Sermon Cloud

INTRODUCTION

As we celebrate Reformation Sunday we are reminded of the great courage and sacrifice of the men and women that God used during the 16th century as they fought for nothing less than the recovery of the Bible. But it wasn't just a fight for a book about God; it was a fight for a right apprehension - a recovery of our understanding of the God that the Scriptures revealed; a full-scale recovery of theology.

This morning it is my lofty goal to show you "why theology matters." Theology is just one of those words that people tend to run from for some reason. It seems like an academic and highbrow thing, this theology! (Something for the experts who like reading big books and using archaic words, and debating obscure concepts that have little to do with what's happening in my actual life).

So this morning I hope to bring some seemingly obscure ideas about God back down to earth - and show you why they are so very important.

Charles Spurgeon put it this way:
"There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it...Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continuing investigation of the great subject of God."

Opening Example:

• Miscarriage story. Who can experience such pain and not cry out to the heavens, "Why?"
• It's normal to wonder where God is in such circumstances.
• As RC Sproul puts it, "It is where the rubber of human anguish meets the road of divine providence."

We all have stories of joy, and pain, and suffering. Some worse than others, but we all have them, nonetheless. And I'm here to tell you that we believe to be true about God - that is - our THEOLOGY - will affect how we respond to God and one another when these flesh-and-blood struggles befall us.

Our text this morning was written by a man who was well acquainted with the heights of joy, the folly of sin, and the depths of sorrow - and of course, he was a man who also lost his child. Please turn to Psalm 139

• Here David finds great comfort in coming to grips with 3 big words - characteristics of God: Omniscience, Omnipresence and Omnipotence.
  
  
• Psalm 139 is broken into 4 stanzas and this morning we are going to look at 3 of them in depth, and if we have time, we may get into the 4th which is David's response. Let's look at each stanza in turn:
  

1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

In the movie, Italian Job, there is a catch phrase used by Donald Sutherland, "The Devil is in the details." But here in this Psalm, King David reminds us that it is God who is involved with the details. Nothing escapes God's notice. He is omniscient - ALL KNOWING.

• Jesus drove this point home when he said that the "very hairs on our head are numbered" (Matt. 10:30).
  

In telling us that God has numbered the hairs on our head, and that we have been searched and known by God, we learn that God knows us better than we know ourselves.

Most of us do not like the idea of being exhaustively and intimately "known". Let's be honest, we prefer to keep the secrets of our soul hidden from view. That God might know you in such pervasive detail is unnerving.

God has "searched and know us," David states in the opening verse. This is obviously an anthropomorphic statement. God is not surprised by anything.

What might surprise you does not surprise God. In order to demonstrate this David employs a figure of speech common in Hebrew poetry called a Merism, which uses polar opposites to indicate the totality of something.

Thus David says, "You know when I sit down and when I stand up. You know me when I'm lying down and in all states; active or passive - it doesn't matter. In all of life's activities, you are acquainted with me! Nothing escapes God's eye. His knowledge is complete.

And just in case there is any doubt, David goes on: "Even before a word is on my tongue, you know it altogether." (CS Lewis on God)

This is how I know I sin numerous times every day without ever knowing it. Because I know I've learned to control my outward actions, and even successfully hold my tongue (sometimes), but the LORD knows my every thought. He knows when I'm harboring bitterness; when I'm impatient; He knows my lusts and self-centered motives. Nothing escapes his notice.

Jean Paul Satre' in Being and Nothingness tells the story of looking through a keyhole at someone who doesn't know they are being watched; an unviewed viewer...(explain) "dehumanizing, disempowering"

But what Satre assumes is that God will do what we would do with such knowledge. Because if we had the dirt on someone we might hold it over them, but of course God is not us.

I understand Satre's concern. I get it. And this would surely frighten me if I were not aware of his compassion: Psalm 130:3 states, "Lord, if you were to count our sins, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness."

How we react to God's all-knowingness really depends upon our relationship to Him, doesn't it? If you've been justified (set in right relation) to God by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, then of course, the fact that God observes and intimately knows your every move should bring you great comfort. This was true of King David.

Look at verse 5: "You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me." This makes me think of watching a pre-school or kindergarten class cross the road. You have an adult at the front and another bringing up the rear to make sure the children are protected. That's the picture David is presenting to us. Our God in his all-knowing wisdom "hems us in", places his loving hand upon us. He goes before and behind and is near and knows us completely.

