Search Me

All right. Well, good morning again and welcome to Hope Lowertown. Glad to dig back into the Psalms. Really just a few weeks left of this. We've just kind of done this in the summer months and then we'll be kicking off, well, at some point. We're kind of trying to figure out when are we going to be in the new space and what are we going to do when we start that? But we'll figure that out. But we will continue with Mark. Most likely, well, we will for sure, we'll finish Mark at some point. But right now we are in the Psalms. We're in week 7 as we've been kind of walking through these different aspects of emotions, of looking back at the— I'm not going to reread the quote, but from John Calvin, he talks about how the Psalms are the anatomy of the soul, that God has given us his word, his words to us, and then he gives us the Psalms that's saying, this is God's word to you that I'm giving you permission to give back to me. And they're raw. They're real emotions, and we're going to see that again this morning in Psalm 139. Just looking at awe and intimacy, I've titled this simply Search Me, as you will see why based on on this passage. I sent out that weekly email every Wednesday, and my mom gets it who lives in Illinois, and she texted me. She's like, "Oh, Psalm 139. It's my." It's one of my favorite Psalms. And it was funny because I was just like in the text when she had texted me that. I was in, I was in the Psalm studying when she'd texted me that. And I was just at a spot where I was like, really? Like, like, this is one of your favorite Psalms? But then it was like, oh yeah, this is a, this is a really, really beautiful, powerful Psalm. And I hope that it encourages us and helps us just see Jesus as, as even more beautiful. Um, so let's look at this Psalm 139. Uh, I recently in the last several months have kind of switched it to 3, uh, points. Um, but this Psalm has 4 movements, so it was— I couldn't, I couldn't just jam them together. Uh, so there's gonna be 4, 4 little sub-points here in this passage. And again, this is poetry. Uh, it's not even English poetry, it's Hebrew poetry. So there's a little bit that's lost in translation. And yet poetry is still poetry in the sense that it's meant to be— it's written in a language that's supposed to keep us moving in the sense that I want us maybe this morning in particular to think of this as a symphony. That when you're listening to an orchestra play a symphony, that you don't stop and go, oh, oh, oboe, can we just time out? I need to hear that one note from the oboe. Sometimes that's cool to do. I don't know if that's ever cool to do from an oboe, but it is. But it's— but you don't want to slow down too much. You lose it. You lose the picture. Right? You got, you gotta, you gotta hear the whole thing at once. And so there are going to be times where we're going to maybe hone in on a word, uh, on a note in the symphony that is Psalm 139. But I want us to kind of keep moving. And so if you have a question, maybe something that pops up that I didn't maybe answer, talk to me afterwards and— And we can chat about it. And so anyways, let's take this as a musical score and keep moving. Back in 2001, I brought up the police. This is not a real picture. I have not made an image with AI in a while. It's getting a little wild, okay? I'm just gonna throw that out there. This is a little too real. I gave like 2 sentences and I was like, oh, I think you read my mind. Back in 2001, I lived in the South Side of Chicago and I went to a little private Christian school called South Side Baptist School. Imagine that. And there was, you know, we were good kids. We were. But we were at this park. Well, not a park. We were at a baseball field behind my school in the South Side on 95th Street and Cicero Avenue. And we were just hanging out. Good kids. We're not doing anything that we shouldn't be doing other than, well, it's Chicago. So it wasn't like a curfew, you know, for kids. We weren't doing anything wrong, just hanging out. And a cop car shows up, you know, just a normal car driving on the street. And then all of a sudden it turns on that spotlight. You know what I'm talking about? The driver has got that thing that he can point. He just puts that spotlight right on us. And we look over and he turns his blue lights on. And my buddy DJ just takes off running, just starts sprinting away from the cop. But he's sprinting towards our school building, which was a long Building, he's going right towards the middle of it. He's got nowhere to go, and the cop just slowly follows him with the spotlight. And my friend DJ jumps into a porta potty that was outside of the school, and he closes the door, and the spotlight is just on DJ in the porta potty. And the cop gets on the microphone on his little you know thing and just sir, could you please come out of the porta potty? And DJ opens the door, head hung low. In shame, walks back to the cop. The cop let the rest of us go. I don't know what happened to DJ. I mean, he was at school, you know, the next Monday, but I'm sure he was fine and got a little slap on the wrist by his dad. I'm sure. I don't know. I don't know what happened. The whole point of why I bring that up is this: that there are things that we're going to see in this passage where King David—that there's no point. To hide from God, he already knows where you're hiding. Okay, he like I know I've got a spotlight on you. I see where you're running. I see you in