A sense of amazement is good and healthy for all of us. Life every day is full of surprising things that capture our attention and ought to stir a sense of amazement in our heart. I’m amazed at the hugeness of this universe; at the intricate formation of a tiny hummingbird; at the complexity of the human body. And I’m amazed at how a seed is put in the ground and a whole plant with a full ear of corn develops; and how a child’s body grows; and how cloud formations create such outstanding sunsets. And I’m amazed at how our eyes function; at the miles of blood vessels in our body; and all the electric impulses of our brain. And I’m amazed at human relationships and how some can be so secure and deep and others very difficult and damaging. But over and above it all, there is something else that amazes me. I’m amazed at the fact that God, the almighty God, creator of the universe, the one who rules over all, that great God…He knows me! He does. He knows my name. He knows my dreams. And he knows my needs. Sure, there may be billions of people in the world, but God knows me…individually and personally! It’s that kind of amazement that’s behind Psalm 139, the one we read together a few minutes ago. This is one of those “I’m Amazed” Psalms. It’s another one of those Psalms that is very precious to a lot of us. David is musing about his amazement and thrill at the fact that God knows him, really knows him. That thought, he says, is “so wonderful I just can’t take it all in, I can’t quite get my mind around it all.” And he is so secure in that thought that he even invites God to keep on examining him, inside and out. I wonder how you feel about other people getting to know you well. Getting to know each other is a pretty delicate process, isn’t it? Sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes we welcome it, and sometimes we don’t. Some folks that I know resist it. They just are not comfortable with others coming to know them well. They prefer their privacy. They feel that’s a safer place to be. Maybe it’s because they are introverts and it makes them uncomfortable to have others close. Maybe it’s because they are afraid that if others really knew them well, they might not like them, or love them. So they withdraw out of a search for safety. Or maybe they have something to hide, some things they just don’t want others to know about them. So, for whatever reason, they resist lettings others really know them. And so some folks find it very difficult to be transparent with others, and so they wear masks so that others will not be able to know who they really are. Could you be one of those who resist letting others know you? If so, then this Psalm is likely to make you somewhat uncomfortable. Still other folks wish that others knew them better. Some folks are extroverts and the more people they know, and the more people who know them, the better. They are energized by relationships. Others wish people knew them better because they are lonely people. Their circumstances in life are such that they spend a lot of time by themselves, or they are strangers in town or in church, and often feel very insignificant because they have few deep relationships. Still others wish they were known better because they feel misunderstood and misjudged. They feel the kind of lonely pain that wants to say, “If you just took the time to know me better you wouldn’t feel that way.” Well, some of those desires and risks become even more prominent when we begin to talk about God knowing us. If you resist letting others know the real you, then how will you feel when David tells us that God knows us totally? Or, if you are someone that does desire relationships and wants others to know you, will you welcome that from God too? The point of this Psalm of David is that God’s knowledge of him is total, is comprehensive. Listen to how sweeping his words are. In the first verse he points to the fact that God doesn’t merely observe us from the outside, he knows us because he has searched us. That means that his knowledge of us in based on an inside look, on the basis of probing and examining us. Then listen to how he continues — you know when I sit and you know when I rise; you know when I go out and when I lie down; you know my thoughts from a distance; and even before I say something, you know those thoughts are in my mind. He’s reflecting there on what we call the omniscience of God. He is all—knowing. It’s built right into the character of God, one of his attributes. We’re not that way. We are limited in what we know, or can know. We can only know so much, or so much at a time. We have our strict limits of knowing. But not God. He knows all, all the time. And the word that David uses here is a pretty big and deep word. It’s not a reference to quickly picking up a few facts or impressions which may or may not be accurate. It’s not just, “oh, I know this is the right route” or “I know this is Sunday”. God’s knowing is based on inside in—depth knowing. It’s based on exploration, scrutinizing, sifting through all the information so thoroughly that it becomes a part of him. So here is a God who