And David's anxious response exclaims, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me! It's beyond me! It's too much for me!"

How does this affect you? How do you respond to this?

• Does it elicit fear in your soul?
• Anxiety?
• Anger?
• Comfort?
  

For David, God's knowledge is wonderful. It's too high, too wide, too expansive for his finite mind to comprehend. There's an old Latin maxim: Finitum et Capax Infinitum (the finite cannot grasp the infinite).

Such knowledge is too wonderful for us and it often solicits the response, "Where can we go to hide from such a God?" So in vv. 7-12, David turns his attention upon God's presence.

II. Omnipresence - The God who is Everywhere

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,"
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

David asks a series of rhetorical questions. Where can you go? Where can you hide? Of course, the answer is NOWHERE! There is no place where God is not present; God is omnipresent, which is to say that He is both near and far-off. He fills both the heavens and the earth. He is not confined to spatial limitations because he is eternal and infinite in his very being.

Whether you are at church; the office; or your own backyard - God is there! He is not some idle bystander in life but an active God.

But of course, humanity since Adam has attempted to run and hide, perhaps some of you here today have attempted this (explain Adam in the Garden - followed by Jonah).

In times of trial and adversity, I find this truth deeply comforting, because we are never alone. We can never be geographically or physically beyond God's help. He is ever present to hear our prayers and worship.

It's funny. Sometimes I pray for God to with be so-and-so. Our problem, of course, is not that God isn't with us, our problem is that we forget the Lord is always with us. We don't need to pray for the presence of God - we always have that. What we need to pray for is for us to be mindful of His presence for Jesus said upon his ascension to heaven, "Lo - I'm with you always!"

And so we cannot escape God's knowledge - He is omniscient.
And we cannot escape God's presence - He is omnipresent.
Lastly, David says we cannot escape God's power - He is omnipotent.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
My soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast are the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

III. Omnipotence - The God who is Powerful

In the midst of this beautiful doxology of God's creative power, I am always struck by one thing in particular. We exist because God wants us to exist. This Psalm teaches that there are no unwanted children - even my child that died a few weeks into being formed. God had his purpose even in that situation. David reminds us HOW PRECIOUS WE ARE TO GOD!

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!" V.17 How amazing is this verse, my friends? Think about how you feel when someone tells you they've been thinking about you. You feel good, right? Now multiply that by infinity. God thinks about you. In fact, there is not a moment in time when God is not thinking about you.

Our English word, precious, doesn't quite grasp the gravity of the Hebrew. I think of cute little Precious Moments figurines when I hear the word, but the Hebrew word is always connected with ULTIMATE Value: Jewels, Gold, and Silver. David says that God's thoughts are more important than all the gold or earthly treasure, and of course, this is significant because David was King, he actually had these things and he says that God's thoughts for him are of greater value.

This is so precious because God's thoughts actually accomplish things. God has the power to carry out His every thought. He is omnipotent - all powerful.

On what ground can David take comfort in God being all-knowing and ever-present? The answer is that it is God formed him in his mother's womb and ordained all his days. God is sovereign over his entire lifespan.

God's omnipotence is often discussed in abstract ways (can God make a rock too big for him to lift?), but here David shows how personal it is. His power is infinite. It knows no boundaries. El Shaddai & Pantokrator (Almighty One)

King David speaks of being fashioned, being formed, being made by God. We tend to think of God in abstraction, his power as something way out there somewhere, but here he displays God as the grand artist of life. He knew David before he was even born, while he was, literally in Hebrew, an embryo (unformed substance in v.16). As I said before, God is intimately involved in the details.

And I know that some of you may have been dragged here this morning and you think that everything I'm speaking of God is a bunch of nonsense. An all-seeing - all knowing - all powerful God? (Santa Claus)

Consider the facts of just the human eye:

• Every second more than 100,000 chemical reactions take place in your brain.
• It has 10 billion estimated nerve cells to record what you see and hear.
• The eye has 100 million receptor cells (rods and cones) in each eye.
• Your retina also has 4 other layers of nerve cells.
• Altogether the system makes the equivalent of 10 billion calculations a second before an image even gets to the optic nerve. Once it reaches your brain, the cerebral cortex has more than a dozen separate vision centers in which to process it.
  

