Dear People of God
The Lord loves you.
That is the clear message of our text today. Psalm 139 poetically draws out of those
things that our Lord does to be with you and to have you be with him. There is nothing that stops him or stands
in his way; so great is His love for you.
The text is beautiful, wouldn’t you say?
O Lord you have
searched me and you know me. You know
when I set and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
As you read, you might get the image in your mind of two
star crossed lovers. Newlyweds. A man and a woman who are so enamored with each
other that they don’t care about one another’s faults. They still have that newly married glow about
them. And in their love for each other
they dote over one another. They attend
to every word spoken by the other. They
long to always be together. They are
deeply and genuinely concerned about and for the other. We think of the genuineness and the purity of
this sort of love. Many of us have
gotten burned by our hopes for love, taken advantage or discovered the imperfections
in the one we have love. This love is
love apart from all of that cynicism. It
is love without being jaded. It is true,
honest, open and sincere. All the best
with none of the worst. This is how our
Lord loves us.
Our text tells us that the Lord discerns our thoughts from
afar; in other words, the Lord knows what we are thinking. Our text says that the Lord knows the our
words even before they are on our tongue.
The Lord knows our words and he understands our thoughts. Has it ever happened that you have not been
understood? Have you ever tried to
describe what you have experienced and how you have felt because of it and no
one has understood? That is
frustrating. It is lonely.
It happens in human relationships that even when we try to
understand one another, often we fail. A
young husband does his best to read the thoughts of his bride by reading her
expressions. He knows what she is thinking
by the tone in her voice or some expression on her face. He relies on his knowledge of her tell-tale signs
to know the thoughts in her head. And he
can at times be quite good at reading these thoughts.
But he is not perfect.
As any husband can tell you, no matter how well you know your wife there
are those moments when you just don’t know what it is she needs. You can try everything and still have it be
the wrong thing because, we just can’t read a person’s thoughts. We cannot perceive someone’s thoughts from
afar. We cannot know the words on a
person’s tongue before she has spoken them.
Even when we try, we come up short.
But God does not.
God knows it all. God
does know our thoughts. There is not one
thought that goes through our hearts or our heads that is lost to his
attention. He sees them all. He knows them all. He is attentive to them all. Unlike that star crossed lover whose bride
weeps for a reason he cannot discern, God does know. He does understand. There is no need for us to feel loneliness
and fear because God discerns our thoughts and understands our words.
To read this and to understand this is glorious and so
comforting, but it is also terrifying. Wouldn’t you say?
The Lord does know our thoughts. He does know the deepest and darkest secrets
that are hidden away in our hearts. No matter
how pure the love between the husband and wife, there are thoughts that they
would each prefer to not share with
the other. There are thoughts that they
are glad to keep hidden. Moments when
one’s heart is faithless, or spiteful, or resentful. Thoughts that would hurt or anger or offended
the other.
Yet all those thoughts are laid bare before God. As terrifying as it would be for your husband
to know what you really think of his hobby that you pretend to love, as
frightful as it would be for your wife to know where your eyes wandered when
she was not looking, consider the fact that God does know. God sees what your spouse does not. God understands about you those things that
your spouse does not. And while your
husband or wife can certainly cause you pain and grief and suffering, and believe
me, so often they do, remember the words of the Lord, “Do not fear those who
can destroy the body but cannot kill the soul.
Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both body and soul in
hell.” (Matthew 10:28) Fear God.
God who knows and sees the thoughts in your head even before you know or
see or understand them. God who hears
the words in your tongue even before you speak them. Fear God.
Our Psalm is comforting.
It is beautiful. It is reassuring. But only with Jesus. Only with Jesus can we find rest in these words. Only with Jesus can we be at peace in knowing
this about God; in knowing that God
knows these things about us.
We believe the Bible to teach that God is omniscient – that he
knows everything. We believe the Bible
to say that God is eternal – that he has no beginning and no end. We believe the Bible to say that God is transcendent
– that he is not bound to time and space but fills all of time and fills all
space. We say that God is omnipotent –
that he has all power in heaven and on earth.
These things are affirmed by our text.
And the implication is that if truly eternal and if he is truly all
knowing, then God knew your sin long before you were ever born. He was aware of the thoughts in your head and
the struggles of your heart long before you even had them. And it was for this reason that the Lord sent
to us His only Son Jesus.
Jesus is the solution for humanities sin. Jesus is the solution for all the suffering
of the human race. Jesus is the solution
for the evil that happens in the world around us. Jesus is the solution for the evil that
happens inside of us – in our hearts and minds.
Between you and me and us and our relationships with each other. Jesus is the solution for those sins that
turn newlyweds into old married people.
Tomorrow is Memorial Day; a national day of remembrance for
our soldiers who died to sacrifice themselves for us. These men and women have served honorably in
a God pleasing vocation. But this is a
stark reminding for us of how far the human race has fallen. In order for there to be peace on earth among
governments and nations there must be that threat that we stand ready to go to
war. We must be ready to kill and we
must be ready to die. To take away the our
armed forces is to invite violence. So far has the human race fallen away from
God.
And it is precisely for this reason that the world needs
Jesus. There is violence and death in
the heart of man. God perceives it from
afar. Not only that, the Lord hears the
words on our lips and he hears us breathing out violence and murderous threats
against each other. He sees the hatred
in our hearts that we have against each other.
And so He sent Jesus. He sent his
only son to be the sacrifice for that sin, for that hatred, for that violence.
The Lord comes to pay for that sin that creates war between nations but also
that violence and hatred that leads to disruptions in our homes, in our
marriages, in our friendships. There is
violence in our hearts and so the Lord pays for it with violence. Violence against his son. Violence against Jesus. Jesus is beaten and bloodied. Jesus is broken and abused. Jesus is murdered and slain. And the Lord has done this for us. The Lord has permitted us to do this to him
so that he could save us. So that he
could save us from each other and so that he could save us from ourselves.
And so this is done.
The work of forgiveness is accomplished and sin is washed away. Its price is paid and its guilt atoned for. And having accomplished the work of
salvation, the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven having conquered sin and death,
having overcome the things that overcome us. He took his place on the throne of heaven and
the first thing he did was send to us His Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost the Lord sent His Spirit to his
disciples so that they preached and their preaching led to baptizing and faith
and to new Christians and to a new church.
And the number of the Lord’s faithful grew. Because now, the violence and sin that
separates us from each other and from God has been done away with and a new
fellowship could arise. Fellowship with
God and fellowship with each other as we all gather together around the gifts
of the Gospel. God’s Word, Baptism, the
Lord’s Supper that tie us to the Lord and that tie us to each other.
Love is a wonderful emotion, a wonderful feeling, a gift
from God that he gives between friends and family; a husband and wife. Yet
sadly a gift that is misused and undone by the violence and sin that lives in
the heart of each one of us. This sin
breaks apart the unity and the fellowship but God restores it. He rebuilds it. He recreates it in Jesus so that this love is
once again ours to enjoy. And with Jesus
our relationship to each other, but also and especially with God is remade to
the specifications of our Psalm.
O LORD, you have
searched me and 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,
O LORD, you know it altogether.
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.
(Psalm 139:1-6 ESV)
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