has so thoroughly attached himself to us that he carefully scrutinizes us, inside and out. Now, I’m not sure how much you recall of David and his life, but that could be a rather scary and unwelcome thing for him. Oh, the young David who kept lonely vigil out with his sheep all night could welcome it. And the David fleeing from Saul, needing to hide in caves, could welcome it. King David who was frightened about powerful enemies, and had to send his men out to bloody battlefields against them, could welcome it. But what about other parts of David’s life? There were also times when he was a failure as a father; could he handle God knowing that? And then how about that time when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged to have her husband killed in battle, what if God knew that? Yes, he could have feared this total knowledge God has of him. How you and I feel about that with regards to ourselves will likely be shaped by several things. It will be shaped by our personality and our experiences and whether we are willing to be transparent before others. But even more it will be shaped by our concept of God, by what kind of a being we think he is. If we should happen to have a picture of God as some vicious intolerant tyrant, then it’s bound to be mighty frightening to discover that God knows us totally. But…if we have come to know him as a loving, merciful and gracious heavenly Father, then we likely will be much more ready to welcome it. In other words, if we have come to know God as the Gospels portray him in the New Testament — as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is so filled with compassion toward us, and so eager to redeem us that he sent his Son Jesus Christ to cover all our sins, then we’ll find much greater security in being known by him. That’s the way David knew God. No, he hadn’t read the Gospels yet, and he had not heard the story of Christ’s crucifixion, death and resurrection, but David had come to know the heart of God as a heart of compassion and grace. And so he is not frightened by this knowledge that God exams him and knows him totally. He finds it wonderful. He says this awareness of God’s knowledge of me is “too wonderful for me”, “too lofty for me to attain” (v.6). He says, “It thrills my heart and deepens my sense of amazement.” Well, doesn’t it do that to you too? It surely does to me—especially when we know him as a God of grace in Jesus Christ. Just think of it, billions of people in this world, all over planet earth, and God has intimately attached himself to me—to you. No wonder the line of thought you’ll find running through this Psalm is “it’s wonderful” and “I’m amazed!” Now let’s take that a step farther. If God knows me that intimately and thoroughly, if he has attached himself to me in that loving way, then I am never alone. Feeling very much alone can be an unavoidable part of the human experience. David knew that. He remembers the aloneness he felt while he was out there with the sheep. He remembered how alone he felt when he had to flee from Saul for his life. And how alone he felt when his son Absalom was trying to steal the kingdom away from him. Surely he knew the loneliness that most leaders feel a good bit of the time. Do you know that? Oh, surely you do. We all do. Maybe you’ve lost loved ones who were very close to you. Maybe you’ve been deserted by someone you thought would be faithful. Maybe it’s death, or divorce, or desertion of some kind. It’s haunting to feel alone. But here’s David’s message. I may feel alone horizontally, on the human level. But on another, much higher, level I am never alone. God has so lovingly attached himself to me that I cannot go anywhere away from his presence and his Spirit. As he writes this Psalm it almost sounds like he trying to test that, trying to see if he could possibly find some place in which that wouldn’t be true. So he puts his statements into exploratory pairs. He is probingly asking himself, “Let’s see if I can find any place and anywhere in which I could escape the presence of God.” If I go up to the heavens or down to the depths…you are there. Or if I rise on the wings of dawn, or settle on the far side of the sea, you hold on to me there. If I think the darkness will cover me and night surround me, that never excludes God’s presence either. Can you read yourself into that Psalm? Can you find your experiences there? One of my parishioners was dealing with a very advanced case of cancer. We often talked about a lot of things together, and one day our conversation turned to this Psalm. It had become her favorite, she said. And then she explained, “You know what I do? I write myself right into this Psalm. So I say, ‘when I’m getting ready for another surgery, you are there. And when I am in recovery, you are there. And when I lie down for my radiation treatment, even there your right hand holds me….” Go ahead and try that. When I walk down the aisle in marriage…. When I am afraid of the thunder at night… When I am right in the middle of commuter traffic…. When I’m wrestling with some big business problem… When I parent my children… When