.
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This is again a comfort psalm. There's something scary about knowing God's everywhere and God knows things.
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It's good for accountability. Job said, I'm not going to gaze at a virgin a certain way because I know
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God's everywhere. But here it's on the comfort side. Here's on the comfort side that says, okay,
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I'm going through a trial, verses 19 and following. They're trying to kill me as the king, man after God's own heart, and so how do
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I get out of the problem? Well, I might not get out of the problem, but I see God rightly, and I walk by faith and not by sight.
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Things are much better for the joy that I can have. This is
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God's not omniscience, He knows, but now God's omnipresence, He's everywhere.
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Omni, all, present, close to, are next to. God is everywhere with His whole being all the time.
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It's not like God is some great God and since the universe is so big, He's somehow diffused or diluted or spread out.
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No, all of God is everywhere at the same time. That's His omnipresence. Psalm 139, verse 7,
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He starts asking these questions. You don't even need to know the answer. The answers are supposed to be helpful and comforting.
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Where can I go or where shall I go from Your presence, or Your Spirit rather, excuse me, or where shall
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I flee from Your presence? This is good for Him.
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He's glad about this. There's nowhere I can go. I can go anywhere and You're with me. This is literally the word for face.
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Presence is face. Wherever I go, there You are. Verse 8, if I ascend to heaven,
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You're there. If I make my bed in Sheol, You're there. Up or down, vertically, highest point, lowest point,
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God's there. Everywhere, God is. Verse 9, don't you love the language here?
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If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, if I just somehow, the second the sun rises and those sunbeams shoot up, if I could go at 186 ,000 miles per second, is that the speed of light?
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I have enough engineers and WPI students. Is that right? Miles per second? Where's Andrew Smith?
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He would know. There, okay. Am I right? Okay. Wherever I go, how fast I go, Mach 1, warp speed 1, whatever it is,
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He's everywhere. Vertically, horizontally.
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He talks about the sea here. Does He not? If I take wings of the morning, dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea.
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Think of the Mediterranean Sea. They're thinking like a Jew. David's thinking like a Jew. The sea's bad.
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It's boisterous. It's foaming and it's crazy. Jews weren't seafaring people.
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No matter where I go, left or right, up or down, good places, bad places. Verse 139, verse 10 says,
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Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
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His strength, His power. This is language, not that God has a hand. Jesus had hands, but the eternal
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God doesn't have hands. He's a spirit. But the idea of strong, righteous hand.
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Well, I know sometimes it gets really dark and it's not a full moon. Maybe He doesn't know there. Maybe He's not there.
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Verse 11, If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night.
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Maybe the darkness. Even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as the day, for the darkness is as light with you.
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I think sometimes of those Coast Guard ships. They've got all those infrared and all kinds of ways to see boats.
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And they're trying to find a boat that needs to be rescued. And God, in the middle of the night, how much greater than some
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Coast Guard rescue ship. I go back to the same question I asked.
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David here is going through a major trial. I don't know how many of you have had somebody try to kill you and is on your trail for that.
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So this greater trial helps us because we realize if it's true for that, it's true for every other trial, lesser trial.
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And we think, this is comforting. God's going to be with me in the future.
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On that deathbed, God will be there. John Wesley was dying at age 88.
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And because of this kind of doctrine that God knows and God's everywhere, he began singing the hymn,
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I'll praise my maker while I have breath. And it's so practical.
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Doctrine is so practical. Say, okay, God knows me and God's everywhere. What kind of other practical things might there be?
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How about this? Hebrews 13, let your character be free from the love of money. Being content with what you have.
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For he himself has said, I'll never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.
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You mean to say to me that I can be content with what I have? Yes, why? Because God is near.
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Because God is present. I live in a tiny little studio apartment and I've got a bunch of hand -me -downs. God's there.
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I live in a luxury place. God's there. I have a 4 ,000 square foot house. I mean, I don't, but if I was there,
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God was there. Wherever there is,
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God is there. And David is thankful. David is so thankful.
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Are you thankful? Christian, can't you see when you start getting consumed with self and thinking about self and not looking to the heavens as it were from where your help comes, you say, oh, yeah.
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I self -diagnose. Here's my self -diagnosis. When I'm down, when
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I'm moody, when I'm crabby, when I'm anxious, when I'm depressed, when I'm this, when I'm that, it's the red light is coming on the dashboard and it's coming on saying this, read
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Psalm 139 today. Read Psalm 139. One man said he reads it every morning and every night just to make sure he reminds himself of that truth that we so easily forget.
