A Study in Psalms - Psalm 139, Part 1

Our text today is Psalm 139, and the title of today's message is Knowing God and Being Known by God. There is an outline in the bulletin if you have a bulletin. It was April 15, 2013. It was a beautiful day in Boston, Massachusetts, and the annual Boston Marathon was well underway. Most of the runners had crossed the finish line. People were celebrating. It was a beautiful day and it was a joyous occasion. When at 2.50 in the afternoon, two bombs exploded, killing three people and injuring hundreds of people.

Yet within hours, the police and authorities had identified the bombers. They didn't tell us, but they had. And within days, they captured one and killed another. How did they solve the case so quickly when many cases take weeks, months, years to solve? Well, the answer is through video cameras. There was a video camera on the Lord and Taylor department store that they saw the two bombers, and then they were able to take video camera after video camera after video camera and trace these bombers wherever they went.

The use of video cameras is everywhere now, isn't it? We have them on buildings. We have them in our cars and our dash cams. We have them in our ring doorbells, don't we? We have them on drones. We have them in satellites. They're everywhere. And these cameras are catching the evil deeds of people everywhere, aren't they? The two terrorists were captured and justice was administered, but our society today doesn't seem to know right and wrong. Everywhere, people seem to be getting away with crimes and misdemeanors.

Let me just give you a few examples. A child can disobey his mom when she says, you know, stay out of the cupboard or stay out of the cookie jar, and that child can steal a cookie and mom may not know. A student can cheat on his exam and the professor or teacher may not catch him. A thief can literally pick up bunches of clothes in California and walk out of the store and nobody does anything these days if you've seen that video. A baseball team can cheat in the Houston Astros. They certainly got away with it, didn't they?

A businessman can cheat on his taxes and it's doubtful the IRS will even audit him. Politician can accept a bribe and he'll probably get away with it, right? A husband can sneak away at night and look at pornography and his wife probably doesn't know about it, right?

But the God of the universe knows and sees all things. He doesn't need a video camera. He is the ultimate video camera. The Bible says the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.

Psalms 3415 says the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous. Now God really doesn't have eyeballs. When the Bible talks about God's eyes and today in this psalm we'll talk about the hand of God, that's something called an anthropomorphism. We don't know how to describe this great magnificent God so we apply human characteristics that we have to God even though God is a spirit and doesn't have eyes. In the Bible, this God is called Elohim. First off in Genesis 1.1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Elohim is the creator God, emphasizes power and might. When you get to chapter 3 of Genesis, he's called Yahweh and that's the personal name of God who has a covenant relationship with the nation Israel. When you get to Genesis 16, Hagar calls God El Royi, meaning the God who sees everything. God knows every single sin of every single person who ever lived past, present and future. In all of scripture there are 1189 chapters in the Bible, right? I don't think there's a better portion of scripture than Psalm 139 that teaches us about God.

So this morning we will look at Psalm 139. It was Ibn Ezra, a Jewish rabbi in the Middle Ages that declared Psalm 139 the coronation psalm. What he meant by that is he said this is the greatest psalm in the entire Psalter of the 150 psalms and I believe it's true. This is a wisdom psalm and we will read all 24 verses today, even though today we will only look at the first 12, impossible to cover 24 verses on one Sunday.

This is such a great psalm, but let's read it. Psalm 139, it says to the choir master of Psalm of David, Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me, you have known me, you know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar, you search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all together. You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high. I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to the heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utter most parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say surely darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day for darkness is as light with you.

For you form my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, integrally woven in the depths of the earth. 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 they were none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them.

If I were to count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God. O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do not I hate those who hate you, O Lord, and do not I loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Let's pray. Father, we ask that you'd open our eyes that we could see wonderful things in your law. Father, may we know God this morning and may we understand that God knows us intimately. In Jesus' name, amen. The psalm has a superscription which simply says to the choir master, a psalm of David. This is one of the last eight psalms that David will write. David's last eight psalms are Psalms 138 to Psalms 145, and this is the second of his last eight.

