unknown: Someone will shout at me if I'm too long.
SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how desperate you are for chocolate, but I do have my Psalm 126 message from a few weeks back.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd rather I do that again.
SPEAKER_00: Or if not, I'll I'll stick with 139.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got your Bibles with you, Psalm 139.
SPEAKER_00: You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
SPEAKER_00: You know where I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar off.
SPEAKER_00: You discern my going out and my laying down.
SPEAKER_00: You're familiar with all my ways.
SPEAKER_00: Before words is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely.
SPEAKER_00: You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
SPEAKER_00: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
SPEAKER_00: Where can I go from your spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Where can I flee from your presence?
SPEAKER_00: If I go out to the heavens, you are there.
SPEAKER_00: If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you.
SPEAKER_00: The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
SPEAKER_00: For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb.
SPEAKER_00: I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_00: Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Your eyes saw my unformed body.
SPEAKER_00: All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
SPEAKER_00: How precious to me are your thoughts, God, how vast is the sum of them.
SPEAKER_00: Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
SPEAKER_00: When I awake, I'm still with you.
SPEAKER_00: If only you, God, would slay the wicked, away from me you who are bloodthirsty, they speak of you with evil intent.
SPEAKER_00: Your adversaries misuse your name.
SPEAKER_00: Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
SPEAKER_00: I have nothing but hatred for them.
SPEAKER_00: I count them my enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Search me, God, and know my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Test me and know my anxious thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: May God bless the reading of his word.
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing psalm this is.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it expresses something of the indescribable nature of God.
SPEAKER_00: There are there are three elements to his nature which are actually beyond our comprehension, really.
SPEAKER_00: His omnipotence, his omnipresence, and his omniscience.
SPEAKER_00: All quite difficult words to say when you're uh trying to do that.
SPEAKER_00: His omniscience, the fact that he knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: He knows everything that happened in the past, he knows everything that's happening right now, he knows everything that's gonna happen in the future.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing surprises him, nothing confuses him, because he already knows it's gonna happen before it does.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there are there are some people who think they know it all, aren't there?
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think Donald Trump probably thinks he knows more than most people about most things, but he doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: But God really does.
SPEAKER_00: He knows everything, whether it's from the micro or whether it's the macro.
SPEAKER_00: He knows how the whole of the universe stays in place.
SPEAKER_00: He knows how it all revolves, how it all works, and yet he also knows the unspoken thoughts in my head before they even appear there.
SPEAKER_00: That's a scary one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we um we might verbalize things maybe that are kind.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're wise enough to not say them.
SPEAKER_00: But if everybody knew what was going on in my head or in your head, the thoughts we have, yet God knows every single one of them before they're even formed.
SPEAKER_00: So he knows everything, but he's also omnipotent, he is all powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is impossible for him, nothing can stand in his way, no mountain is too high, no valley is too deep, no situation too difficult, nothing too awkward, nothing can thwart or divert his plans.
SPEAKER_00: By just his spoken word, he created everything we know and everything we don't.
SPEAKER_00: He is almighty.
SPEAKER_00: All might, all power, all authority, all dominion belongs to him and to him alone.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there may be leaders like Donald Trump who think they've got power, but they've only got power because God has allowed them to have power and he can take it away just as quickly as he gave it.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, in all of this omnipotence, in all of this possibility to do anything, what God will not do is he won't do anything contrary to his character or his loving nature.
SPEAKER_00: So he cannot lie.
SPEAKER_00: So what we read in the Bible, we we can believe because God cannot lie.
SPEAKER_00: And he cannot do evil.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what he does sometimes is he allows evil people with their with their own free will to do things which outwork his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus on the cross is a classic example.
SPEAKER_00: God's purpose was fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest love that God or that has ever existed, the love that God showed towards in giving Jesus for us came about because of evil people's intent.
SPEAKER_00: But God doesn't do evil.
