Psalm 139
O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
In the spirit of our sermon series, Summer Playlist and as we continue to explore the Psalms as the original music of our lives. I thought it would be fun to pepper in some song quotes into today’s sermon. I know how many I’ve added and I’ll challenge you to keep track. Come and find me in the receiving line or email me if you are watching online with your number and I’ll tell you if your count is correct.
Do you ever feel like somebody’s watching you?
That’s how you might interpret what the author of Psalm 139 is saying. For some people it sounds like there is no escape, no freedom. Depending on your inflection, verse 7 can sound like you are trapped. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” and so, for a lot of people, there is great comfort in this psalm. I think there are three primary parts of God’s character that are revealed in this psalm. God is omniscient or all-knowing. God is omnipresent, always with us, never abandoning us. And God is omnipotent, full of power.
Have you ever had someone who really saw you for you? Someone who knew you almost better than yourself at times? You might go out to eat and they could predict what you would order. They know your go-to order at your favorite fast food place or your Starbucks order. Maybe they know that on a road trip stop you are going to say, “I want candy.” They know what sauce to ask for with your chicken nuggets. They know that you really like to treat yourself with extra caramel drizzle on your drink at Starbucks. There’s something really beautiful about someone knowing you like that. It’s what love feels like. To be deeply and intimately known. This is what the psalmist is saying about how God is. The truth is that God already knows us fully, deeply, intimately. God knows the shame that you carry. God knows that part of you that you are afraid to share aloud. God knows the questions that you carry. God knows those harsh words that you said and have wished you could take back ever since. And God sees and knows all of that and still wants to hold you fast. This is an omniscient god. One who knows it all and doesn’t lord it over us. God uses all those parts of us that we want to hide to love us more fully. God loves you just the way you are. Whether we like it or not, we are fully known by God.
God doesn’t know an idealized version of you. God doesn’t love the version of you that finally gets it all together. God loves the actual you. The one who celebrates and the one who grieves. The one who trusts and the one who doubts. The one who prays every day and the one who can’t remember the last time they prayed. Sometimes we think we have to clean ourselves up before we come to God, but Psalm 139 reminds us that God has already seen every room in the house. Nothing is hidden. And still, God chooses relationship with us.
So, if we are fully known and loved by God. It means we don’t have to perform for God. God desires our authenticity. You don’t have to hide. Take the shame and shake it off. You don’t have to be someone you aren’t. So we, the Church, ought to become a place where people don’t have to perform. Our very lives should show other people that we encounter that they don’t have to live in ways that the world “approves of.” They can live their lives authentically. Can you imagine what the world might be like if we stopped living for the approval of other people?
So much of our lives can be spent asking, “Will they like me? Will I fit in? Am I enough?” Psalm 139 gently redirects the question. The better question is, “Who does God say I am?” And if we really believed that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, beloved before we accomplish anything, then maybe we could stop chasing applause and pursue faithfulness.
A friend of mine calls this psalm part of the “stalker boyfriend psalms.” As we move deeper into the psalm, we move into the omnipresent nature of God. The idea that God is always present with us. God says, “this is how far I’ll go.” I’ll go to the ends of the earth. The psalmist tries to explore if there is anywhere, maybe the heavens, maybe the depths of the earth, the furthest limits of the sea where God is not. And the answer is nowhere are we out of God’s presence. And if that’s the case, then God is accompanying us through it all. When life gives you hell, God says “I’m still here with you.” So in our lives, and in all the moments of injustice we witness God is present: in hospitals as people receive life altering diagnoses; in ICE detention centers; in prisons; in neighborhoods drenched in poverty; in every place that creation groans. So we don’t need to “bring God” to those places. God is already there. God is already moving. Calling us to join. Calling us to be moved into the work that God has already begun. We have been called to work against systems of injustice and oppression. Not because God isn’t there, but precisely because God is already there.
That’s one of the beautiful truths of our faith. We are never the first ones to arrive. Whether we walk into a shelter, a hospital room, a prison, or a grieving family’s home, God is already there before us. Our calling isn’t to carry God into the darkness as though God was absent. Our calling is to become partners in the healing work God is doing.
Finally, the psalm reminds us that God is omnipotent, not in the sense of forcing God’s will upon us, but in possessing a love that is stronger than anything that threatens us. The same God who knit us together before our births is still creating, still restoring, still making all things new. There are moments when it feels like evil has the loudest voice, when violence, hatred, and division seem to have the final word. But the God of Psalm 139 is not intimidated by brokenness. Death does not get the last verse. Fear does not get the final chorus. God’s love is powerful enough to keep creating hope where everyone else only sees endings.
There’s an interesting shift at the end of the psalm. The psalmist opens the psalm saying “You have searched me..” and the 23rd verse begins “search me..” It’s a desire from the psalmist. It’s an openness to transformation. So friends, we can rest in the knowledge that God is all-knowing, always present, and all-powerful, but if it doesn’t change us, if it doesn’t open us to transformation, what are we doing?
Maybe that’s why the psalm ends not with certainty but with surrender. “Search me, O God.” That’s a dangerous prayer. Because if we ask God to search us, we are also asking God to change us. To change us for good. To uncover the places where fear has taken root. To expose the places where our prejudices have become comfortable. To reveal the ways we’ve settled for less than love. But it is also a hopeful prayer, because the One searching us is the same One who created us, knows us, accompanies us, and refuses to give up on us.
So may we have the courage to pray those final words. Search me. Know me. Lead me. Because the God who knows us best is also the One who loves us most. And that’s a song worth singing.
Alleluia.
Amen.
Total song references: 8