The structure of this psalm is worth looking at and repeating. You may have noticed there are 24 verses, and there are four paragraphs. Each paragraph has six verses, and the verses are split out. The first six verses deal with God's omniscience.

The second stanza deals with God's omnipresence, and we'll talk about those today. And then next week, we'll look at the third stanza talking about God's omnipotence.

And the fourth stanza we'll talk about next week can be debated. Some commentators will call it the omni-righteousness of God or the omni-purity of God, while others say it's an imprecatory prayer and God's dealing with vengeance on David's enemy. So there are two points to our outline today. Number one, God knows everything about me, verses 1 to 6, and point two, God sees everything around me, verses 7 to 12.

The main idea in the first six verses is that David is overwhelmed that God knows everything about him.

The theological term, as I mentioned, is the omniscience of God. God sees everything. He knows everything. He begins the psalm by saying, Oh, Lord, you have searched me and known me. Notice the emphasis on the words you and me.

If you were to reread this psalm very slowly, you would notice the use of first person plural, I, me, or my, 50 times.

This is a very, very personal psalm by David. And then, in speaking to God, David will address God in second person, and he will say you or your 30 times.

So this is a wonderful, magnificent psalm. David will also cry out, Oh, Lord, three times, and he'll cry out, Oh, God, three times. So verse 1, David says, God has searched him in the past. And we'll look at next week, David will ask God to search for him in the present.

So you have searching in verse 1, searching in verse 24. The word search him literally means to dig for precious metals. The same words used in Job 28.3, when Job is talking about digging down into the earth and bringing out the precious metal. God literally digs through us. He digs through our thoughts, our deeds, our words, like a miner would dig for metal. Job would also say that, God, you seek out my iniquity, and you search out my sin in Job 10.6. There's a very famous verse we quote often about the heart.

Jeremiah 17.9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? But seldom do we read the next verse, verse 10, which says, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his way, according to the fruit of his deeds. And 1 Corinthians 2.10 says, these things God has revealed us through the spirit, for the spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God. David states this great doctrine that God has perfect knowledge of us.

And we have six sub points. Number one, God knows everything I do. You know, I mentioned about the activity of God in these verses, you, your 30 times. There are praises like, you know God, you discern God, you hem me in God. This is not a distant God, but a close up God that's involved in our daily affairs, that knows us intimately, everything we do. God knows more about David than David knows about himself. God knows more about you and me than we know about ourselves. It reminds me when Jesus was sitting at the well, talking with the woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, and he's talking to her and he says to her, go call your husband.

And the woman trying to cover up her lies and her sinful past says, you know, I have no husband. And Jesus looks at her in complete omniscience and says, you're right. You have no husband. You've had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. Jesus knew that woman and he knew the sin in her heart and he knows it in our heart. Not only does God know everything I do, but he knows everything I think. This is one that ought to convict us a lot because, you know, we think sin is when you physically hit somebody, when you curse somebody, when you do something, but God knows our thoughts even if we don't act upon them.

He says, you discern my thoughts. We think of God being far away in the highest heaven, but he knows our thoughts intimately. When Mary, in her Magnificent in Luke 1, holding baby Jesus, said he has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, prophesying about the baby Messiah she would hold. In the very next chapter, Simeon would hold that baby Jesus when he was being dedicated to the temple and he prophesied that a sword will pierce through your own soul also to Mary so that the thoughts from many hearts will be revealed.

This baby Jesus would grow up and he would reveal the thoughts and hearts of the sinfulness of mankind. The religious leaders thought that as long as they did not act upon the sin, it wasn't sin. But Jesus in Matthew 9, one of many times, it says, but Jesus knowing their thoughts said why do you think evil in your hearts? One of the many, many times that Jesus knew the thoughts of the Jewish leaders and he knows our thoughts. God doesn't merely know what we think. He knows the motives behind what we think.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10 5 that we are to destroy the arguments and the lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. And we are to take captive all the thoughts in our minds. So you may not act on the wickedness in your mind, but God knows those thoughts. Moving on to number three, God knows everywhere I go.