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Now, before we get into the next section, because that's going to be for next week, I want to ask you, dear
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Christian, how can this be a praise psalm? Go back to verse one.
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You've searched me. You've known me. You know, when I sit down, rise up, discern my thoughts, search out my path, acquainted with all my ways, you know what
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I'm going to say. And he says then in verse six, it's too wonderful for me. It's high.
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Most of us read this psalm and we say, this is wonderful. I love this. But let me just pull the curtains back a little bit and remind you why this is wonderful.
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How can it be? God knows all this about us. We're sinful people. We do things that are sinful. How can this be a praise psalm?
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Because he knows, he searches, he digs, he finds out all these things. And I am far from perfect.
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And if you want to stand before God, before his face, you better be perfect because God is perfect.
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Matthew 5, 48, be as perfect as my father is. That's the requirement to get to heaven. Perfect obedience.
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Well, you search me and you know me. I mean, other people know about me and they realize I'm sinful.
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How much more does God know? Because he knows my intentions and my thoughts and my feelings and everything else. I don't measure up.
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It's not a bell curve. It's perfect obedience. Most Christians read this psalm and they never say to themselves, how could this be a praise?
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How can this be a praise? Now, it reminds me something of Hebrews.
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So I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews 4. And I want to tell you the story behind the story. Psalm 139.
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We're going to answer now the question, how can this be a praise psalm, knowing that we're still sinful? Now, lots of people have phobias.
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There's arachnophobia. And that's a fear of what? Spiders. You know that. There is areophobia.
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Afraid to fly. There's glossophobia. Anybody know what glossophobia is?
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It's not the fear of speaking in tongues. It's the fear of public speaking. Trypanophobia.
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Anybody have trypanophobia? Fear of needles. I went in to have my annual blood draw at Dana -Farber last week.
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And there was a lady. She was super sweet. She called my name. And I went in. And there was a lady hovering behind her, watching.
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And I thought, oh no, I get the trainee. I just tried a stiff upper lip and not have my trypanophobia or whatever.
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And then she's doing all this and put it in. There's no blood coming out. And she said, the trainer said, that's okay.
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Just tilt it a little bit more and push it in a little. She did a fine job.
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There's something called hippopotamonstrosequipedialiophobia.
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Believe it or not, it's real. It's the fear of long words. It's true. Now, see, you're all laughing it up because here comes the jugular.
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That's my style, remember? You shouldn't be laughing because here it comes. Well, there's another phobia, xenophobia.
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We hear that in language of the culture today, afraid of different kinds of people, something alien. Should not we be afraid of God if He knows everything about us and He's holy, holy, holy?
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How can we not be afraid of God? He knows all of our business. David praises
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Him. How can that be? It's just like Hebrews chapter 4. Take a look at verse 12. For the
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Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow.
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And this verse isn't about bibliology, although it's true about the Bible. Here's what He's doing. And this
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Word does what? It is discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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And no creature, including all of us, is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.
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How can Psalm 139 be good news when we're going to have to give an account to God on that day? All of us will die and stand before God.
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And the Word of God has discerned and looked and nothing is hidden from His sight. I have things in my mind.
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I wish they'd stay hidden. Skeletons and everything else. But before God, He knows everything.
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Talk about the Bible, some old, dusty old book. No, it's alive and it doesn't work and it penetrates into your very soul.
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And on Judgment Day, you give an account. This is not really that great a news. I mean, left to ourselves, we're smoked.
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There's no possible way we can stand before God. But one of the number one things about the
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Bible when you want to interpret it is you look at context and you keep reading. This is how
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David can praise God for His omnipresence and His omnipotence and His being near.
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Verse 14. Because, dear Christian, you have a high priest. You have a high priest, a mediator.
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Verse 14, everything changes. Since then, we have a great high priest. What do priests do?
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They pray. Jesus prays for you. They offer sacrifices. He is the sacrifice. Since we have a great high priest who's passed through the heavens, remember on that great day when
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Jesus ascended into heaven and those men stood there with mouths open? Awesome. God is ascending and He will come back.
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Jesus has ascended into the heavens. I wonder if He's so great, can He still be close to me? He passes through the heavens.
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Jesus, humanity, Son of God, divinity, let us hold fast to our confession.
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Here we have Jesus, the Son of God, as our high priest. And He knows our weaknesses.
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He knows our frame. He knows our sins and He's paid for every one of those. How can I withstand judgment on that day?
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Because Jesus has been judged in my place as a Christian and for you too.