That's just the human eye. Now, so you know, I got that information from unbelieving astronomer, Carl Sagan's book, "The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence," who believes that this all happened by chance! I ask you who has more faith?

Our God is Omniscient - We cannot escape him! He knows!
Our God is Omnipresent - We cannot run from Him. He's there!
Our God is Omnipotent - We cannot overpower him. He is the Almighty!

Three big words for a big God. Well...what do we do with such a God? How do we respond with this Theology?

Some of you no doubt, feel a sense of what Keller calls, Cosmic Claustrophobia. The fact that God is looking through the keyhole of your life is something that bothers you, because you know you have a lot of dirt in there. If he can really x-ray your heart and knows what you're made of deep down inside...Oh, man that is frightening! There's not enough room in your life for such a God as this.

Others may feel a sense of anger, because you feel that God is a cosmic voyeur and has no right look through the keyhole of your life and know you intimately - he's imposing upon your supposed freedom.

Blaise Pascal said we face two inescapable realities: God & Self.
If you don't like me, you can leave, right? But as we've seen you cannot escape God, but you also cannot escape your own unhappy condition. You're stuck with yourself.

What do you do if you don't like what you see? Pascal says if you don't accept God as He's revealed himself to us, finding your happiness in Him through Christ, you do one of two things:

1) Diversion. We try to divert our attention off of ourselves because we don't want to deal with God and our unhappy self, so we run after something else to keep ourselves occupied. Drugs, alcohol, sex, work. If we can just divert our attention elsewhere we won't have to deal with reality. + [poster child of my generation: Kurt Cobain]

2) Indifference. We grow callous, indifferent. You find this in contemporary slogans: Whatever, man! Live and let live! Different strokes for different folks, man. If diversion doesn't keep you from Heaven, certainly indifference will. Nothing has plagued younger generations more than this pervasive sense of: "I don't care".

I'd rather argue with someone that is passionately against what I believe, because then at least I know they CARE about something, than with indifferent person. How do reason with someone who doesn't care about anything? How do you comfort indifference? It's hard. C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters) said indifference is one of the Devil's greatest weapons.

God is not only a God of power, but also a God of love, and therefore, God does not use his power lovelessly. And it is also why we need not fear that his love will ever fail, for it is omnipotent. It is power. The very hands that tossed the galaxies around like grains of sand loved mankind so much that they let mere men nail them to the cross, all for love. The One who loved us even unto death, the supreme weakness, is infinite strength. This is the Gospel, my friends.

Peter Kreeft:
"Jesus did three things to solve the problem of suffering. First, he came. He suffered with us. He wept. Second, in becoming man he transformed the meaning of our suffering: it is now part of his work of redemption. Our death pangs become birth pangs for heaven, not only for ourselves but also for those we love. Third, he died and rose. Dying, he paid the price for sin and opened heaven to us; rising, he transformed death from a hole into a door, from an end into a beginning. "

We're back where we started. We live in a world supposedly created by a loving God. But there is suffering and pain and sin. How do we reconcile this God King David writes about with our every day problems? God's answer is Jesus. Jesus is not God off the hook but God on the hook. God did not sit there in heaven and ignore our tears. He entered in and suffered and shed his own tears. Our God understands. He is not indifferent.

Some of you have been running from God - maybe for a long time. Stop your running and embrace this God, because if you just looked down you would see you are on a treadmill and going nowhere. All the diversions and indifference in the world will not satisfy your heart's deepest longing.

ONLY THIS ALL-KNOWING - EVER PRESENT - ALL POWERFUL - ALL LOVING AND COMPASSIONATE CREATOR can, because He has built you for Himself! C.S. Lewis said the human heart was not made to run on any other fuel than God himself, SO THEOLOGY MATTERS, my friends.

If God is not this BIG, then He is not a God worth worshiping, because he cannot solve our deepest problems. But HE is this BIG and he has solved the world's dilemma through the cross of Jesus and an empty tomb.

I call you all to the conclusion that King David came to, to rest in this great God, so that we may pray David's prayer at the end of this Psalm:

Lets Pray
Search me, O God, and know my heart
Try me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any wickedness in me,

(God you see our dirt, and we thank you that you loved us in spite of it, so much so that it cost Your son's life - our heart wants to be purified, to be cleansed, as we sang earlier: What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus).
Lastly, we pray that you would lead us in your everlasting ways (because only your way is lasting). Amen.