we’re playing ball… When I have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, either for myself or my loved one… Even there your right hand holds me fast! Do you see how comprehensive it is? So now let’s go back for a moment to my question of how that makes you feel. If you don’t trust this God, or if you are trying to get away from him, this will be a very unwelcome thought. As a matter of fact, it could be a very frightening thought. Ask the prophet Jonah. Remember him? He didn’t like what God had in mind for him; he didn’t want to go and preach to that wicked city Nineveh, so he got on a ship to sail in the other direction intentionally to get away from God. And he found out in the middle of a storm that that just doesn’t work. He could not escape God. And ask Elijah. He didn’t like God’s plan for him either. It was all too much and too tough, so he headed out into the desert and sat down under a bush, in a funk of a depression, desiring to die. But he found out, too, that doesn’t work. He couldn’t escape God, either. But David welcomed these words. He welcomed what he called “the wonderful knowledge that God knows me”. He welcomed it in all the ups and downs of his personal life. There is no resistance to the whole idea here. As a matter of fact, he sounds like a fellow who is on the verge of breaking into another shout of praise at every turn of the way. Listen to just a couple of his very positive exclamations.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” (v.6) “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them.” (v.17)But when he gets near the end of the Psalm, he says words that almost seem out of place until you understand that he is laying himself before this all—knowing God and asking him to reshape who he is. Yes, David is asking God to make a new David. He is so overcome with amazement at God’s care for him that he genuinely want to be God’s man in every way, and that means honoring God in everything. I remember listening to a lecture by a very devout Christian man once who said, “As I grow older, and am perhaps picking up a little wisdom, I’m asking God more and more, help me love what you love and hate what you hate.” That’s the way it ought to be. When we understand how God has attached himself to us, loves us, protects us, and made us to be his very own person, then more than anything else we want to be persons who are deeply and passionately concerned for the honor of God. We want his interests to be identified with our interests, his cause with our cause, and we become all the more devoted to serving his honor and glory. And that leads, on the one hand, to want the enemies of God to be abolished. We want those who contradict his will, profane his name, damage his kingdom, to be overcome. And we also want him to abolish anything and everything within us that is opposed to his honor and glory. That’s the ultimate surrender to him, isn’t it! And that’s why we are willing to pray the prayer of the closing verses of this Psalm:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” (vss.23—24)How Can That Be? Maybe these words surprise you today. Maybe you can’t imagine someone being so comfortable and at ease with God knowing them inside and out. And maybe you can’t quite imagine someone giving over such total surrender to God to be remade by him. And yet there it all is, right in this Psalm. Well, there are several things in the background of this Psalm that have prepared David’s heart for this confidence. The first is David’s awareness that God has created him. David knew who his parents were. He knew that Jesse was his father. He knew that he was born out of his mother’s womb. His own experiences as a parents taught him much about that process. But I think David was a fellow who liked to think more deeply about all that. In one of the Psalms he talks about studying the moon and stars, which he called the work of God’s fingers; and then he reflects on human beings who are made a little lower than heavenly beings. And now in this Psalm he carries that forward even farther. Here he talks about being created in his inmost being, knit together in his mother’s womb, woven together in the depths of the earth, and how God saw his unformed body. Now David’s knowledge of anatomy and embryology and fetal development was very limited and must have been pretty primitive. But he had a very clear awareness that this was God’s work. God created him; God formed him; and God knit him together. So much so that he erupts again in a praise shout, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful….” (v.14) and “how precious to me are your thoughts, O God” (v.17). I’ve talked to a number of nursing students who find the study of human anatomy both fascinating and challenging. The human body, with its intricate and detailed skeletal structure, its miles of blood vessels, its interwoven sets of muscles, and its mysterious nervous system, is enough to wring an exclamation mark out of anybody who pays close attention to it. Did you know they tell us there are some 206 bones in our body; at least 600 different muscles; close to 100,000 miles