God Knows Me

Pastor Jason's away this week, but we are blessed, honored, thankful to have a special guest speaker this morning. It's become a summer tradition for Pastor Todd Habager and his wife Marty to travel up from Fort Wayne to minister to us. So, I would advise you to come up again, Todd, and proclaim

God's Word to us this morning. Thanks for being here. Thank you. You notice I got the memo about what kind of shirt to wear from Pastor Matt today. We have the same fashion consultant, and just so you know, Pastor Jason and I have the same barber. It must be summertime because my wife

Marty and I are here at Redeemer Missionary Church. Pastor Jason has been very gracious to invite us the last, well, probably four or five summers during the time when he's away. We're glad that he can get away, and it's a great opportunity for me to be able to serve him and to serve you as he

gain some rest and I do some work this morning. And this is good work. We get to study God's Word together. And last time, last summer when I was here, we looked into God's Word in Psalm 73.

And so, I thought as I came back again this year, we'd want to return to the Psalms. As you probably know, it's a big songbook. It's a big songbook in the middle of the Bible. In fact, the word

psalm is a biblical word for song. It's a collection, this book of 150 Hebrew songs composed by various Hebrew authors and sung by the Old Testament people of God in worship or on their way to worship.

By the way, I want to say we always enjoy worshiping here. There's something, there's just something very substantial and meaty about the words and the prayers, and we find this experience here with you each summer, very spiritually nourishing. You are blessed here in regard to worship.

Well, anyway, as we look at these Psalms this morning, we're reminded they were penned by various men as songs to God or songs about God. And in fact, they were spiritual journals by these men that

were set to music. But at the same time, these songs also turn out to be messages from God, for He's the one who inspired the lyrics that they chose to write. And so the Psalms convey for us godly wisdom on how to live life, how to worship the Lord, how to trust the Lord. They even model for

us how to process our emotions and our struggles in healthy ways. In all kinds of situations, we can lean on the Psalms to help us talk to God. In fact, that's what Jesus did. We know that when He was on

the cross, He spoke words at least seven times as He hung there dying. The Gospels record seven times that Jesus spoke up. And did you know that two of them are exact quotes from the book of Psalms?

At one point, He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm 22.1. He was meditating on that Psalm where a servant of God was going through struggles, and he fought through that time by his faith in the Lord, and Jesus was doing the same. At the end of his life, when he was about to breathe

his last, he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Psalm 31.5. So as Jesus was on the cross, He found the Psalms to be particularly helpful to Him to express his thoughts and feelings to God

even while he was dying. So this morning, we're going to focus on one of these songs. We're going to focus on Psalm 139. 139. You can turn to that in your Bibles. I will also be projecting the lyrics

of this song for you this morning, but you may want to follow along in your own Bible. And in this particular Psalm, penned by David, he celebrates the comforting truth that even though there are many,

many, many, many, many, many people in the world, God hasn't lost track of him. In fact, a good title for this song would be, God Knows Me. God Knows Me. For this song isn't just a doctrinal recitation

affirming that God is omniscient, fancy word that means all-knowing or God knows everything. No, David begins his song by personalizing this truth. Verse 1, you have searched me, Lord,

and you know, not just everything, you know me. These opening lyrics then set the stage for this warm, intimate conversation with God, and we're going to join that conversation this morning.

First, David declares, God knows everything I do. God knows everything I do. He sees my every move day and night. Verses 2 and 3. Lord, you know when I sit and when I rise, you discern my going out and

my lying down. God knows when I plop down in a chair to eat or to read or to watch TV. He knows when I get out of bed. He's aware of when I leave the house and when I return and when I finally fall

asleep at the end of the day. End of verse 3. Lord, you are familiar with all of my ways, my activities, my habits, my routines. God knows whether I'm a morning person or a night person. God knows whether

