Series: Relationships (XI)
Message: Meet Your Maker
Scripture: Psalm 139:1-16, 139:23-24
(Good to be back...hope you are having a fantastic summer with the fantastic interns...)
Let’s review the two verses I hear you have been memorizing...
1 Peter 4:8 ‘Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.’
Ephesians 4:2 ‘Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.’
I’ve been asked to carry your summer-long study of relationships under the theme of a relationship with God. Now, this is perhaps the hardest one to grasp because we can’t see God like we would see a friend or parent or authority figure. But, trust me, a relationship with God is important because all other relationships fall underneath it.
Today, we are going to look at Psalm 139, which is one of the 150 ancient songs that are collected in the Bible. It’s a famous psalm of David, who, when writing, is facing all of these enemies around him. [read Psalm 139:1-16,23-24]
Big moment in life...got an iPhone few weeks back...one of the features that amazes me most is the AutoCorrect feature. Somehow, perhaps by technology or maybe by sorcery, the phone gets smarter and smarter and even knows how I type so that when I type a word wrong, it knows what I meant. What’s even cooler is that it knows what word I might say next. It can predict me. I’m in awe of the fact that there’s a small bar above my keyboard that gives me suggestions for what to say next. Amazing stuff. My smartphone knows me, because I know how it’s supposed to work. That’s how David saw his relationship with God. I know God because God knows me.
In fact, the focus of this entire psalm is not on David, but is instead on God. Let’s read the opening verses of the psalm again and count out loud the # of times a 2nd person pronoun (you, your, etc.) appears in the passage. [read Psalm 139:1-10 and count]
15 times in 10 verses we see David addressing God directly! See, God created us so that He could know us closely. This is what David recognizes and celebrates in - and what we should celebrate as well!
David praises and thanks God ‘for making me so wonderfully complex.’ We really see that the focus of this psalm is on God, our Maker. You may have caught the interesting imagery that David uses when talking about how God created us - he says that God ‘knit me together in my mother’s womb.’ While it seems like a weird word to us in English (to say that God “knit” us), the word knit in the original Hebrew refers exclusively to creating humans, not clothing.
But it gives us this visual image of God’s divine hands, with knitting needles in hand, creating us in our mother’s womb, knowing us before we even knew Him. God created us so that He and we could know us closely.
David then goes on to tell God, ‘I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence’ (139:7). David first contrasts the height of the heavens with the depths: the Lord is present in both places. Then he mentions the east, where the dawn appears, and the west - and the people of David’s day thought that the sea is always to the west. We see that God is present in the farthest extremes of the world, thus implying that He is present in all places in between. In other words, there’s nothing you can do to get away from God.
Then we jump to the end of the psalm, when David has a dangerous request for God - he tells God to ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.’ (139:23-24). This is crazy! He’s basically asking God to take a magnifying glass to his life, but it’s for a good reason. Since God knows everything about us, God wants us to know Him so that we can walk with Him.
David had a deep relationship with God. He wanted to live a life that was the exact opposite of the life his enemies were leading. David wants God to expose any offensive thing that he does, not because he wants to get in trouble, but because he wants God to help him live a good life.
And that’s how we too should see our relationship with God! God created us, loves us, and wants a relationship with us. It’s not a relationship where someone ignores you or doesn’t listen to you; instead, when you enter into a relationship with God, you get to “meet your maker” and walk alongside Him in every aspect of your life, including every other relationship you have with family and friends.
David’s psalm shows us that we were created for a relationship with God! This is great news, because without a relationship with God, we have no direction in our lives. God knows us and wants us to know Him, so the first step is to seek out a relationship with God. If you’re interested in what that looks like, come talk to me or a leader. We’d love to chat with you about what it looks like to live in a relationship with God, our Maker.
Thanks for your attention, and I hope you have a great rest of your summer and a great new school year.
[Prayer]
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