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Priesthood. He's passed through the heavens for our sake. So we can hold fast and we can trust
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Him. Not only is He a great high priest, He's a compassionate high priest. Verse 15, You know, lots of people, like Jewish people, used to say of Christianity, you don't really have a good religion because you don't have a priest.
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You need a priest to pray. You need a priest to have offerings. And this priest, unlike the Jewish priest in the
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Old Testament, He's the perfect priest. There are immoral priests in the Old Testament. There are less than perfect priests in the
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Old Testament. They're all less than perfect. And here's the perfect priest. And He's not too far away. He's compassionate and He knows what it's like to live with,
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He assumed human flesh and lived on this earth and was tempted just like we're tempted. And He's compassionate to the point of help.
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That's what sympathy means. I'll never forget an author when he said,
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Who is this who sympathizes with our weaknesses? Jesus, the heir of all things, the radiance of His glory.
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He endured suffering although He was a son. Does that not surprise you? He said when
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He does counseling, lots of times when people confess their sins to Him as a pastor, He wants to say,
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I can't believe you did that. How did you get yourself in that situation?
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And the writer goes on to say, The difference between me and Jesus, well, there are very many, but here's one. When you go to Jesus and confess a sin or you're having trouble and you're falling short,
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His response is, I know, I understand. I've been tempted just like you.
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And the writer goes on, he said, You know, your friends can let you down, your church can disappoint you, life can cave in, but Jesus will never disappoint you.
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There's no one like Him and the sight of Him strengthens faith. Instead of hearing, you worm, how could you possibly do that?
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You're going to hear, I understand, I was tempted that way too. The writer goes on, it's mind -boggling to think that the
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Son of God knows you, and you're tempted because He's been tempted in all ways like you. In fact, my friends,
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He's been tempted in ways that you and I will never understand. And not only is
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He a compassionate high priest, but lastly, just so we think clearly, He gives mercy and grace.
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We have a high priest, we have a compassionate high priest, and we have one that gives mercy and grace. Let us therefore now draw near with confidence to the throne of no longer judgment.
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Jesus has judged for us. We want to live a holy life in light of that, out of gratitude that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
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No more Sinai, but Mount Zion. Alright, let's just step back and put this all together.
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Mike, what are you trying to say? Make it easy for me. How can you read a psalm knowing that God knows every bit of your sin, transgressions, perversity, iniquity, and all the other words for sin?
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How can it be a praise psalm? Because David was in the right standing with God because he was trusting in the
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Messiah, the mediator. How can you stand in God's presence without a mediator? You can't.
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But with a mediator, you can be in the presence of God and be happy about it and praise Him for it.
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And you can say as a Christian, knowing that your sins are forgiven, knowing that you have the righteousness of Christ, knowing that you stand before God as son or daughter, you can say, now search me and know me.
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Because I know if I've done anything wrong, it's not going to be I banish you, it's going to be I chasten you and I chasten you out of love.
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See, that's the Christian life. We come to Psalm 139, we walk up, we go to our favorite psalm, we memorize it, we look at it.
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It's got the four attributes, it's simple. But it will damn you if you don't have a mediator.
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You can't praise God like this without the Lord Jesus, the one who loved you and gave His life for you, who's the mediator.
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You stand before God, you need someone to stand before you and God. And God is God, He's divine, we're human.
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We're going to need a divine human. No, no, we're going to need a God -man to stand between us to be the mediator so we can turn omnipresence from scary to, thank you.
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We're going to need an advocate who's going to stand with us before the Father to turn something like omnipresence, scary into,
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I'm glad for that. If you're not a believer, you ought to be afraid of, God knows you and God's everywhere.
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But if you're a Christian, you can praise God like David and you go, He knows me, He loves me anyway.
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He's everywhere and I can trust Him. Don't ever read
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Psalm 139 again without thinking the only way you do this is when you're a friend of God because of what the
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Lord Jesus has done. Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. We thank you for this wonderful psalm.
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I pray this week that you would help us with all our trials. We worry, we fret, we're concerned, we're not sure about what's going on in our homes and the world and everything else.
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Father, you know us and you're everywhere. You love us.
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I pray for the Christians today that you would help them with their anxiety. Help them with their fear of the future.
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For those that are here today that aren't trusting in the Lord Jesus, I pray, Father, that they would fear you.
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They would have no rest until they rest in you by faith alone. And that they would consider their ways.
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And that they would understand that everything they've done, you know about. And it only takes one sin to damn them.
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Would you impress upon their hearts by the power of the Spirit that they need a Savior. That they need to be forgiven.
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They need to be right in your eyes because you are the creator and judge. But thankfully, you're also a