I like to squeeze the toothpaste tube at the top, the middle, or the bottom. God knows what you and I will do in any situation, good or bad, that we face throughout our life. If, for instance, we're going to a time where we find that we're going to be a parent like this dear couple did today, or we

find out that a loved one has just died, God knows exactly how we'll react. If a biopsy report comes back indicating that we have cancer or that we don't have cancer, either way, God knows how we'll handle

it. If we're promoted at work, or if we lose our job, God already knows our next steps. If our neighbor does something to help us or to annoy us, God knows exactly how we'll respond. There's nothing that you

and I could ever do that takes God by surprise. Secondly, David declares, God knows everything I think. Verse 2, end of verse 2, you perceive my thoughts from afar. It's not that God knows what I'm thinking

even though he's a far distance from me, because God is never far away from us. Rather, God is able to perceive my thoughts when in my mind, my thoughts are still far away. They're still forming in my consciousness. They're still vague and fuzzy and not yet in focus for me. In other words, God doesn't

just know what I'm thinking as I think it. He knows what I'm thinking before I think it. God knows what you're thinking right now during this sermon, although I'm not sure I want to know what that is that you're thinking. God knows what you'll be thinking this afternoon at 3 o'clock.

God knows what you'll be thinking when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning. God always knows what you're thinking sooner than you know what you're thinking. Yes, he already knows what your every move will be in every moment of every day throughout your entire

life, including what will be on your mind right as you breathe your last breath.

Thirdly, David declares, God knows everything I say. Verse 4, before a word is on my tongue, you, O Lord, know it completely. God knows exactly what I'm going to speak before the words even come out of my mouth. He not only has a full recollection of my past conversations,

he has a complete transcript of my future conversations. Amazing. All the words I will ever speak in all my life, God knows them. And Jesus taught something significant about God's absolute knowledge of our speech. Jesus said, and I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day

for every idle word you speak. The words that you say throughout your life will either acquit or they will condemn you. Pretty amazing. Apparently, our words reflect the true essence of who we are,

so much so that on judgment day, the transcript that God has of our entire life's conversation will be enough in itself. Even if he doesn't take into account our thoughts and our actions, if he just takes into account our words, that's enough to provide irrefutable evidence for determining

whether you and I will end up in heaven or in hell. Clearly, your life is an open book to God, and so is mine. Everything that we do, everything that we think, everything that we say. And don't forget,

God not only knows all this stuff about us here today, but about each one of the 8.3 billion people currently alive on earth. When I try to wrap my head around this truth of God's utterly comprehensive,

utterly exhaustive knowledge, my mind blows a fuse. Yours probably does too. We're not qualified to comprehend how all of this could be. And so we can all relate, I think, to David who writes in verse 6,

God, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Here the word wonderful that David uses means mysteriously and marvelously beyond understanding. Only God possesses this

wonder knowledge. And David is truly in awe. God, you're way out of my league. God, you're way above my pay grade. God, your wonder knowledge is way beyond my reach. And the reason our brains short-circuit

is because you and I are finite creatures while our Creator is infinite. We human beings with our relatively puny minds are simply incapable of tracking with our eternal God. He's timeless in His own being.

He's above and beyond time. Oh, He works with us in our time-bound world, but He's not time-bound. So right now, God sees the past and the present and the future with equal clarity and vividness.

It's as if everything that has ever happened in the world and in your life, everything that is currently happening and everything that is going to happen is all seen by God simultaneously at this moment.

Now, perhaps an illustration might help here. Imagine you're driving down the road, and you come to a railroad crossing, and all the red lights begin to flash, and the barricade begins to lower, and the train begins to pass by. Now, from your vantage point in your stopped car there on the road,

because of all the trees along the track, you can only see the train cars as they emerge out of the trees and cross in front of you. So you have no idea at that moment how long the train is, and you won't know what each car looks like until the moment it passes by in front of you.

Folks, life is like that for us finite, time-bound human beings. Life comes to us one car at a time. We have no idea how long our life on earth will be and what each of our future days will look like

until they arrive in the present. But let's go back to the railroad crossing for a moment. If someone is in an airplane flying over the train tracks, they're able to see the entire train all at

once from the last car and every car in between, in one simultaneous now. That's how our infinite God sees your life and mine. He's Lord over time. He's looking down from above and viewing all at once, our whole time

in the world, from the day of our birth until the day of our death, and every single day in between. This very moment, God can see the entire train of your life on earth from beginning to end, and that's how God not only views your life and mine, it's how he views all of world history. The long

train of history is on the track that God has determined, and he's moving it exactly where he wants it to go. This means that our God is never caught off guard by anything that happens here on earth.

