Fully Known | Clay Smith

So, for those of you that haven't met me yet or weren't here for the introduction, uh, my name is Clayton Smith, and I have had the absolute pleasure of being the youth intern here for the last 10 weeks of the summer.

Now, before I get into my material today, I wanted to give you all an overview, really just the big ticket items of what this youth group did this summer.

So, we started off the summer with hands-free work camp over in Huntsville, where we had the opportunity to help some local areas and companies with basically the manual labor that keeps them looking nice and operating smoothly, showing the servant heart that we are called to have as children of God.

We then went to Impact where the theme was grim.

Truthfully, whenever I got there, this word grim was a very odd word for a uh theme.

But the idea of the week was to help the kids recognize and identify the people in their life that they can go to for help or go to help whenever life gets grim.

Identifying the people that show Christ to us as well as the people that we need to be showing Christ to.

July came and we got to have some fun at Holiday World, riding roller coasters, eating delicious food, and driving golf carts around the resort.

Then just last week, we went to Beach Blast with three other churches and met in Gulf Shores under the topic of ardent love, which taught us how we are to treat fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and how we should all have unconditional love for one another, united in Christ.

If there's one thing that you get from my lesson today, I ask that it is this.

The youth group here is unique, thriving, and worth getting to know.

I've loved my time here this summer, not just because I get to work under and with some of my best friends, but because I'm confident that the church of today is building up strong Christians that will build up others as they grow.

Psalm 139 is where we'll be today, and I have to open with a question for you all.

What is the most effective weapon that someone can possess?

Some will argue maybe a specific bomb, others a specific gun.

To me, the most effective weapon isn't an actual weapon.

The most effective weapon that someone can have is knowledge.

By a show of hands, how many of you would say that you are fully known by someone?

Or maybe you're bold enough to say that you fully know someone else?

Whether that's a spouse, a sibling, a child, a parent.

So there are two different feelings that come with being fully known.

And those feelings are dependent upon who fully knows you.

That feeling could be comforting or it could be super dreadful.

That comfort comes from someone that maybe you love and care for dearly.

That feeling of dread that I talked about, those cases are few and far between, hopefully.

But I could think of three.

Uh, specifically, maybe while growing up, a sibling that has some dirt on you that you don't want anyone else figuring out.

Hopefully your sibling has grown out of that stage by now if you have one.

Uh, but there's absolutely a time frame where your sibling will use any information they have on you against you.

Or maybe some college friends that have a running joke with you that they'd love to tell the whole world about if given the chance, when in reality they should just let the joke die because it died years ago.

Or maybe, maybe, just maybe, an intern that knows he could have the opportunity to do something really, really funny.

Hey Grayson, could you come up here?

Hey Grayson, I told you this was happening.

I'm sure you're scared.

All right, now as you're coming up here, no, no, you can come up here, it's okay.

But while you're walking up, you can confirm what I'm saying.

Um, at Beach Blast, you told me something very specific that would be a nightmare for you.

So am I right in remembering that it was having a coach or an intern uh that made students do up-downs whenever they did something that they weren't supposed to do.

Was that correct?

It yes, it was.

Okay.

Now, when you said this, I told you that that was a very dangerous thing to tell me, even though it was just a week ago, because I could make that happen.

Now, your response was, to be completely honest, you challenged me.

You said I only have a week left.

You said there's not enough times left in the summer where I could make you do updowns if I wanted.

Then I looked at you and said, Grayson, I'm teaching and preaching on Sunday.

I can make you do them from the pulpit.

Can you confirm that I said this to you?

I told you I could tie it into my lesson.

I feel like I've tied it in pretty well.

So are you ready to start doing your updowns?

No?

All right, you can get it done.

You're good.

Now, yeah, give him a round of applause.

So, my goal and intention today, so just so that Grayson knows this, was to never make Grayson do updowns here today.

I never wanted him to do that, uh, but my goal was to probably make him sweat bullets just now thinking that I was.

Uh this past week, I've been just kind of conditioning of being like, are you ready to do your updowns on Sunday?

I told you it was gonna happen.

You're it's it's like we were at the lock-in Friday, I was like, it's two days away.

You ready?

You gotta start, you gotta wear something athletic to make sure you can do this on stage.

And he was telling me, Please don't do this, please don't make me do this.

So, like I said, knowledge, if used properly, is a very effective weapon.

But there's a difference between knowledge and being fully known.

An example of knowledge that I can think of, uh, this youth group probably knows something very specific about me.

Uh, what's my favorite animal?

Shark.

Shark.

What about specifically what shark?

Shortfin Mako.

Shortfin Mako, yeah.

This has been the entire summer, they've just been they've made sure that they know that and nothing else.

Uh but AI has knowledge of you.

You have targeted ads based on what you've recently viewed or what you've even talked about.

AI keeps logs of the things that you've asked for in the past just so that it can kind of build an idea of who you are as a person.

But it's all very impersonal.

The difference between knowledge and being fully known is the difference between a suggestion for something to buy on Amazon compared to a parents grip a parent's Christmas gift to you that wasn't in your Christmas list.