SPEAKER_00: All authority and power belongs to him, but it's wedded at every point to his justice, to his faithfulness, to his truthfulness, his mercy, and his love.
SPEAKER_00: And then he's omnipresent, he's everywhere at every moment, from the past into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: This one is the one that blows my mind the most.
SPEAKER_00: It's known as unconfined physicality.
SPEAKER_00: He's not confined by space, and yet simultaneously he fills all space.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see in the following verses that we can't hide from God, he's everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the great thing is that when we want to be with him, when we want to speak to him, he is just a breath away.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a closer look at this psalm as we go through the verse, and it starts, it starts with this declaration that this God who is omniscient, who's omnipresent, who's omnipotent, the one that is beyond our full comprehension, knows me and he knows you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just a superficial knowledge, he really knows me and he really knows you.
SPEAKER_00: The word that's used there in the Hebrew in those first few verses for knowing is yada.
SPEAKER_00: And yada is the same word that's used to express what the love is and the intimacy, the physical and emotional connection between a husband and a wife.
SPEAKER_00: God knows us intimately.
SPEAKER_00: This God who spoke the stars into space and holds the planets in orbit knows me, and he knows you, and he knows me, and he knows you better than we know ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: There was a pastor who spoke once, and uh he he uh preached a sermon that's that was called fully known and fully loved, and he's sitting just there, and I remember it.
SPEAKER_00: You see, by him we're fully known, we're fully seen, we're fully heard, we're fully understood, and yet, despite knowing every thought and every word before it's formed on our lips, we are loved by him.
SPEAKER_00: How amazing is that! How amazing that he knows me, and despite all of that, he loves me.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5 says, This God protects me.
SPEAKER_00: He surrounds me, he protects me from things before, he protects me from things behind, from things that come at the side, he protects me from things I see, he protects me from things I don't see.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's omnipresent, he's always with us by spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He is he's within us, by the spirit of Jesus, he's in us, and he lovingly and gently lays his hand on us, just like a parent does to a child to reassure them.
SPEAKER_00: He loves us, protects us.
SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist reminds us in verse six that the fact that God knows us so intimately and is ever present with us and he's protecting us, it's too wonderful for us to understand.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot take it in.
SPEAKER_00: We can try, but we'll never fully understand it.
SPEAKER_00: The creator of the universe in all its infinite vastness is not just interested in us, he's completely invested in you to the point of giving his son for you.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 8 says, What's man that you're you're mindful of him?
SPEAKER_00: You know, who am I that God should care about me and give himself for me?
SPEAKER_00: In verses 7 to 10, the psalmist reminds us how awesome God is.
SPEAKER_00: Not only did he create it all, but he's constantly in it all, from one end of the universe to the other at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: If I go to the farthest, most remote point on earth, he's there.
SPEAKER_00: If I go to heaven or hell, he's there.
SPEAKER_00: If I go to the farthest point in space, he's there.
SPEAKER_00: We can try and hide ourselves or hide our thoughts from him, but it's pointless.
SPEAKER_00: You know when kids play hide and seek and they go up against the wall and they put their head down and they're bum in the air, and because they can't see you, they think you can't see them.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's like trying to hide from God.
SPEAKER_00: It's pointless.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever I go, his desire is not, though, to trip me up, it's to pursue me, to restore me, to guide me, to take care of me.
SPEAKER_00: And in verses 11 and 12, we're reminded that God is light.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because he's got some fancy night vision goggles that he can see us in the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Darkness is as light to him.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God is light, there's no darkness in him.
SPEAKER_00: And so where he is, nothing can be hidden.
SPEAKER_00: Where there is light, darkness cannot exist, and God is light.
SPEAKER_00: In verses 13 to 18, we see again another incredible fact about our awesome God, that he made me and his thoughts are towards me.
SPEAKER_00: Every single person has been crafted by God individually, with the utmost intention and care.
SPEAKER_00: Every detail known in advance, not just your body, not just your character, not just your mind, but your soul and your spirit as well.