God can never be blindsided because God doesn't have a blind side. Today, on June 14, 2026, God can still clearly see June 14, 1926.

And should Christ's return be delayed, God can already see June 14, 2126. And God remembers everything that this 72-year-old man did on June 14, 1956, 1976, and 2016.

And God knows what will happen in my life on June 14, 2036, and 2046, should I still be alive on earth. You can't comprehend how this could be, you say? Of course you can't, because it's wonder knowledge.

It's too lofty for you and me to attain. Folks, if you fully understand how our time-transcending God knows what he knows, then you would be qualified to join the Trinity as the fourth member.

But then it wouldn't be the Trinity anymore. Aren't you glad that your life and the destiny of this world is in the hands of someone who never has to learn anything, who never has to figure anything

out, who never says, oh my, I didn't see that coming? Because God already knows it all. And because he does, he has the big complete picture of how he wants your life and how he wants this world

to turn out. Amen? God isn't done reminding, or excuse me, David isn't done reminding us here of how awesome God is. For our God not only knows everything, David goes on to say that he is

everywhere. That his God's omniscience and his omnipresence go hand in hand. He has total awareness of everything in the universe because he has total access to everywhere in the universe.

In fact, he's everywhere at all times. When you think about God and where he is, it's not like God is on earth one second, and then on Mars the next second, and then on some other planet in one of the hundred billion galaxies the next moment. God isn't confined like we are to one space at a time.

He's everywhere simultaneously. God being an infinite spirit has no spatial limitations. And so God is everywhere in the universe that he's made at all times, and he's there with his whole being. It's not like God has to spread himself thin in order to cover the entire universe.

It's not like there's only just a little thin layer of God everywhere in each space of the universe, that every place in the universe just houses a part of God or some of God. No, no, no. He's completely present in every place that exists. Notice how David personalizes this truth about

God's omnipresence in verses 8 to 10. If I go up to the heavens, God, you are there. If I make my beds in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast.

David's point here is wherever I could travel in this vast universe, the omnipresent God would be there waiting for me. David says, I could go way up into outer space. That's the heavens. I could go

down underground or underwater into the depths. I could go out to where the sun dawns, he says, the rising of the dawn. That's east. I could go out to the far side of the sea. For David living in Israel, the sea was on the west. Up, down, east, west, you can go anywhere, and God's steadying hand

will be there and have a hold of me. Back in verse 5, and we don't have this projected for you this morning, but if you have your Bibles open in verse 5, you'll see that David points a similar picture of God. You hem me in. You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. God is all around me,

whether I'm coming or going. So David is saying, you name any direction, and God's right there. He's above me. He's below me. He's to my right, to my left. He's in front of me. He's in back of me.

God is so inescapable that he hems me in. And the Hebrew word David uses there in verse 5 means God encircles me. God encloses me like the protective walls of a fort. David doesn't feel stalked. He doesn't feel trapped. He doesn't feel smothered by God. On the contrary, he's comforted by

the truth that wherever he goes, God's ever-present hands securely surround him to guide his steps, to hold him fast, and to bless his life. The God who knows us completely is going to be with us

constantly. And David is sure that he's never hidden from God's view, not even when he's in the dark. Verses 11 and 12, he says, if I say, surely the darkness will hide me, even the darkness, God will not be dark to you, for the darkness is as light to you. So that whatever we are,

if we're in a dark place, we are always in the light of God's presence. Now, David goes on to provide a great illustration of this by pointing out how God saw him in a certain kind of darkness,

in the prenatal darkness of his mother's womb. David says, God, you knew me before I was born, even before my mom knew she was pregnant. David writes to God, you created my innermost being.

You knit me together in my mother's womb. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. Your eyes saw my unformed body. The picture here is of God knitting me together, directly involved in the human gestation process, taking the many yarns and threads, as it were,

that make up our own unique personhood, and skillfully weaving them together into a living tapestry. And this includes, as David calls it here, our innermost being. You created my innermost being.

That is my personality, my intellect, my emotional makeup, my talents. Each one of us are unique in that regard. God created your innermost being, as well as your frame, all of your physical body, parts. God supervises every pre-born baby's inner and outer development.