He says you searched out my path and you searched out my lying down. In verse one it said God had searched David laying down, getting up. Now it says that he's, I'm sorry, it says David in verse one says God has searched him. Here in verse three he says God has searched his path and is lying down. Some translations like the NSB says scrutinize. I think we all know that word. God scrutinized David's path. The word literally means you have sifted like old days when we would sift the wheat to get out the boils or whatever.

You have sifted my travels, you've sifted my path. God knows everywhere we've been, everywhere we're going. God does sift through the wheat and the chaff of our lives. So verse two says when I sit down and verse three says when I lie down, you know, my ways, God, you're acquainted with all my ways. The new LSB translation says God is intimately acquainted with all my ways. It reminds me of two stories in the Bible, Adam and Eve, the first man and woman on the earth.

After they sinned, they tried to hide from God, right? And they're hiding from God and God is walking in the garden and God calls, where are you? God doesn't need to say, look for them. He knows where they are. But they say, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid. God was searching out Adam and Eve in the garden. Later Jonah didn't want to do what God said and Jonah ran from God. You know, he bought a ticket and he fleed to Tarshish, tried to go thousands of miles away from God. And you know what happened there?

God was with him all the time. Job would simply say in Job 2310, he knows the way I take. There's no fooling God. God knows everything I do. God knows everything I think. God knows everywhere I go. And number four, God knows everything I say. He says in verse four, even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it altogether. In some point too, God knows what I don't say. Then of course here in sub point four, he surely knows what I say. Not a single word spoken or unspoken, God does not know.

In Matthew five, Jesus said, you heard it was said of those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable of judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable for judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Whoever says you fool will be liable to the hellfire. Jesus takes the old Testament commandment of murder and applies it in the new Testament. It says, when you curse a brother, when you insult a brother, that is murder in the heart.

Jesus would also say in Matthew 12, 36 and 37. I tell you on the day of judgment, people will have to give account for every careless word they speak for by your words, you'll be justified and by your words, you'll be condemned. And that includes social media. You know, everybody's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and people are putting comments out there. A lot of nasty, filthy comments. Every one of those words will be recorded for the day of judgment. The Bible describes our tongues as sharp razors, the damage they can do.

They can inflict serious damage. Our words that come out of our mouth show what's inside our heart, right? The number of suicides on our nation is shocking, and they seem to be increasing since COVID came out. But not a day goes by when it seems like there's a teenager that ends up committing suicide because they were bullied, they were mocked, they were insulted on social media, and it breaks your heart. But it happens every day. You know, God is not like an iPad. Recently, I needed to buy an iPad for my daughter, Tessa.

So the decision came down to, do you get the 32 gigabyte one, the 64 gigabyte, or the 128, and I guess they have 256 and 512. Well, I went cheap. It was $300. But of course, after a couple months, Tessa's iPad is full of cartoons and music and videos, and I can't add any more videos. I can't. It's full. God is not like an iPad, you know. He doesn't need to add any gigabytes to his memory bank. You know, there is something called a world population clock. Have you heard of this? Google it sometime.

World population clock. If you were to Google it right now, it would say there is 7.8, almost 7.9 billion people on Earth right now, and it lists the number of people who are born every day, the number of people who die every day. So I guess in two years, two years, we will have 8 billion people on Earth. And I guess the Earth increases in population about 50 million a year. So in 40 more years, I don't think I'm going to be here, there will be 10 billion people on Earth. But think about it. God knows every single person who ever lived in the past, in the present, and the future.

