Lord, you know me.

Main Idea: The greatest motivation for serving the Lord is realizing how awesome He is and how incredibly loved we are by Him.

Text: Psalm 139
Psalms 139:1-24 (NIV) 1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
• Like saying to a friend, “Well, you know me!” That’s how the Lord knows you. Only more so.

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.
• We’ve all got our ways. My wife knows many of my ways. But the Lord knows them all.

4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
• I don’t have to explain myself to Him. Before I form the words. Or if I can’t form the words. He knows it.

5 You hem me in–behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
• Like how we “hem” a child in to protect him as we cross the road.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 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.
• David said the knowledge of God’s Spirit being wherever he showed up was too wonderful to attain. But even more mindboggling is, for us, God’s Spirit is not just present wherever we go, waiting for us.

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.
• There is no situation so dark that the Lord’s light cannot penetrate. There is no darkness that can overwhelm His light. Darkness is as light to Him.

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.
• You created my inmost being, so you know how I am wired.

16(b)All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
• I’m not leaving here until my ordained days are over. Until then, I’m indestructible.

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.

• God does not become conscious of you only when you become conscious of Him. He is always mindful of us.

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.
• We listen to the news. We have loved ones who have been harmed by evil doers. Lord, make the madness stop!  And then, David realizes something. “I’ve got some issues, too! I’m not one of them, but I have those same tendencies.
o In the words of the Roman playwright Terence: “I am human, I consider nothing human alien to me.”
o 1 Corinthians 10:12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
• As we saw last week, we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That is who we are, and that is how God appraises us. Now and forever. But we don’t always behave like it.
• So David he concludes with these words…

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.
• Lord, You know me. You love me. Help me to be open to Your coaching. Show me where I can be better.