My oldest grandson, Micah, is now 19 years old and six foot four inches tall. But he was born three months too soon. So when he came into this world, he weighed one pound,

14 ounces at birth. God's final knitting together of his body happened in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, supported by the around-the-clock care of skilled doctors and nurses utilizing complex

machinery and sophisticated technology. And all of that was just to simulate what God does all by himself during the final trimester in the womb. It's hard to deny that there's an intelligent designer

behind the miracle of life. By the way, what David says here in Psalm 139 strongly undergirds a pro-life position because the gradually forming embryo in a mom's womb is a person that God already knows

and that God already loves. Abortion ends the life of a human being that God is in the process of putting together. Now the Creator's marvelous handiwork compels David to worship his maker.

Verse 14, I praise you, Lord, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. And I know, I know that full well. This is the only time in Psalm 139 that David uses the verb know to describe

what he knows rather than the multiple times David uses this verb to describe what God knows. It's as if David is declaring, God, I certainly don't know much compared to you. But there's one thing I do know

for sure. I know this full well, that you're an awesome, wonderful creator. David also realizes that during his time in the womb, he was being formed for a purpose. The source of his life has also laid

out the course of his life. Verse 16, David writes, all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Interestingly, David indicates here that the Bible isn't God's only

book. God has another book that has never been seen or read by anyone on earth. It's a book that covers and chronicles all the days of David's life, a book that God finished before David's first day in this

world. And I think we can infer here that this special book of God has many other chapters besides the one on David's life. There are sections in this book of God for each one of us. God has written a book

about your life from the womb to the tomb. From his airplane in flight vantage point, he sees the entire train of your life that he's put together and that he keeps on track. Now, to be clear, this unseen, unpublished

book of God, unlike the Bible, is not a literal book that exists on paper. It exists in the mind of God, not in print. David is no doubt speaking metaphorically here in order to help us comprehend

God's exhaustive knowledge in his unfailing memory because we human beings with our limited finite minds, well, we have to write stuff down that we don't want to forget. We use post-it notes and to-do lists.

We have computers full of file folders to keep everything in our life straight. So our puny minds tend to fry out when we try to grasp this concept that God just knows everything about everything and everyone in the world without ever having to write any of it down. God doesn't need an actual book with

pages of paper and ink that he can pull off his shelf up there in heaven in the office library and say, let's see, what was I planning here now for you or for him, me? No, in reality, his infinite, perfect mind stores all of his knowledge about all things and all people with any piece of it being

immediately accessible to him at any moment. But it comforts us mere mortals like us to imagine God must have a book to keep everything straight because it assures us that he won't lose track of anything at all as he sovereignly runs the universe and he directs our lives. And so David, inspired by the Holy

Spirit as he writes this song, pictures for our benefit, I think, God authoring and possessing a metaphorical book that numbers and describes in detail all the days, all the days that he planned for me and for you in this world. This means that long ago, way before day one of our lives,

the Lord determined the date of our birth, the date of our death, and how many days would transpire in between. And I love the way we declare this truth whenever we sing one of my favorite songs in

worship in Christ alone. From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.

Notice that David stated something similar to this profound lyric when he wrote, all the days ordained for me were written in your book. You see, the Lord commands my destiny in the sense that he makes sure that each and every day of my life will in some way contribute to the

master plan. He has ordained for my time in this present world. Ordained here, this word means purpose. You can be sure that the days on earth that you have and your purpose on earth will both come to completion at the same time. Oh, it is so interesting that centuries after David walked this

earth, the apostle Paul actually points this out. In one of his sermons highlighted in Acts 13, he highlights the exact match between the duration of David's life and the mission of David's life.

It says, now when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep, euphemism for death, and he was buried with his ancestors. Evidently, David's time on earth lasted only until he had

completed what God had brought him into this world to accomplish. And that isn't only the case for David, folks, but for each one of us. Before you were conceived, your creator conceived in his book a specific plan for your life that's now unfolding page by page until you reach the full number of days

that God has ordained for you. So let me say this to you this morning. As long as you have a pulse, you have a purpose for still being here. But when God determines that you have served his purposes

in your generation, you breathe your last breath and you're heaven bound. Your present life will come to an end just as soon as the Lord's ordained purpose for your life is fulfilled and not a day before.