God does not need to add gigabytes to his memory bank. God does not need to grow in knowledge. God does not need to learn. He knows all the people that are going to be born if he allows the world to continue 40 more years and 10 billion people are born. There's no effort on his part. It's instantaneously. He knows it all. God doesn't grow in knowledge. He's perfect. He always was perfect. He always is perfect in knowledge and wisdom. God knows everything I do. God knows everything I think. God knows everywhere I go.

God knows everything I say. So point five, God uses this knowledge. God uses this knowledge to watch over us and to protect us. He says in verse five, you hem me in behind and before. What does it mean you hem me in? Well, it literally means you surround me, God. You know what's in store for my future, God. You know the past, the present, and the future. And God uses this knowledge to keep us from harm. His knowledge has a purpose, right? Purpose for the future and judgment day, the purpose for now.

He guides us in our path. You know, I love the book of Esther. Martin Luther did not like the book of Esther. He said he would like to throw it in the Elba River. He didn't like it because a lot of commentators attack the book of Esther and say it doesn't belong in the canon, the 66 books, because it doesn't mention God. It doesn't mention prayer. But I love the book of Esther. And you know, when you look at the book of Esther, things aren't going too good for the Jews, right?

Well, Esther is the queen. That was good. But then Mordecai, Haman raises to power, and he's a descendant of the Edomites, and he hates the Jews. So he passes a law that's going to allow for the execution, the holocaust of the Jews and the entire Persian empire. And in fact, the day before Mordecai is to be executed, Haman builds a gallow 50 meters high, and they're going to hang Mordecai on that the next day. So everything's gone wrong. The law's passed, everything looks bleak, everything looks sad.

But when you go to Esther chapter 6 verse 1, it begins with the words, on that night, the king could not sleep. That is a bizarre verse, right? The king could not sleep. So the king calls his attendants, I guess they don't have sleeping pills then, says, bring the book of remembrance, the book of deeds. And they start reading the deeds. And they remember what happened in chapter 2, that Mordecai saved the king's life from being assassinated. And the king says, what honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this?

And the attendants say, nothing has been done for him. Thus begins the rise of Mordecai and the fall of Haman in chapter 6. So in the darkest of times, in the worst of times, when the Jews were going to be executed, when Mordecai was going to be hung, the exact time God lays his hand on this evil king, for all we know, and doesn't allow him to sleep so that he can save the Jews. Amazing. God's timing is perfect. They call that the providence of God, by the way. You know, we have talked a lot about death these last year and a half, haven't we?

Every day, death, death, death, COVID death. You know, Myanmar, unfortunately, the third wave is decreasing.

But in Myanmar, things are bad and people are dying, people are dying here. So we talk a lot about death. But I think we need to remember what that great missionary to Africa said, David Livingston. He said, I am immortal until the will of God in me is accomplished. We need to live our lives remembering that God has hemmed us in. He's not going to allow you to die until he is finished with you. Let's move on to point six. Point six, God is incomprehensible. I can hardly say it. What does that mean?

It means it's almost impossible to comprehend this great God that we have. David says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too high. I can't attain it. I can't even grasp it. I believe David is a shepherd boy in the psalm. I don't believe he's the king. And he's sitting out in his fields watching his sheep, and he's thinking, meditating upon God. And he just kind of blows his mind. And the conclusion of the first six verses is that God is just, he's almost incomprehensible.

He's impossible to comprehend. But at the same time, God is wonderful. It was Richard Sibes that said, how shall the finite comprehend the infinite? We shall apprehend him, but not comprehend him. You know, we get the illnesses of God in the Bible, don't we? Moses got to see the backside of God. Isaac got to wrestle with God. Three disciples got to see Jesus transfigured on the mountain. But still, we don't know a lot about God. And that's why I love this psalm. He's the creator. We're the creatures.

He's infinite. We're finite. He's eternal. We're temporary. He's omnipotent. We're weak. He's wise. We're foolish. He's holy. We're unholy. Man is perfectly known by God. God is imperfectly known. God is imperfectly known to man. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 29, 29, that the secret things belong to God, but the revealed things. We know a little bit about God, don't we? Isaiah 55, 8, 9 says, My thoughts, God saying, My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways and your ways and my thoughts and your thoughts.

