Themes of the Bible: No Escape (Psalm 139)

 

Themes of the Bible: No Escape (Psalm 139)

So, they tell me that one of the most beloved children's books of all time, I'm not sure I buy it because my parents never read it to me, but maybe you've heard it before, it’s called The Runaway Bunny. So, how the story goes, “once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So, he said, I'm running away. If you run away said his mother. I will run after you, you’re my little bunny. If you run after me, said the little bunny I'll become a fish in a trout stream and I'll swim away from you. If you become a fish in a trout stream, said his mother, I will become a fisherman, and I will fish for you. Well, if you become a fisherman, said the little bunny, I will become a rock on the mountain high above you. Well, if you become a rock on the mountain high above me, said his mother, I'll become a mountain climber and I'll climb to where you are. If you become a mountain climber, said the little bunny, I will be a bird and fly away from you. Well, if you become a bird and fly away from me, said his mother, I will be a tree that you will come home to. Well, if you become a tree, said the little bunny, I'll become a little sailboat and I will sail away from you. Well, if you become a sailboat and sail away from me, I’ll become the wind, and I'll blow you wherever I want you to go. So, the little bunny said, I’ll become a little boy and run into a house. If you become a little boy and run into a house, said the mother bunny, I will become your mother, and I'll catch you in my arms and hug you. Shucks, said the little bunny, I guess I might just as well stay where I am, and be your little bunny, and so he did.”

Now, I’ve never heard that story before, but there's a couple observations that I would make about this little children's story, which I'll tell you in a second, but so I don’t lose my train of thought, for next week, we're skipping over the book of Proverbs, who cares about wisdom, and we're going to go straight to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 is your assignment for next week, but this week is Psalm 139. I'm hopeful that you did your assignment and that you read this because if you did, you understand why I shared that story of the runaway bunny, that some of you may be raised your children reading it to them. The Runaway Bunny realized there was no way that he could run that his mom wouldn't chase him down and following. Some of us have moms like that, that there's nowhere that we could go that they would not pursue us with their love and attention and affection. You can't escape it. His mom would always be there. So, if you read Psalm 139, as you were supposed to do, you would know that's exactly the realization that David comes to, and he writes about in this most amazing, and to me, encouraging Psalm. Psalm 139, that there's nowhere that you go that God isn't going to seek after you.

There are four sections of Psalm 139. It's funny, most people when they read it they concentrate on the last couple verses where he says to ‘search me and try me and see if there's any wicked way in me,’ that's the part that we focus on. But before all of that, there's so much important stuff. So, you really need to divide this up into four different sections. In section one, there's all these attributes of God, that he's loving and he's merciful and all that, but the real big attributes of God that we sometimes confuse and think they're all the same. David writes around six verses on each one, and really lays them out for us, like the idea of God's omniscience. What is omniscience? He knows everything. There is nothing that God does not know, there is no information out there that he is unaware of or that he is still learning. He contains all information and knowledge, he's omniscient. Those are the first six verses. And then David talks about God's omnipresence. That means he's everywhere. He knows everything, but he's also everywhere you turn, there's no place you can go where God will not be. And then the next set of verses, he talks about God's omnipotence, his unimaginable, unrivalled power. These three major attributes of God: His omniscience, His omnipresence, and His omnipotence. That's what David's writing about.

I know those are big terms, but he really lays it out in very easy to understand language, and then after doing all of this, you get to that fourth section that says, ‘okay, if you're talking about a God like this. Who knows all, who sees all, who is everywhere, who has all power, then there's only one response that a measly little human being like me should and can have: to be holy like God. I want to be holy; I want him to mold me like him. He is my Creator, I can't escape him, make me more like you, God. That's the way it goes as we get to know God. In His all-encompassing holiness, you start to see your own desperate need to become holy.

Alright, if you have your Bibles, flip open to Psalm 139. We’re going to start with the first six verses. [Read Psalm 139:1-6]. Those verses are totally about God's omniscience. God knows everything about me yet look how David uses personal pronouns. This is a very personal thing for him.

God knows everything about me. There's nothing secret about me that God is not aware of, that is hidden, and you see it laid out there in verses two and three, God knows all of my actions everything that I have ever done. There's nothing that I do in secret that God doesn't know about there's nothing that I have done in the past, that God is unaware of everything you have ever done. God knows no secrets and it's not just your actions. He knows your words. He knows every word you have ever spoken, and more than that. He knows every word that you have ever wanted to speak, even those that you've held back, he knows it, which gets into what he says in verse six, God knows your thoughts. With other human beings, we know that they will see our actions, and we know that they will hear our words, but our thoughts, those belong to us. That's for me in my head, right? You don't know everything that I'm thinking, obviously, but God does. There is no thought I have ever had that he does not know. I want you to stop and think about this. The most depraved urge and desire that you have ever entertained in your head. God knows about it. He knows exactly what you were thinking. I can't imagine some being that is that powerful that he knows all of my thoughts, everything that I've ever considered, everything that I've ever thought or desired.