your hiding place. I see where you're at. Come come on out. He's the one who shows you the hiding place. He's the one who created the hiding place. And so what's the point in running? So I want to just start with the beginning and the end of Psalm 139, verse one. He says. O Lord, covenant name of God, O Yahweh, you have searched me and known me. That's a fact. But then by the end of the psalm, he changes it to an invitation. Search me, O God, and know my heart. How do we get there? How do we see the psalmist, King David here, get from You have searched me too, God. I want you to search me. Let's see how he gets there. Let's start off here in verse 1, to the choirmaster, a psalm of David. Again, 2nd king of Israel, wrote 73 or 78. It's either half of a 3 or an 8 in my brain. I don't know if it's a 3 or an 8 psalms. Doesn't matter. Psalm 73. And he says this, O Lord Yahweh, 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. This is what theologians like to call the omniscience and omnipresence of God, that he's just everywhere at all times and he knows all things, but poetry In a really good way, doesn't read like a theological textbook. It plays a beautiful music score that describes an infinitely powerful God in a way that I can hear and I can understand with my human ears and limitations. Verse 4, even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Yahweh, 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. Going back 1 through 4, you see these kind of 4 verbs of, You know me when I rest. You know me when I am in motion. You know me in my thoughts, and You know me in my speech. Verse 4 here, we see that God doesn't, doesn't get the edited version of what you say, right? We've all been there. Someone says something to you and you say, ah, there's something I want to say to this person, but I'm not going to say it. You edit it. Most of us, sometimes successfully, where before we say the words, we edit it. God doesn't get the edited version. I mean, do you think about it? He knows you. Right? Knows your thoughts before you even get a chance to, to say the words that are, that you want to say. Completely sees you. Verse 5 here, you hem me in. This is language, this is war language, actually. This is a siege. If you can imagine a city that's being laid siege by the Roman Empire or whatever it is, It's a siege. There is no escape. But yet, this is supposed to be in a positive thing because he says, You hem me in behind and before. You lay Your hand upon me. That is a comforting expression. He is saying here, I cannot escape from Your presence. You have completely surrounded me. And then verse 6 here, One of my favorite passages, many of you know, Job 42, Job's response to God. God shows up and does this powerful stuff to demonstrate that he's God. And then Job says, I understand not things too wonderful for me, which I do not know. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. I can't even begin to wrap my head around who you are, God, and why you do what you do and how you do it. I think maybe just a little aside here. Sometimes we recognize that we can't outthink God. And so we try to outrun him. Meaning there might be a time where I hear maybe the Spirit of God saying, hey, I want you to go talk to that person. Hey, I need you to confront that person. I need you to forgive that person. I need you to, whatever it may be. And you go, okay, God, I hear your presence. But man, I'm not gonna go do that. I'm gonna ignore that. I know you're present with me, but maybe if I just don't do that thing or I go do this thing instead of that thing, like a Jonah. Hey, I want you to go and I want you to preach the gospel to the people of Nineveh. But yeah, God, if I preach the gospel to those people, they might believe in you and come to faith and be saved. And I'm gonna run. Just like DJ, I'm going to run and hide in a porta-potty that you built. Second point here, let's keep moving. Present. Looking at verses 7 through 12. Where shall I go from your spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there. So this isn't— now this is kind of moving past geographical running and hiding. If I ascend to the heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol— Sheol is just an Old Testament Hebrew word for the grave or kind of the afterlife. So he says, if I ascend to heaven or I ascend to the grave, 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. No part of me has anywhere to hide. Verse 10 says, hold me. God isn't this ever-watching eye like Sauron, right? Those of you who might be Lord of the Rings fans, Ooh, I just realized, well, you'll see where I'm going. There's an image up here on the second stained glass window, and Wally is a member of First Baptist Church, been here since he was a little kid. He said that that eye used to terrify him, right? It's supposed to be the ever-watching eye of God. He says, as a little child, it freaked me out. God's just watching me. He's just looking at me all the time. And Wally just said, but as I got older, I took comfort in that. As I matured, I realized, no, I want God. I want God to see me. This is, this is, I'm like, Wally lived this passage. God, here's the truth. You've searched me. You're the eye of Sauron. You know everything there is about me to the end of maturing and saying, search me, search me, O God. This should be comforting to us to see God And read God say the words and say phrases of, I know you. I mean, I know you. And I still