This great God is hard to understand. Yet despite being incomprehensible in sight, not understanding his omniscience and his omnipresence, God loves us and gives a personal relationship with us. You know, we do not have a religion with a distant God. We have a personal relationship with the living God. The gods of the false religions of the worlds are not gods of mercy. They're not gods of love. They're false gods. Psalm 138, 6 says, For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly. Despite the incomprehensibility of God, he created us, he loved us, and despite the sin, he sent his only son to die on the cross for us to pay our penalty for sin.

He just asked us to believe in him and receive him. He knows us intimately, and he allows believers to know him even more. We need to hurry on to point to God knows, God sees everything around me. So God knows everything about me. God sees everything around me. The main idea in verses 7 to 12 is, David is overcome with the thought that God is always with him. It's impossible to escape the presence of God. The theological term here is the omnipresence of God. A heathen philosopher wanted to mock a Christian man one time, so he asked him, where is God?

The Christian looked at him and said, let me ask you first, where is he not? God sees me and God guides me are the two sub points. God sees me. He says, where shall I go for your spirit? Where shall I free from your presence? Now, this psalm is not written about pantheism, stoicism or Hinduism that teach that God is everywhere in creation. Our God is present in creation, yet he is distinct from creation. He says, your spirit, your presence, you are there, your hand, your right hand. God is everywhere, but he's not in everything.

So David asked two rhetorical questions here. Where shall I go for your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? And we know the answer is nowhere. There is nowhere you can go. Now, David is not afraid and he's not fleeing like Jonah. He's overwhelmed. He's in awe of this great God. And David finds comfort in God. Remember, David was a fleeing man. David was running from Saul for 13 years, but everywhere he went, everywhere he hid, God was with him. Frederick William Robinson said, there's not a spot in which his piercing eye is not on us and his uplifted band cannot find us out.

So David says there are three places. First off, heaven and hell. He says, if I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. This is the first of four if statements, if, if, if, if, if is a conjunction.

So David is saying very poetically in the event, hypothetically that God could do this, God would always be there. He says, ascend to heaven. God's already in heaven. But what about the lower heavens? I believe there are 10, Tom, 10 people in outer space right now, 10 people in the international space station circling the earth, way out in upper space, the lower heavens, God's there. God knows their sin. God knows their deeds, right? He then says, if I make my bed in Sheol, the NIV says the depths of the earth, if we could dig a tunnel to the center of the earth, God would be there.

Sheol is the, the realm of the old Testament dead. It's where the righteous go. Jacob said in Genesis 7, 37, 35, I'm going to go to Sheol. And in the sons of Cora who were evil, they were going to go to the, to Sheol. So the new Testament, the equivalent word is Hades. God says in Amos 9 verses two to four, if they dig into Sheol from there, my hand shall take them.

If they climb up to heaven from there, I will bring them down. If they hide themselves in the top of Carmel from there, I will search them out and take them. If they hide from my site at the bottom of the sea, God says, I will find him.

There's nowhere he can find him. So whether it's heights or depths, God will find them. He then says from east to west, verse nine says, if I take the wings of the morning, what is the wings of the morning? It's a metaphor for the sunbeam, the sunbeams of light that we all know rise in the east and settle in the west. And he says that if you follow those sunbeams of light from the east to the west, if you follow them to the uttermost parts of the sea, God's still there. He then has two long verses about darkness and light.

The fourth if statement, he mentions darkness three times. And, you know, we begin the message by describing God as an all seeing video camera, right? Well, here, God has a, all is a night vision goggles, except he doesn't need the night vision goggles, right? You see the movies with the Navy seals of the SWAT team, and they have those night vision goggles. They can see in the night. God doesn't need those night vision goggles. He can see because day and night are the same to him. Daniel two 22 says he reveals deep and hidden things.