The closest that we can come here on earth, is marriage. A marriage relationship is the closest human relationship between two people. Yeah, you have a close friend. But even with close friends, you certainly have a separate part of you that you don’t share with them, because you're usually not living closely together like a married couple. So, marriage is the closest and that's what the Bible says, that the two become one, so, your spouse knows more about you than anybody else.

Christiana knows me better than anybody else. She knows things about me that the rest of you don't, that I try to keep hidden from you. Like, if I'm in a social situation and things get awkward, like if two people are right next to me and they start arguing with one another, I get very uncomfortable, I don't want to be involved in this, I’m thinking, ‘why are you doing this in front of me?’ This is not this is not my issue. So, this is what I do, it's a natural reaction. I will act like I'm distracted by something else. Even if there's nothing else to distract me, I will act like, ‘oh, look on the ground, was that mine?’ And when this happens, Christiana has this figured out to the point where whenever I start this routine, she’ll just sit at me and look at me knowing full well that it’s an act. She knows things about me. She knows a lot of stuff about me stuff that she probably doesn't want to know. We've been together for 6 years, married for 3 years. Some of you have been married for decades. Some of you may know then, that you can be married for 50 years, and your spouse can still keep secrets from you.

This just a few years ago in 2015, Cheryl Love was married for 40 years to her husband Bobby Love. And after 40 years of marriage she wakes up to the knock on the door from the FBI to find out that her husband isn't Bobby Love. Bobby Love is his alias because he is an ex-con that escaped during a prisoner transfer, and has been on the run for 40 years. He was on the run for 40 years, she married him, she knew him as Bobby Love they raised a family together, they went to church together, he taught Sunday school, and the entire time he had kept the secret from her that he was an ex-con and should be in prison. So, it's one thing to say that God knows me better than Christiana does, that God knows me better than any of my friends do, but David is saying something more than that. David is saying, God knows me better than I know myself. He knows things about me that I don't know about me. That's pretty amazing that God knows more about who I am and what motivates me and what my desires are, and where I'm going to go and what I'm going to do that. And I'll tell you you've seen this play out you've seen it play out on this stage over the last couple years, I have learned more about what motivates me, and what causes my fears and my anxieties, and the things that I do, I have learned more about myself, by being in the Word of God where He reveals it to me. This is why you struggle with that. This is why you're motivated to do that. I've learned more about myself by reading His word, than I ever would sitting in a psychology class learning all of these neat tricks. If you want to know yourself, you begin with the word of God.

Now for the rebellious. That can be a terrifying thing. People try to run away from that, they spend their entire lives trying to get away from God. Think about the ultimate act of rebellion. Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the first human act of rebellion against God, God told them not to eat the fruit, and they ate the fruit. But, before they ate the fruit, how are Adam and Eve conducting business in the Garden of Eden. They have intimacy with God and each other. You remember what they're doing, they're walking around naked, they have no concept of their nakedness because of their total moral innocence. That's the way it was and then came the rebellion, and the moment there was rebellion, what did they do? They tried to hide from God. God's walking through the garden and calls out for Adam, ‘where are you?’ Adam is hiding in the bushes. ‘I'm here in the bushes’, ‘why in the bushes’ ‘well I'm naked.’ And they tried to sew fig leaves together to hide themselves and their shame, from one another. You see what happens there, human beings have parts about them, shameful things about them, that we try to hide from one another because we fear being exposed. We don't want people to know all that there is to know about us. We want to put on a front and a face for people, and what David is revealing here is, you can't do that with God. Every awful thought you have ever had. God knows about it. This is what's so amazing. We're told that this God knows all of the deep, ugly, desires and thoughts that you and I have entertained, and yet He still loves us.

I want you to imagine that we put up an image of the awful things that I have ever done, I have ever said, or I have ever thought, and it's all on full display for all of you to see. I'm going to go out on a limb and say there aren't many of you, in fact I would say, none of you would want to remain my friend, if you saw all of that, and that's not just true of me, I think we put that up for any of you, there's things that you don't want anyone to know about you, and yet what are we told is that God sees that, he knows that, and he loves us. He loves us and desires, intimate fellowship with us. What in the world kind of a God is that?

And then he goes on. Not only is God, all knowing, but he's everywhere, look at that next set of verses, 7-12. [Read Psalm 139:7-12]. There's no place that you're hidden from God.

