Because He loves me …
Have you ever met someone who voluntarily has studied something they are not passionate about?
Not only book study … picking up tools.
Ps 139:1-6 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.
This psalm not only tells us how we can know that God loves us, but it also outlines our responsibility towards Him because of that love
1. I know God loves me because …
a. He has examined me
1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
i. God knows absolutely everything about us
1. MSG I’m an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking
2. He knows us better than we know ourselves
3. Before we think a thought he knows we are going to think it
4. before we say a word He knows we are going to say it
a. That should change our prayer life
b. Prayer should be more listening than asking
ii. INCOMPARABLE, unchangeable
You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same
You are amazing God
You are amazing God
b. He is always with me
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
i. The tone of David’s thoughts here are positive, this is about God’s love
1. “There is nowhere I can go where you won’t be able to love me”
2. there is nowhere I can go where you won’t be able to protect me
3. Ever felt like you’re in this situation on your own?
ii. God is even in the places where I can’t go
iii. He sees everything
1. He sees the things I hope no one else sees
2. He sees the things that I hope others would see
a. Ever felt like “nobody loves me, nobody notices me. I am a nobody” … God notices
3. Don’t need to defend or justify yourself before God
iv. 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
1. God is not limited by the things that limit us
a. Dark is like light
b. Bad circumstances can bring good
c. Death is like life
c. He made me
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully (full of wonder) made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 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, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
i. I know God loves me because he made me
ii. He made my inmost being … “that doesn’t make me feel special. In fact that shows me that He doesn’t care”
1. What we see is just a tent
2. He made the part of us that can’t be seen
3. And he intentionally designed the outer part too, and He looks at everything He has made and says that it is good.
d. He loves all people
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
i. If only you would slay them … but I know you won’t
ii. Jonah … I knew you would forgive them
iii. God loves all people … you are no exception
2. Because God loves me, …
a. Because He has examined me, I will submit to Him
i. He knows everything about me
1. knows what I think before I think it; what I am going to say before I say it
2. If he knows so much about me … surely He knows what’s best for me
ii. Because of this amazing knowledge He has about me, I will submit with the assurance that He knows what’s best for me.
iii. I will submit and not question His will.
b. Because He is everywhere, I won’t hide from Him
i. Because I know that God loves me so much and that He is everywhere, I won’t try to live 2 separate lives … one on Sundays and a different one on Mondays
c. Because He created me, I will trust Him
i. GNB I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart.
ii. AMP I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well.
iii. Our response to the intricacies of creation should be to fear Him
iv. He is so awesome
v. There is nothing too difficult for Him
1. If you can create out of nothing … then you can be trusted
vi. We are so easily tempted to trust our own strength, our own wisdom, our own bank balance … David saying, “because you created me, I will trust you”
d. Because His ways are not my ways, I won’t try to do His job
i. We don’t think like God, but yet we try to tell Him what to do
1. give this one money
2. give that one healing
3. God do this and do that and then everything will work out just fine … if you would only listen to me God.
Conc
And then the Psalm ends the way it started:
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
This takes it right back to the beginning
As I was thinking about this, God showed me that these points follow after each other in a cycle … like a wheel, within a wheel:
He loves me because
• He has examined me
• He is everywhere
• He created me
• His ways are not my ways
Because He loves me
• I will submit to Him
• I won’t hide from Him
• I will trust Him
• I won’t try to do His job for Him