He knows what is in the darkness and light dwells within him. Hebrews four 13 says no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of whom we must give an account. There was a famous Swedish scientist named Linnaeus. He had a sign over the door of his library that said, live innocently. God is present. That's what David is saying. There's nowhere from the corners of the universe to the corners of the earth. God is everywhere. So number one, God sees me.

Number two, God guides me. I believe the verse 10 is the conclusion here. God guides me. So he says in verse 10, even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. Verse five, God said, lay your hand upon me. Verse 10, he says, your hand will lead me. Your right hand will lay hold of me. Here we have another anthropomorphism, another characteristic of man, a hand applied to the God, the spirit God. But it just simply means that God is near. He's never far away. He's always with us.

Always near. God did indeed lead and hold David to be the king of Israel for 40 years. Before that, he was a shepherd boy, right? And I believe he wrote this when he was a shepherd boy. And the New Testament describes us as sheep, right? And the Bible says in John 10, 29, my sheep.

If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you hear Jesus voice. He says, I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. So what do we learn from these first 12 verses?

We haven't even got to the good verses. We'll get to those next week. If God knows everything about me and God sees everything about me, what's the application? I want to give you three points of application quickly. Number one, those who know God will do a self-examination.

Lance has already preached one message using verses 23 and 24, which we'll look at extensively next week.

If you really know God, you're going to do a self-examination verse one. David said God had searched him in the past and you'll see next week. Verse 24, David asked God to search him in the present. You know, there's a danger in this text today. There's a danger in this message that I'm teaching you today that you're learning a little bit about God. Okay. God is omnipresent. God is omniscient. God is incomprehensible. Wow. I get all this knowledge about God, but you leave here today and there's no impact.

There's a danger that you'll have head knowledge about God, but that head knowledge not affect your heart knowledge to impact your life. When you read this Psalm, this is one of the Psalms that you ought to literally tremble at the words of God. When we see who God is, this is a, don't let this Psalm just be about knowing God, but understand that God knows you intimately. We need to know more about God as he knows us. And I would ask you, verse 23 and 24 is one of the greatest prayers in the Bible.

It says, search me, Oh Lord, know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and leave me in the way understanding. Do you have that verse memorized? Those two verses? If not, you have a homework assignment. You have seven days to memorize that because we will look at that next week.

But David is asking God to do surgery on his heart. And that's what we need to do. So two things. If you're a non-believer today, maybe you don't know a lot about God. Maybe you're new at coming to church. Maybe somebody brought you. God asks you to examine your life. God asks you to know what little you know about the Bible, that this omniscient, this omnipresent God, that someday there's going to be a final judgment. Someday there's going to be a time of complete revelation for everything you did in the past.

The Bible says in Revelation 20 verse 12, and I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne.

This is the great throne judgment. And books were opened and another book was open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. You will not escape your sin. There is a penalty for sin. God knows you and he asks you to repent from your sins. So I asked you today, if you do not know Jesus or you need to know more about him, see me or an elder after church. But for believers, we are also asked to examine ourself. And we examine ourself in two ways.

We examine ourself through the word of God and through prayer, right? And we'll look at more of this next week.

But the Bible was not just given to us to increase our knowledge, like learn about God from this prayer. The Bible was given to us to conduct our conduct, to live a holy life. And the word of God in Hebrews 4, very familiar passage. Hebrews 4.12 says that the word of God, when you read it, it discerns our thoughts. The Holy Spirit and the word of God, when you read it, convicts us. How often have you read a chapter in the Bible where you have to take a time out and say, man, I did not treat my wife right yesterday, or I lost my temper yesterday and I have to confess my sins.