Many people spend their lives running away from God because they don't want to be exposed. They don't want to be around the light that comes from God, as John writes, they love the darkness because their deeds are evil. They can spend their whole lives running away from God, thinking that somehow they can escape him, and what happens at the end of their life? Even though they think that they are separating themselves from him, when they slip into the other side of eternity, guess what, you cannot escape God, and that's the point that David is making. Where is it that you plan to run? To try to get away from God's presence can't be done in this life. The Bible tells us of only one place that’s away from God’s presence, and that’s Hades.  

That reality should have an obvious impact on how you live your life. If God is everywhere, that means when you're perusing your various options as to what movie to purchase, when you're staying in the hotel room by yourself. You're not by yourself. God is sitting right next to you, and the decisions that you make with your boyfriend or girlfriend when you're going on a date in your car, God’s in the car with you. Every thought that you have in your head, the thing that you were about to say, God sitting there hearing every word. Should that not impact the way that we live?

Then we get to God's power. I love the way this is presented, it's the total opposite of how you and I would describe power. Look at how God reveals His power to us in this passage, David writes, verse 13, [Read Psalm 139:13-18].

David describes the power of God by demonstrating the darkness. Darkness cannot hide us from God. God is all present light. He is everywhere, and David use the example of being formed in his mother's womb, now listen today, it's not nearly as mysterious we have sonograms we have ultrasounds we have 3d technology we know about fetal development. They have no clue about any of that stuff. This is a profound mystery what is happening is the human being is being formed in the womb of the mother, they don't have any idea and David is illustrating the power of God by saying you peer into that you know what's happening you are knitting me together in the womb of my mom and then he uses those words fearfully and wonderfully made. Human beings are fearfully and wonderfully made.

David is acknowledging there is sufficient proof for God, all you will ever need to see God at work is the testimony of your own body. Look at how fearfully and wonderfully you are made. It is impossible to look at that and not conclude that God is there.

Just consider human biology for a moment. Your brain regulates voluntary matters, such as muscle coordination and thought processes, and other parts of the brain control involuntary processes, called the autonomic system, things you don't have to think about. Digestion, glandular things, the rate at which your heartbeats. How did it accidentally happen that your body can speed up your heartbeat, to the proper speed to meet increased oxygen demand when you exercise, and then slow down when you don’t need to wear yourself out with that increase in oxygen and blood pressure? One square inch of your skin has 625 sweat glands, 19 feet of blood vessels, and 19,000 sensory cells, all of them work in coordination with your brain to maintain your body at a steady 98.6 degrees, give or take one or two, in all weather conditions. You have more than 200 bones in your body. Each of them is shaped perfectly for its function, they're connected intricately through to one another through lubricated joints that cannot be perfectly duplicated, even by modern science, which is why joint replacements are never as good as the undamaged original. There are more than 500 muscles that connect to these bones. 500 Muscles some obey willful commands, others perform their duty in response to unconscious commands from the brain, they all work together to keep us alive. Your heart muscle beats 103,000 times each day, pumping oxygen to your body’s cells through your blood. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made.

Sometimes when we hear that we're fearfully and wonderfully made, you might think, ‘Well, what about birth defects, what about handicaps?’ I have this condition, or something I was born with. Our new cat as an extra set of thumbs. That person needs diapers and crutches to get around, another’s in a wheelchair and can’t talk. What about them. Are they fearfully and wonderfully made? Remember what God told Moses. Remember when Moses used that, that excuse at the burning bush, ‘you can't send me, I don't talk right, I got a stutter.’ You remember what God said back to him, “who was made man's mouth, who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I?” The Lord is in charge of all of that. So, He says, did I not ordain all of this, am I not in complete control over all of this?

God has fashioned you with a purpose. Everybody, appearing perfect or not, the truth is, you’re not perfect, your body isn’t perfect, no one’s is, but our designer is. Humans are worth something and are valuable, not because of what we're capable of doing, but because of what we are: a being that reflects the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully made.

So, what do we do with all of this? Where did David go? What did David say about all of this? I don't know if you picked up on this, but for those last few verses David took on the role of the runaway bunny. You remember how the runaway bunny ended. Well, in verses 19 through 22, he said, in essence, sin is serious because sin is rebellion against God, so I hate sin. It's exactly what the Proverbs tell us, that the fear of the Lord means that you hate sin, have nothing to do with it, flee from it. And then in verses 23 and 24, David is saying that our response is to invite God to examine our soul and yield our life to him. That's the only response we can have to a God that amazing and that wonderful. That's the message of Psalm 139. If you want to know yourself, then know the One who knows you best. Get to know your Creator, understand him, and you'll begin to understand yourself.

            Let’s pray.