of blood vessels; and approximately 45 miles of nerves in the skin alone. David must have known very little of all those details, but he knew enough to see himself as an amazing and wonderful masterpiece from the hand of the master creator. And so he gives this poetic description of pregnancy and fetal development. And he sees all of this both as an act of God, but also as part of an eternal plan in the mind of God. No wonder God has such a vital, loving, vested interest in us. But also in the background of this Psalm is something that David was not able to consciously know, except in seed form in the promises God had given him. He was told that his descendants would be on the throne of Israel, and that one of his descendants would be the Messiah who would rescue God’s people from their sin. What he didn’t fully know was that Jesus Christ would be that son; that the Gospel would tell us that story of how he was born of the Virgin Mary; that he would teach of the kingdom of God, be rejected, suffer and die on the cross at Calvary. And that our sins would be covered by his sacrifice and that through his resurrection from the dead, we would know victory and eternal life through him. Imagine if David had all the information and testimony that we have about the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. You and I do hear that Gospel and we can know it. If David’s confidence of God’s love for him was firm based on the way he created David; how much more firm can our confidence be when it is based, in addition, on the price he paid for us at Calvary. It is not surprising that David found great comfort in professing, “God knows me”. Nor is it surprising that we can say the same, once we understand how he created us and how he has saved us through the work of his Son Jesus Christ. Some time ago I was at the beach, doing what grandfathers do when they are with their grandchildren at the beach. We were playing in the sand. We scooped it up, and poured it down. We dug a hole and filled it up. And while we did that, I was looking at the sand, all those little tiny grains of sand. In one little scoop, I could be handling hundreds, thousands, perhaps a million of them — in one little scoop. And then my mind wandered, and I wondered how many grains of sand like this are on this big wide beach? Could there be billions, trillions, a quadrillion? Could they even be numbered? And then what about all the other beaches in the world? And then I thought of David’s words.
“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, They would outnumber the grains of sand.” (v.17—18)Wow! How wonderful that God knows me! “O God, You know me inside and out, through and through. Your knowledge of me sometimes comforts me, sometimes frightens me; but always it is far beyond my comprehension. How frightfully, fantastically wonderful it all is! May your all—knowing, everywhere—present Spirit continue to search out my feelings and thoughts. Deliver me from that which may hurt or destroy me, and guide me along the paths of love and truth.” In the name of Christ, Amen. (Prayer from Psalms Now, Psalm 139 excerpts, Leslie Brandt, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1973, p.211—212.)
Howard Vanderwell
Howard Vanderwell was ordained in the Christian Reformed Church in 1962. He received his M.Div. and Th.M. degree from Calvin Theological Seminary and his D.Min. at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. He has served as pastor to four congregations over 40 years in Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. After leaving the pastorate in 2002 he began a new ministry at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary. He is currently a staff member at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and Adjunct Professor of Worship at Calvin Theological Seminary. He consults with local congregations, provides worship materials, leads conferences and workshops, and teaches courses on worship at Calvin Seminary. Howard’‘s interests include planning, leading and evaluating worship, preaching, and worship renewal throughout the evangelical church. “My life-long prayer, from my days as a child, was that I might be honored to serve as a Christian Reformed pastor preaching the Word of God to encourage and challenge his people. I consider the forty years of my pastoral ministry to have been the most valuable way in which I could have invested those years! When I consult with pastors, teach and mentor students, hold conferences for worship leaders, or write worship planning materials, my aim is to equip and inspire others to serve their Lord and Savior by making a whole-hearted investment in his church and his people. Such ministry is certainly not without its stresses and discouragements, and those of us who have found such joy in a life-time of ministry are uniquely fitted to encourage others.” Howard lives in Hudsonville, MI with his wife Eleanor. They have three married sons and ten grandchildren ages 5 through 19. His hobbies are yard-gardening, walking, photography and model railroading.
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