Heaven Only Knows Psalm 139:1-6;13-18 September 9, 2001
I. Introduction:
A. Heaven Only Knows
1. As a child I now you will find it hard to believe but I was rather precocious, always talking and asking questions - why this why that? My mother would always try to answer my questions the best she could - but sometimes children’s questions are beyond rational answers:
(1) why don’t brown cows give choc. Milk
(2) why do people say the moon is made of cheese if it isn’t made of cheese
(3) If you step on a worm does it go to heave?
(4) Do alligators have to wait one hour after they eat before they can get in the water?
(5) why does daddy throw tools when he fixes stuff
(6) To questions like these my mothers answer would always be the same - Heaven Only Knows
2. As parent I still have lots questions that the only answer seems to be Heaven Only Knows:
a) why do kids freeze up as soon as you want to show them off
b) why do kids insist on wearing their food instead of eating it
c) why don’t kids come into the world potty trained
3. As I prepared this sermon I wondered did others had questions like mine - questions with the only possible answer of Heaven Only Knows So I got onto internet in search of questions I ran into some rather interesting ones like:
a) Why do they call it chili if its hot?
b) What was the best thing before sliced bread?
c) What hair color do they put on the driver’s license of bald men?
d) Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of a bottle?
e) Can atheists get insurance for what the insurance company deems as "Acts of God"?
f) Why is a carrot a carrot if it is more orange than an orange?
4. But I think in all the world the most common question of frustration is "Why don’t people understand me?" From pre-teens, to teenagers to senior adults
a) It is common complaint among people like us is that people don’t understand us. That we are misunderstood.
b) We act and speak, as we believe, in all clarity, in all sincerity and yet afterward we find that our actions have been misinterpreted and our intentions misjudged.
c) And it seems the only answer is "heaven only knows"
5. And in all truth the is the answer is "Heaven Only Knows"
6. When all the world doesn’t seem to understand you, doesn’t seem to really know you there is one who does
II. God Knows You
A. Psalm 139
1. Tradition says author David - others don’t know
2. Either way it is interesting that it is written in the first person
a) when we read it it becomes our prayer, our words
b) it becomes an intimate understanding of our personal relationship with God
3. VS 1-Psalm 139:1-6 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.
a) When David said "you have searched me and know" he is not saying God looked him over - he speaking as if God has examine him in a judicial sense - he looked deep into him not to his actions but to the motives of his heart
b) He is saying God even from afar - from heaven beyond time and space you know when I sit and when I rise, my thoughts, my going out and lying down - from the beginning of the day until the night - you know my words even before I speak them
c) God you know me better than myself, through and through
d) He know everything there is about you. He sees your sins and weakness
e) he sees your pains, your sufferings and your anxieties
f) He see it all
g) With People we pretend, we keep part of ourselves back for fear if they really get to know us they won’t like us or approve of us
h) When can pretend we are very spritiual, we can pretend we don’t care what others think, we can pretend it doesn’t hurt us when we are rejected or made fun of - we can fool people but we can’t fool God
i) He knows the real rules we live by and whether they are his or not
j) God knows where we are struggling to grow , where we are having troubles accepting his ways
k) He knows what inside of us
4. Are you squirming in your seats there a little bi, are you wondering why all of sudden it beginning to feel a little warm as if the heats be turned up - Does the thought of God knowing all your secrets make you uncomfortable?
5. Ever watch one of those reality shows, consumer reports that expose what people do when think they’re not being watched? The repair person who is suppose to fix something and the camera catches trying to cheat the customer? Do you remember the look on the repairman’s face when he got caught? When what he thought he was doing in secret was suddenly exposed?
B. The Joy of God Knowing Us Fully and Completely
1. If anyone should have been uncomfortable God knowing the depths of their heart David should have been for - his heart had been full of envy and deceit, he was an adulterer and murder
2. And yet what we read here in Psalm 139 is not despair at God knowing him but JOY
3. Who else has such intimate knowledge about you and still loves you?
4. Who else cares enough about you to get to know you the deepest parts of you, the parts that you keep hidden from everyone else and yet still finds us worth
5. You see God has searched the depth of each of our souls and he has judged us
6. and despite all he knows he has found us innocent of all charges, of all sins
7. He has found us righteous and holy
8. Pslam 139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
9. I can’t understand it, it is beyond my comprehension that God could know everything about me, every sin I have committed, every dark and ugly thought I have had and he still find me holy
10. Holy not because of who I am, who we are but because of who made us
C. God Our Maker
Psalm 139:13-16
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 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.
1. I love Babies - This is Joseph
2. How small, how precious
3. It is amazing to me, the creation of Human
4. Man tries to create live but can only somewhat duplicate
5. Life, you, every inch of you was created by God
6. every wrinkle, every wart or mole, every bump bulge and roll is the natural result of God’s handiwork in the fabric of your body, your life
7. You are a wonderful and unique person because God designed you, he made you
8. He personally made you, from the moment in time when you were conceived until now he had been with you, - who else has been with you every moment of your life - whether you wanted him to be or not - he was there
9. he knows you like no other
B. Psalm 139:17 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
1. How wonderful it is to know God thinks of me, thinks of you that often all the time everyday - and even when he doesn’t approve we are sometimes doing or saying - he still accepts us and loves us!
2. Oh what joy that brings and
3. what responsibility: Responsibility to live our lives accordingly
a) What if everyone around you knew what you really thought? What you were really doing? Would it impact what you would do? God knows and we need to understand that, to allow that to keep us honest and true to his kingdom
b) We have the responsiblity to live our lives aware of God’s abundant grace
(1) Grace that is extended to us in spite of our thoughts and deeds
(2) God has called you and me worth, holy, justified
(3) Does that make an impression on you?
(4) Does that make you sit a little higher in your seat?
(5) It should? For you are God’s chosen child
c) And lastly, we have the responsibility to live our lives understanding how precious they are, how precious we are to God
(1) you are fearfully and wonderfully made
(2) you are perfect in God’s eyes and no one can take that from you
(3) You are valuable
(a) good dishes - mom collects dishes - some because where they came from, whose they had been, are more precious than others
(b) Set the everyday dishes - throw them on the table
(c) Mom’s good, precious dishes - are handled differently
(4) Your life is precious and you have a responsibility to care about that life - God cares about you and what you do with your life - talk to him let him guide you on how to handle that life with care
Jesus loves the little children - his little children - red and yellow black and white - old and young wrinkled and frosted -they - you- are precious in his sight!
Amen and Amen