love you. That should draw our hearts to run towards that God, to cry out and say, yes, search me. I love verses 9 and 10 here specifically because God is with us even when we try to run. Right. I look, if I take the wings of the morning, if I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, if I try to flee from you and run from you, even there your hand shall lead me. Your right hand shall hold me. This is, this is, I mean, not that I'm not trying to push this illustration too far, but God is like the spotlight just guiding us. Hey, let me, let me make sure you don't trip over something as you flee from me. I'm going to guide your footsteps, even when we try to run away from his presence. Verse 11, if I say, surely darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. Again, in beautiful poetry here, David is saying that God is everywhere. He sees our every move and every thought. And he isn't just watching us. He's not just observing us. He's present. He's holding us. He's leading us. He's guiding us. I know, I know there are some of you in this room who feel alone, who feel dark, or feel like you're sitting in the darkness. This psalm says, nice try. Nice try. You're not alone. You can't be in the dark. You can't run away. I'm here. I'm here. To stick with the running from the cops theme, there's this phrase. I don't know if they still use it or not, but even if you were to outrun one officer, they would use this language. They would say, you can't outrun radio, right? Meaning that if you try to outrun a cop, they're going to radio it in and it's all over the place and cops are coming from everywhere. Can't outrun radio, is the expression. I don't know if they use that anymore. I don't think they use the radio. Can't outrun Wi-Fi. And this might be dumb, but you can't outrun residence, is the way that I've changed it for this passage. Because God is already there. You can't outrun someone who is already there when you arrive. Search me. Let's look at made. Verse 13, we have this word for. For you formed my inward parts. For. Why is God everywhere? Why is there nowhere God isn't? Based on what we just read, for you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. The psalmist, King David, here is saying, because everywhere I go or I have gone or have ever existed, you've already been there. You have knitted me like a tapestry, like a masterpiece 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. It's like a father or a mother checking in on the wellbeing of their child on their first day of school. It's not weird. It's not creepy. It's loving. I see you. I know you. I love you. I can't, I can't be apart from you. These are beautiful verses on the sanctity of life, that even in the womb, God has knitted us together. See that again in verse 15, my frame was not hidden from you. That inward parts there, that this, the original there is my kidneys. Even like the parts that I can't see, you're there. You've knitted me together. My frame was not hidden from you from when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Like a tapestry. Careful, thought out, purposeful. And while these are beautiful passages about unborn children, these are also beautiful passages about you and about me. This is how God thinks of you and every human being who has ever existed. It goes on in verse 16, your eyes saw my unformed substance. Unformed substance, the Hebrew word for this is golem, actually. Okay? And I, and this morning, and I thought that I was reading this old, you know, this commentary and I see the word golem and I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. Ah. I wonder if that's like the same Like Gollum, you know what I mean? Just unformed substance that kind of seems like maybe there's a connection there. Um, and, and just this morning, it's like 7:15, I was like, I wonder, I'm just gonna look it up. And I Googled, what does Gollum's use of golem— golem is this little creature who's just wet and gross, and golem is the noise he makes, uh, as he's trying to cough up his phlegm or whatever it is he's doing. Uh, I have a pretty mean, uh, Gollum impression, which I won't do. I'll spare you. for that right now. But is that what Gollum is? Is there a connection? And there's actually quite a lot written on this topic of whether Tolkien actually said, nope, I'm going to use this Hebrew understanding of wet, gross earth, unformed substance, and name this hideous creature that crawls around in the dark Gollum. It's debatable. He never says one way or the other, but of course, there's a lot of Tolkien nerds out there who have probably written a book about it. Either way, I want you to remember this, right? This phlegm of Gollum that's being coughed up in the dark, that's— your eyes saw that. When I was just this clump of cells or whatever you want to call it, you saw me. And in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me. Before there was a self to know, God was watching you as an embryo, the way an author watches a draft to come to fruition as they're writing. And the verse then continues this theme into the book. In your book were written every one of them in the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them, days written before days existed. Knowledge of you and love for you precedes existence of you. No. Wild. That's wild. That's when that I doesn't become, whoa, whoa, whoa. It becomes, yes, search me. Meaning, there's nothing that you can or can't do to get God to remove his searchlight from you. He loves you too much. He loves you before you even realized what you were doing was right or wrong. He loves you. Oops. 