That's the word of God, discerning your thoughts. That's the Holy Spirit working your life. That's self-examination that we need to do. Verse 13 says that no creature is hidden from God's sight. We're exposed, naked and exposed to the eyes of whom we must give an account. And who is that? Our Lord Jesus Christ someday. So the word of God helps us with self-examination and prayer. If you continued in that chapter of Hebrews 4, you get to verse 16 says, let us then with confidence draw near to God, near the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

It's talking about we can go to God in prayer anytime. We don't need a priest. We can do it anytime. But someone has said, it is strange that while praying, we seldom ask for a change of character, but we always ask for a change of circumstances. Isn't that so true? Change my job, change my marriage, change my family, change my home. I don't want to live in California anymore. Change, change, change my healing change. We always ask for a change in our circumstances, but seldom do we go to God and say, change my character.

That's what David's praying here. And that's what we need to pray. And we'll talk more about that. So number one, those who know God will do a self-examination.

Number two, those who know God will have great thoughts of God. You know, when you read this Psalm, verse six says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. Verse 17 says, how precious to me are your thoughts, oh God, how vast the sum of them. You know, on Wednesday night, just a few people were there, but we talked about Psalm 100. We talked about the lost art of meditation. You know, you're hearing the word of God today, right? But you need to be reading the word of God. You need to be studying the word of God.

You need to be memorizing the word of God. And number five, we need to meditate upon the word of God. But this art of meditation is lost. Not many people do it, but David did out in the field. Now, if there was a shepherd today in Israel, I bet he'd have a cell phone and he wouldn't be meditating, right? He'd be looking at Facebook or Instagram or something. We fill our minds with garbage, but seldom do we meditate. And there's a lost art of meditation. And you can, I spent more time on it on Wednesday, but I just encourage you to have an index cards or a sticky note.

And when that verse jumps off the page, maybe it's a verse about some area in your life you need to work on. You know, like being kind to your wife, loving your wife or temper. I use the illustration on Wednesday night about driving right now is crazy. So try not to lose your temper. And I use Proverbs 1911 is the verse I'm meditating upon. So when I get in the car, I overlook an offense. I don't lose my temper. Meditate upon a verse, write that verse down and say it again in the morning, at lunch, in the evening.

That's why I say, write it down, have it with you. Keep it in your wallet. Take some time to meditate and ask God to do a work in your life. Because those people who know God will have great thoughts of God. So number one, those who know God will do a self-examination.

Number two, those who know God will have great thoughts of God. And number three, those who know God will show great boldness for God.

Those who know God will show great boldness for God. A couple of months ago, Esteban Bustos, our Spanish pastor, who's a graduate of the Master's Seminary and myself got to go up to the Master's Seminary and John MacArthur had a kind of a breakfast round table for pastors. And we got to go and sit just a few feet from John and ask questions. And John says something that struck me there. John was talking about, he was with his four-year-old grandson and he was at church or after church with his grandson.

And a man looked at John and said, boy, isn't it scary times for that little boy to have to grow up and be around this society? Isn't that what we think? Oh, you have teenagers. I feel sorry for you. You have a lot of kids. I feel sorry they're gonna have to be raised in this generation. That's what we think, right? John MacArthur looked at that man. He said, no, that boy was born for this generation. That born was something affected. That boy was born to do great works for this generation. That's what we need.

We need to raise our children to be bold for God. And if they know God, they will. Daniel 11.32 says, the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. We need to be like the apostles in Acts 5.29. We must obey God rather than man. We need to have Romans 1.16, burn in your heart that I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it's the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

I quoted one missionary and I'll quote another missionary, William Carey. You heard his famous quote that says, expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. Well, the first five words are easy, right?

Expect great things from God. We expect that, right? I expect God to do great works. But the last five words, attempt great things for God. That's you and me. And I believe that those people who have, those people who do a self-examination of their heart, those people who know God will have great thoughts of God. And those people who know God will show great boldness for God. They will do that. So we've only covered the first 12 verses, knowing God and being known by God.

And next week, we'll look at paragraph number three and paragraph number four, knowing God and being known by God.