With that in mind, the topic of the lessons for this summer have been on the Psalms, and I only found it fitting that I should tie into that idea, considering that my favorite psalm wasn't actually spoken on.

So again, Psalm 139, if you'd like to follow along.

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.

So, right at the start of this psalm, David, the author of this, begins to grapple with just how known he truly is by God, and uses a lot of categories to show this on purpose.

So he's sitting down, he's rising up, whatever David thinks, whatever David says before he says it, David is grappling with just how total God's knowledge is of him.

There is no unguarded moment, there is no private thought, there is no half-formed sentence that escapes God's notice.

Truthfully, it's a scary thought.

That nothing we've ever thought, done, or said has gone unseen or unheard.

Everything we've ever done, known.

David isn't the only one to understand this concept, though.

He teaches his son Solomon in 1 Chronicles 28 9.

And you, Solomon, my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind.

For the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.

We even see this in Jeremiah, whenever hundreds of years later, Jeremiah hears this from God himself in Jeremiah 1:5.

Jeremiah 1:5

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

And before you were born, I consecrated you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Now, this verse in Jeremiah adds a bit of weight to what's being discussed here.

It's not just about God knowing us, he knows who we become.

Everything we will ever do, known.

It's honestly a scary concept when you think about it.

Everything that we have ever done, everything that we will ever do, all known by the Almighty.

The Hebrews writer puts it into words exactly how we might feel in Hebrews 4.13.

And no creature is hidden from his that is God's sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

When someone knows everything about us, every last detail, we feel exposed.

There's nothing to run away to.

It's all out in the open.

It's terrifying, embarrassing.

But that's not how David responds to this feeling in Psalm 139-6 that we just read.

He says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high, I cannot attain it.

David responds in awe of the knowledge that God has of him.

He sits in the tension created by the exposure and tries to wrap his head around the situation presented to him.

I find it very important to clarify this here.

David was by no means a perfect man.

This would have absolutely been an uncomfortable situation for him to sit in, just as it's an uncomfortable situation for us to sit in.

Possibly more so for David.

I mean, you have pride, you have arrogance, you have adultery, you have murder.

All of these things were the top of the rap sheet for David.

But here, David sits in awe of the knowledge that God has of him, not in fear.

Like I said before, God knows every last detail about us past, present, and future.

It's normal to feel a bit exposed by that, scared by that, and embarrassed in that situation.

It'd be normal for us to try and find somewhere to hide, somewhere to run away to, but David sits in the tension.

Why?

David addresses that next.

Where shall I go from your spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to 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 uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you.

The night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

I think David answers our question fairly plainly here.

When we tell ourselves, I have to run away, I have to hide, David laughs at us and asks, run to where?

Hide where?

The heavens, the grave, the farthest seas.

God is already there with us every time.

David even goes a step further and says, If I can't outrun God, I'm gonna try and hide from God in the darkness.

But David quickly shuts that door through verse 12.

There is nowhere we can run from him.

Nowhere we can hide from him.

One of the more famous minor prophets has to learn this lesson firsthand, Jonah.

After being told to go prophesy to Nineveh, Jonah tries to do what David only imagines in this psalm.

Jonah tries to run away from God.

Jonah chapter 1, verse 3 tells us specifically, but Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

Jonah 1:3

If you've ever attended VBS, then I'm sure you know how well that went for Jonah.

Now, up to this point, God's knowledge of David, as well as us, is probably still a bit of an unsettling idea.

Rightfully so.

While it probably is still unsettling or uncomfortable to think about, I want to put this idea in your heads.

If God's presence is inescapable, then God will always be with you in the moments that you need him most.

Moses even had to assure Israel of this in Deuteronomy 31, verse 6 Be strong and courageous, or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you.

Deuteronomy 31:6

He will not leave you or forsake you.

Paul even talks on this in his letter to the Romans in Romans chapter 8, verses 38 through 39.

Romans 8:38–39

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So far, everything that David has spoken about has been very grandiose and cosmic in scale.

Heaven, Sheol, the deepest, the deepest depths of the seas.

All of these things are very much bigger than us.

And it's very easy to get caught up in the grandiose in that way.

Which is why this next section of the scripture is so important that we listen to.

David takes that grandiose from before and makes it as intimate and personal as possible.

For you formed 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 being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

If you've knitted before, I haven't, but I am imagining a very careful and difficult process.

One mess up left unchecked could leave the whole finished piece looking just a little bit off.

But there's also something very beautiful about something that has been knitted.

It shows intentionality.

It's not something mass-produced in a factory somewhere.

Everything created in knitted work was created for a purpose.

Even if that is to sit on a shelf as a gift.

So when David is describing how he was formed here in this passage, he's not just describing a general biological process.

He's describing the personal craftsmanship of the Lord our God, us.

Ephesians 2.10 backs this idea up perfectly, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepped beforehand, that we should walk in them.

On top of that, there's the analogy back in Psalm 139 of us in the womb.