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. Being watched can be strange if it's from a stranger, right? It's super uncomfortable. But being watched by a loved one, being watched by your Maker, It's loving. This final point here, let's move on, verses 19 through 24, it says, searched. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God, O men of blood. That can't be right. Did I put the wrong passage? No, I didn't. This is part of the text, right? This is where I was when my mom texted me. That's my favorite Psalm. Slay the wicked? My, what do you got going on in your life right now? What are you working through? Right? Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! 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. This is the part of the psalm that gets edited out at weddings and baptisms. This doesn't get read out loud. Why would David put this in here? He's written a lot of poetry, a lot of, like, gut-wrenching, hard poetry. He knows exactly what he's doing. But can we just be happy? Why does he got to keep doing this all the time? He keeps bringing up something bad and sad and hatred and blood. Why does he do this? I think it's on purpose. Back in 2001, when I was in Chicago, I was living with my cousin in the South Side of Chicago, and I had a roommate, a baby. They just she just had a kid, and. And Cade was his name. He's like a man and in the Army now, which is just always a weird thing. But I, I was— I'm a very light sleeper. And we were very close to Midway Airport. And as the planes would come in and land, it would just keep waking me up. And so I would listen to music and I'd listen to the soundtrack of Jurassic Park specifically. I don't remember which track it was, but one song that was like 7 minutes long. And I had a CD Walkman thing and I would just repeat just play that song over and over and over. Just this beautiful French horn, and I just loved it. I'd fall asleep to that. But the problem is the last like 3 seconds of that song, there just was this strong, like, dinosaur's gonna eat you chord, right? And it would just, boo, wake me up every, every time that chord would hit. And then it was like, well, I, do I wake up every 10 seconds because of a plane or every 7 minutes because of the song? I chose 7 Minutes of the Song. Why didn't I download a different song? Because you didn't download back then. Okay. You couldn't just go find a new song. That was it. I think that's what David's doing here. He's got this beautiful piece of how, look how God knows me. And then wham, this chord of dissonance in a minor key that I'm struggling with. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's jarring. There's 2 observations I think that we can make here. One, These are not just minor inconveniences that David's bringing up. This is not he's driving his chariot over to Jerusalem and someone cut him off. I hate you with complete hatred, right? I don't— that's not what we're talking about here. His hatred is geared to people who hate Yahweh. And they're doing everything to destroy Yahweh and destroy his people. That's where his hatred comes from. But I think more importantly than that, number 2, Is David is a king and he does not enact violence in this passage on the people himself or vengeance on his own. He gives it to God to seek out justice. He doesn't take it into his own hands. So where does he go from here? That's how he gets to the conclusion. Search me. 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. I hate them with complete hatred. Now search me, O God. David here lays his hatred on a table. and ask God to examine it. David says, my zeal for you, this is my zeal for you, God. Can you, can you check it? Okay, can you make sure that my, my passion for you is actually okay? Is it warranted? I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it and put it into your hands. Even the anger that feels most righteous, God, can you try it out? King David doesn't let his hatred, no matter how vindicated it is, get the final word. He takes his inner thoughts and his inner turmoil and says, God, can you search my heart on this? Can you check it with your heart and with what you would want for me? The word for thoughts here in verse 23 is disquieted, branching thoughts, anxious ones. The man of the inner— sorry, the man of complete hatred admits right here, just one verse later in verse 23, that his inner life is not settled. Complete hatred and anxious thoughts live in the same chest. I think it's interesting, right? How hatred and anxiety Are so intertwined. Why do I hate that person? Why? Why do I hate that individual? If you can even think just someone, like man, I don't know if I hate anyone, but just that person I really, really, really don't like. Why? Why do I do that? And why does it cause me anxiety if I think that they would get if they would get their way? If they're if they got their way, if they were in control, if they were whatever it may be, and that causes me anxiety. And there's hatred, they just seem to overlap so much. I started by quoting verse 1, right? You searched me, to now verse 23, search me. And I asked the question, what happened in between that makes a man ask for searching? I think what David discovered, or at least what he revealed to us in poetry, is he discovered that