Obviously, all the days ordained for me will be different than the words, the days written in God's book for you. According to his plan, the course of our lives will vary. Some of us will marry,

some of us won't. Some of us will have children, some of us won't. Some of us will have long, successful careers in our one dream job, while others of us will encounter job losses and periods of unemployment in between jobs. With regard to ministry, some of us will serve primarily by saying

words, a ministry of talking. Others of us will contribute to the church by deeds of service, a ministry of tasks. Some of us will be leaders, some of us won't. Some of us will influence many people, others will impact a few. Some of us will live into our 80s and 90s enjoying fairly good health

physically and mentally right up to the day when we experience a relatively easy death. While others of us will live that long but have to endure debilitating limitations, a hard, painful death, and maybe the sad mental decline into dementia. Some of us will live only into our teens,

our 20s, our 30s, our 40s, or our 50s. Our life expectancy cut short by a tragic accident or a sinister terminal illness. What am I saying? I'm saying every follower of Jesus has a customized

calling different from everybody else's. My chapter in God's book will not be identical to your chapter. Unfortunately, I think we all have the tendency to look around at others in the church

and compare our lot in life with theirs. We're inclined to envy those whose lives are more struggle-free than ours. We get discouraged when we see other parents whose children come to Christ early and easily while we must suffer the grief of having prodigal sons and daughters.

We wonder why that married couple got to celebrate their golden anniversary while we lost our spouse only partway there. We're wearied by the many health struggles we suffer for decades while we watch friends who experience only a handful of sick days their entire life. And it grates against us maybe

that certain church members minister in the spotlight with lots of people noticing while we're behind the scenes with not a lot of people aware of our faithful service. It might even frustrate us to see others ease comfortably into retirement without any financial worries while consistent financial strain

will tarnish our sunset years. Now, don't get me wrong. Our Lord, who wrote the book on your life,

loves you and will be there for you for all of your ordained struggles. He may give you more to carry than you could bear on your own, but never more than He can handle as He consistently comes to your aid.

Sometimes God helps us by lightening our load. Thank God. He allows me to carry less. But you know, sometimes God helps me by strengthening my back, enable me to carry more. But one way or another, He'll sustain you through every heavy hardship He calls on you to carry. And as Romans 8.28 declares,

He has promised to bring good things out of the bad things in your life. Maybe you can't understand God's plan for you here and now, but someday it will make sense and eternal rewards will more than compensate for every pain and disappointment you encounter in this present life. It'll all be worth

it in the end. So the author of the book on the days of her life expects you and me to trust Him every day, choosing to believe in advance what may only make sense by looking back someday from the vantage

point of heaven. He expects us to embrace the life that God has called us to rather than fixating on how our lives compare and how they unfold compared to those around us. And He expects you and me by His grace

to make all of our days count for Christ, regardless of the count of our days. Well, back to the text. David continues to marvel in verses 17 to 18, for while it is true that God recorded in His book all the days of David's life before David was even

born, and while it's true that God already knows all there is to know about Him, David is still amazed because God still thinks about Him all the time. Here's how David actually put it, how precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered. I can't even count them.

They outnumber the grains of sand, and when I wake up, you are still with me. You see, David treasures the thought that he's in God's thought, and he's under God's care 24-7.

And so are you and me. Sometimes we might behave like we're out of our mind, but isn't it comforting to know that we're never out of God's mind?

In the words of David, the number of times that you and I have been the focus of God's personal attention exceeds the number of grains of sand in the world. As David suggests, if you and I tried to count all of God's thoughts about me and you, we would get overwhelmed, we would get

exhausted, we'd need to go to bed early. But no worries, for during the whole nighttime when we're asleep, God who doesn't ever sleep is still thinking about you and me and watching over us.

Wow. The upshot of all this, since God has written the book on each one of us, and since He's thinking about us all the time, He knows way better than we do what's best for us.