SPEAKER_00: You are intentionally designed, uniquely, an awe-inspiring creation crafted by God with deep reverence, deliberate care, and distinct purpose.
SPEAKER_00: You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just known and created in advance, we're created with a unique purpose and a plan for every day of your life.
SPEAKER_00: God was thinking about me and you before we were born.
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking about you now, and he'll be thinking about you for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: So many thoughts that they're more numerous, this psalm says, than every grain of sand on every beach, on every country in the world.
SPEAKER_00: If it was just Australia, that'd be quite a lot of grains of sand.
SPEAKER_00: But it's every grain of sand.
SPEAKER_00: We may sleep, but the Lord never slumbers or sleeps.
SPEAKER_00: He's with us when we sleep, and he's always there when we awake, he's right there watching over us.
SPEAKER_00: So we see all this wonderful stuff about who God is, and then the psalmist goes off on a he goes off on a bit of a tangent, wanting to slay the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: And I guess in grasping something of the awesomeness and the holiness of God, and yet this intimate attention towards us.
SPEAKER_00: A natural response maybe is to look at the world around us, to look at the sinful world, and to ask for God's righteous justice to be meted out.
SPEAKER_00: You know, surely if God knows each person so intimately, he cannot stand by and allow things to go unpunished, things that we find repugnant, things that seem like injustice to us.
SPEAKER_00: Because anyone who's an enemy of God and his ways surely is an enemy of us if we love Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then the psalmist gets to verse 23, and he realizes God knows him, he remembers God knows him, he knows our intentions, he knows our anxious thoughts, he knows sometimes our awful thoughts, the things that go through our mind.
SPEAKER_00: And in that instant, he recognizes his own sin in comparison with the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Our righteousness, it says in scripture, is like filthy rags in comparison with his otherness and his purity.
SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist realizes, and we have to as well, that like he's in no place to judge others because of their sins, because we are just as deserving of punishment as the worst sinner that's ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to throw ourselves on the mercy and the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: And grasping some of these um unfathomable truths about God and being made aware of the indescribable elements of his nature, that we're beyond anything that we can truly comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: What this psalm shows us is that we get to the point where we have to ask God to examine us, our thoughts, our deeds, the condition of our heart, the measure of our thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this psalm shows a just a faint picture because that's all we can actually understand of this indescribable God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who knows us, who protects us, whose thoughts are towards us, who created us with incredible precision and purpose.
SPEAKER_00: He's always with us by the Spirit of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is hidden from him.
SPEAKER_00: That although he is an awesome God of justice, thank God he is also incredibly merciful to us.
SPEAKER_00: And in the light of that, I believe our response must be to come before him with reverence and fear and humility.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to recognize who he is and who we are, to recognize our need of him and our dependence on him.
SPEAKER_00: Search me, O God, and know my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: If we can just grasp something of the incredible nature of God, just an inkling of who he is, like we just have to come and worship before him because he deserves our worship and he deserves our praise.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know this Jesus, this this God that's that sent his only son, you have an opportunity to do that today.
SPEAKER_00: If you recognize like your desperate need of God, because without him, we we have a lost eternity.
SPEAKER_00: With him, we have everything.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know that Jesus, then we can talk to you about that after the service.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be people at the back praying today for you if you want to do that, if you want to know more about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I just think actually, for us, if we've if we are Christians and and you know, maybe we've been on the journey for many years, there comes a point sometimes where we just have to stop and recognize who God is and who we are and take a moment to rededicate ourselves, you know, think about some of those thoughts that only we know about, some of those things that that like we would never want anybody else to be aware of.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we just have to come and say, Lord, I put them before you.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I know that you are faithful, and it's trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: And when we come, he will forgive us.
SPEAKER_00: So if there's things in your life that you want you want to just like address, it's good they say confession is good for the soul.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to tell anybody who you're praying with what the issue is, but you can ask them to pray for you and that you'll know that forgiveness from the Lord, this this God who knows us inside and out.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.