the searcher is the weaver. He's the one who actually put this whole thing together in verse 15. I recently had a tooth pulled. I think I told you that. Number 30 back here. It's doing great, by the way. The dentist— dentist, I don't know what he is. I don't know what you call him. Oral surgeon? I don't know. You had to go to— I had to go to a specialist. Who cares? When I met the guy, he gave me his personal cell phone and said, if there's ever any problems with this tooth extraction, I want you to call me. Now, I don't know if it actually was a cell phone because I never tried calling him because he did such a good job. But you know what that did do for me in the chair? And this guy's about to rip my face open. Is I go, yeah, I trust this guy. I trust this guy. If he's willing to give me his personal number here. You only invite the surgeon when you trust the hands. And I think that's exactly what David does here. David says, "No, no, you you do know me. You you know your stuff. You are an the greatest surgeon that's ever been. I trust you. Search me. Operate on my soul. Search me. Know my heart. Try me. Know my thoughts. I can pray verse twenty-three." I can ask the God of the universe to search me, to know my heart, to try me, to know my thoughts. I cannot ask verse 24. I can't ask verse 24 without failing miserably. See if there be any grievous way in me. The King James says, see if there be any wicked way in me. Well, there goes that. Why would I invite that in if there is a grievous way? If I am wicked, if I am sinful, why would I ever open myself up to God of the universe? How does anyone ever pray verse 23 and 24 together? Because there was a man. There's a man who was searched and nothing was found. Nothing. He was searched. He was known. He was tried and found innocent, that He stood before His judge and His juror and His executioner and He said, you've done nothing wrong. Christ was known completely. He was hemmed in, to use the same language in the Psalm, from behind and before. In the Garden of Gethsemane and being betrayed by His friends to the cross of the Roman executioner, He was tried, He was examined, He was tested, and He was found faithful. And at the cross, He received the answer to this imprecatory part of the Psalm of God, of King David saying, slay the wicked. Slay the wicked. It was answered on Jesus, not because he was wicked, but because he was in the wicked's place. It was answered on him in our place. And that's why the wicked, me, you, can now pray for. We can be prayed for, not just against. We are the wicked ones. We are the wicked ones. We grieve God. Slay the wicked. I'm the wicked. But now we can be prayed for, not just prayed against. The King David who prayed, verse 19, slay the wicked, is answered by the Son of David, Jesus Christ, who prayed, Father, forgive them. We can open our hearts and our minds to the searchlight because the verdict already came down on Christ. Search me is now a request to be fully known and seen by God. How beautiful! How beautiful! God, you know, you've already searched me. But then to get to a point to say, man, even my Worst, weakest spot is seen by you and you, you still want that? You're still going to forgive me of that? What a God. So in application here, come to the table. We have communion every, every time here at Hope Lowertown. The bread that represents the body of Christ, the juice that represents his blood. You don't need to be a member of this church or any church, but if you're a follower of Jesus, if you say, if at some point in your life you've recognized, like, yeah, I am a sinner. Yes, I am wicked. But man, Jesus is good. He died for my sins. He took my place. That when the verdict should have come down, yes, you are guilty, it didn't. And Jesus says, Father, forgive them. And he says, I will because of your sacrifice. Amen. We get to remember that together. If you've done that, I would love for you to take place and take part of this meal with us this morning. As we remember, as we come to the table, fully known, fully seen, and fully forgiven. As we come to the table, we can cry out to the God of the universe and his omniscience and omnipresence, all the theological big terms, and invite that God in. You have searched me. Now search me. You come to this table known again, not just this presented self, the actual one, hatreds and anxious thoughts included. And you can still eat the bread anyway. What a God we serve. Let me pray. Worship team is going to come back up and sing 2 songs as we take these elements. Feel free to grab the elements. If there's a gluten-free option on my left, your right, if you need that. And we'll worship and sing and pray and remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us thousands of years ago. Heavenly Father, again, just thank you for the time that we have together this morning as we look at this Psalm. As we now can cry out, search me, search me, O God, and see if there be any wicked way in me. That we can invite you in because of what Christ has done on our behalf. That the one who, who there was no wicked way, there was no grievous thing about him, took on our penalty, took on our punishment, took on our pain, took on our suffering so that we could be free and be free indeed. And be free to approach the throne, approach the table, to remember the finished work and to worship You and invite You in to search us. God, we love You. And it's in the name of Jesus I pray. Amen. Amen.