So when we pray and ask God for things, He always knows when to say yes and when to say no. He's a God who knows everything. And because He loves me more than I even love my kids, I can trust

Him with those yes and no answers. You know, when my grandchildren were younger and came to my house to stay, they would regularly ask me for things. Grandpa, grandpa, grandpa. I love to lavish gifts on my grandkids. But I would often have to say no. I would even want to say no to some of their requests,

like buying still another toy, or playing with knives, or crossing the street by themselves, or playing still more games on the computer, or eating only the dessert and not the vegetables. I would say no to these kinds of requests because I love them and because I know better than they do

what's best for them. I'm wiser than my grandkids, although I'm pretty convinced now I'm not smarter than they are. And obviously, our all-knowing, all-wise Heavenly Father is much better than we are

at saying yes and no to His kids. So when we go in prayer and we tell God what we want, He's only going to give us what's spiritually and eternally good for us. And sometimes what we ask for is part of His plan, He does graciously give us exactly what we ask for. But at other times,

you know what He gives us instead? What we would have asked for if we knew everything He knows. What we would have asked for if He were as smart and wise as our Heavenly Father, who always knows best.

Now, here is where Psalm 139 takes a surprising turn. Well, David's continuing to talk to God, but now it suddenly morphs into venting instead of worshiping.

So far, the entire song has been a celebration of the grand truth that God knows me completely and takes care of me constantly. But in the next stanza of this song, as you see, David sought abruptly shift from his awesome God above him to the awful people around him. David suddenly blurts out words of this

fact, I hate him, God. I wish you would just get rid of him. Wow. Look at verses 19 to 22. If only you, God, would slay the wicked. Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty. They speak of you with evil intent, God. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate them? Hate those who hate you,

Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. That's in the Bible. What's going on here? One moment, David is praising the Lord.

And the next moment, he's railing against the wicked who oppose God's purposes and ruin the world. As we read Psalm 139, it's like we're walking through this beautiful terrain of the first 18 verses. We're enjoying and admiring the view of God. And then, kablooey! We unexpectedly step on a

landmine. We witness David exploding in anger and frustration because he's now thinking about how bad the world is instead of how good God is. This happens often in the Psalms, buried landmines.

The songwriter is looking up and telling God how great he is. And then out of the blue, the writer stops looking up. He starts looking around, addressing his enemies and says something like, may a deadly disease plague your whole household. These kinds of curses maybe don't

seem to belong in the Bible, but they're there. What if during the Redeemer's Sunday morning worship service sometime in the next few weeks, Pastor Jason is praying a prayer of praise to God, and suddenly he says something like, and God, we here at Redeemer want you to know that we hate all

those bad people out there who make our lives miserable. We hope they get run over by a truck. Make it happen, Lord. It just doesn't seem like those kinds of words, calling for God to slay the

wicked, people we can't stand, should be coming off the lips of godly people. But the Psalms model for us this kind of imprecation. Oh, that's a fancy word that means passionately invoking God to inflict harm,

or to bring down calamity on others. Imprecation. God, get them. And there are several imprecatory Psalms containing angry outbursts, wishing ill will on the wicked, and calling for their soon demise.

Let me take just a moment to explain what I think we are to make of this. David and the other writers of Psalms, they're using imprecation as spiritual therapy.

They're channeling their indignation and their hatred upward in words rather than outward in actions. These raw prayers, they're a plea to God for justice. It's not a vengeful resolve to take justice into their own hands.

You know, it's better to write a murder mystery than it is to actually go out and murder someone. And so it's better for us to let God absorb our harshly written tirades than to go out and actually do bad things to bad people.

Here David prays for God to slay his enemies. But keep in mind that David didn't kill his enemy, King Saul, when he had the chance. Remember that? David expressed his unfiltered feelings and wishes to God and then let God take care of the rest.

He left payback in the hands of God knowing that justice will ultimately prevail. You see, these imprecatory statements in the Psalms model for us how to deal with evil and injustice that troubles us and troubles our world.

We read the newspapers, we watch TV, we hear the news, and we're just so frustrated. What are we to do about it? Well, it would be wrong for us to lash out with vigilante justice.

But you know, it would also be unhealthy for us spiritually, mentally, emotionally, even physically, if we try to deny or suppress our feelings of hurt and outrage and we try to hold it all in.