Now by the naked eye, no one can see us when we're in the womb, but we are growing, we are forming.

Yet while no human eye can see us in the womb, we are never hidden from God.

Not only that, but God is intentionally forming us for a purpose, created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them.

As we get into the next three verses, David shifts his focus again.

Instead of describing God's thoughts and what God is doing, David sits back and starts marveling at it all again.

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.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God, how vast is the sum of them.

If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

I awake and I am still with you.

So I think a lot of times when we read verses like these, these compliments towards God, we can kind of glance over them.

But again, David brings up something that I feel we fail to notice.

David points out that the God that formed him in secret has been thinking about him constantly, and has been thinking about him so much that David can't even count the thoughts.

They are more numerous than the sand.

This matters to us because our sense of worth, a lot of times in the world, is built on earthly things.

Our performance, comparing ourselves to others, others' approval of us.

David in Psalm 139 focuses his identity on something much more sturdy than human opinion.

David takes the time to note to himself as well as us today that you are not an accident, and that you were not made hastily.

You weren't made in a mass production facility with no general plan in sight for your future.

Each and every soul in this room and beyond it has been crafted by God with hope for each individual and a future in mind for each individual.

So so far, David has talked about three different categories of God.

These are big words.

I'm gonna explain them, I promise.

God's omniscience is in verses one through six, where David talks about just how much God knows about each and every one of us and how he knows everything.

God's omnipresence in verses seven through twelve, this idea of ever-presence, where David discusses just how impossible it is to run away from God and how futile it is to try and hide a part of ourselves away from God.

God is always with us, even when we think he's not, even when we think we don't want him to be.

And the section that we just talked about, verses 13 through 18, covers God's omnipotence, his unlimited power.

But not only that, his creative power and plan for each and every person on this earth.

Now, after we've gone through these three points, we get this kind of awkward four-verse section where David shifts his attention again, but also his tone.

Suddenly David turns his attention toward the wicked.

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 I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

I hate them with complete hatred.

I count them my enemies.

When we read the psalm in full, or maybe even as you read it right here by itself, it feels out of place in the grand scheme of David's psalm or even how he just normally talks.

He somewhat abruptly shifts to the subject of the wicked, praying that they are slain and dealt with properly.

In moments like these, again, it's very easy to kind of skip it over and go, ah, we don't really know what to do with that.

We're gonna move on.

Uh, on to the next two verses.

But we're not gonna do that.

These sections of scripture, often found in the Psalms, are called imprecatory psalms.

They're the ones we don't read as often.

And because, as we've discussed, we don't really know what to do with them.

The purpose of imprecatory psalms were to call down divine curses and express hatred toward the enemies of God.

These psalms typically have a deep desire for justice and uh typically justice around the author, typically from the point of view of a people that are very heavily oppressed.

Maybe you can think of some times even today when psalms like this might be needed.

When we've been watching the news a bit too much and now know every single wrong thing going on in the world and none of the right.

We can see why these psalms might be prayed, begging for justice from God.

But I want to point out something very important about this.

David isn't coming to God with his own personal hatred or praying against his own personal enemies.

The object of the hatred is stated explicitly, those who hate God, and those who rise up against God.

So maybe not so explicitly.

David isn't trying to settle a score or get back at someone that wronged him.

He's aligning himself with God's holiness.

So we have our three major points, each derived from one of God's attributes, that omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

God knows you completely, God is with you constantly, and God made you intentionally.

Then we get these four verses about aligning ourselves with God's holiness and justice.

For us today, it's important to note about these four verses that as Christians, we cannot be a people of hate.

But we also have to understand that we can't be okay with sin.

We're not the final checkpoint that determines someone else's eternity, God is.

Which is exactly why David ends the Psalm, how he does, by flipping the spotlight back on himself.

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.

This is our application today.

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.

We need to be constantly inviting God within ourselves to be checked, to be known, not just by God, but by ourselves.

None of this exists to make us feel under surveillance.

All of this exists to help us feel found.

Because if I had to guess, we've all been lost before, either literally, mentally, or spiritually.

Maybe you're like me and you've been all three.

So let me remind you about David, the man that wrote so many beautiful psalms, my favorite psalm.

He was by no means perfect.

Deception, disobeying direct orders from God, adultery, murder, not exactly the best example of a role model.

Yet even after he has done all these things, things that he feels immense shame and guilt over, he still writes, Search me, know my heart, know my thoughts, see if there is anything grievous in me.

David wasn't inviting God inside because he didn't have anything to hide, but because he had already made peace with it all.

He was, or because he had already made peace with it all.

He was inviting God in because he had learned that being fully known by God is far safer and far better than managing a hidden version of yourself.

So the question that I have for you this morning isn't whether God knows you or not.

He knows you.

That was covered in verse one.

The question is, what are you going to do with that?

Are you going to keep curating, keep editing, keep hiding the parts of yourself that don't fit your narrative for yourself?

Or are you going to pray David's prayer?

Search me, know me, lead me, and finally give everything that you've been trying to hide over to God.

If you need anything this morning, please come as we stand and as we sing.