So the right and healthy response is to do what the psalmist did. They look up whenever we're frustrated with things that are going on in our life and in the world, we look up in God's direction and we vent.

When we're angry about the way we've been mistreated or about the gross inequities in the world, we should direct our primal screams toward God, not on social media, not getting in the face of other people to rant and rave.

We go to God. He has a high threshold for what it's appropriate to say to God. Well, I could never say like that to God in prayer. Yes, you can, because He knows what you're thinking already.

He can handle our unsuppressed anger. He can handle our unvarnished harangues. So we should take our worst thoughts and feelings to God, including our feelings of hate towards others, without trying to clean them up first.

For in this venting upward, it's spiritually therapeutic. It gives God the opportunity to clean us up in the process.

And David, as we see finally here, does want to be cleaned up. He doesn't confine his attack on evil to the evil out there. While he curses the evil people around him, he doesn't ignore the evil within him.

His behavior might not be as awful as the ungodly out there, but his life is far from what it should be. So David concludes Psalm 139 by inviting God to expose the bad in his own life.

Yeah, it's bad out there, God, but I know there's some bad in here too. So search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there's any wicked way or offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. You see, David ends his song here where he started.

He began saying, God, you have searched me and you know me. And now in the final stanza, David invites God to just keep doing that. Keep knowing me, God.

Keep searching me. God, I want you to scrutinize my every thought, word, and deed. Give me a thorough examination, Lord. Tell me what you see.

Whatever is offensive to you, God, whatever grieves you about me. I want to own it. I want to confess it. I want to forsake it. I don't want sin in my life to hinder my walk with you as you lead me through my life on my way to heaven.

That's basically what he's saying. You know, as a shepherd, David had killed a lion and a bear to protect his sheep. As a soldier, David had killed a giant, fought and killed a giant.

But perhaps the most courageous thing that David ever did was to pray this prayer. Lord, show me what I'm really like. You ever pray that prayer?

It's pretty scary. Thankfully, we don't need to be afraid, though, of God's scrutiny when we realize that, remember, he knows us completely.

He knows everything. He knows our failures and our shortcomings even better than we do. And yet, he still loves us. He's ready to forgive our offensive ways.

And he's eager to lead us in the way we should go. Can I close by saying that God is like the GPS in your vehicle, only better? What happens when you make wrong turns and you no longer are going the right way?

The GPS recalculates and gets you back on course by giving you a fresh opportunity right where you are to follow its correcting directions. The Lord works in your life the same way.

When you make wrong turns and go off course wherever you are in your life, in the aftermath of whatever failure is there, God is willing and able to navigate you right back onto the right road.

Praise the Lord for his recalculating, rerouting grace. Because of the ultimate GPS, God's positioning system, your failures are never final.

And so no matter how many zigzags and U-turns there are on your journey towards heaven, you can be confident that God who knows you and loves you will lead you all the way to your eternal home.

Amen? Amen. Amen. Lord, thank you for this song. Thank you for putting it in our Bible. Many of us have known you for a long time, God, but sometimes we just need to be reminded of how big you are, how great you are, and how much you know.

And God, I pray that if there's anyone here today who has come in thinking, yeah, I don't know if God knows who I am. I think God's lost track of me.

I pray, Lord, that you would encourage them through your word, through this worship today, to know that they are loved more than they can imagine.

And God has a book for their life, and it may include some hard things, but God will always be with them. You will always be with them, and you'll see them through.

Lord, thank you. Thank you that even though you know how bad and corrupt we are on the inside, and you see all the bad things we do, you never give up on us.

And your positioning system is ready to bring us back on course and lead us to your eternal home. God, may we be comforted and encouraged by that truth today.

And I pray your blessing upon these people. I pray your blessing upon Redeemer Missionary Church as a whole. You know this church intimately, just like you know each of our lives.

You know this church's needs. You know this church's opportunities. And I pray in the days ahead, under the leadership of Pastor Jason and the elders, and Pastor Matt, and all the other good people here, that you would continue to lead them as a church to where you want them to be, to do what you want them to do.

God, praise you. We praise you today, because you know me. You know each one of us. And that gives us great courage and great hope as we go out into another week.

Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Will you stand as we close today?