Invasion of Privacy
Psalm 139
Life is a Roller Coaster sermon series: The Psalms
Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA
September 4th, 2011
This morning we wrap up the series we’ve been in the last three months, going through the Psalms, under the theme that “Life is a Roller Coaster.” We’ve really just scratched the surface, and if you haven’t already, I hope that you will take time to read the rest of the Psalms to discover the richness of life and faith that they explore. There’s a lot there to lead each of us into a deeper faith walk.
Today’s Psalm is one of the classics. It is an often quoted, and much loved Psalm – except for one four-verse stretch. But even those four verses teach us something about ourselves and our relationship with God, as we will see. With that, let’s dive in to Psalm 139. Grab your Bible, or one of the blue pew Bibles in front of you. Psalm 139 is on page 577 of the Old Testament portion of the blue pew Bibles…We’re going to read all 24 verses in one fell swoop. This is God’s Word to you and me today…
1-6
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 far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
Let’s pause there. So David begins in the first 6 verses by acknowledging that God knows him forwards and backwards. God knows his thoughts, his path of life, his actions, his words – even before they’re spoken. Knowing this is “too wonderful” for him, and his beyond his comprehension, beyond what he is able to do as a human.
David sees this first as good news. God knows him. And not just in an analytical way, purely for the sake of knowledge. Rather, God knows him intimately, in great detail, in the context of a relationship that is meaningful and important to God. This is a blessing, right? God isn’t far off, leaving us alone to our own devices. Rather, God is right here with us, knowing us.
7-12
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can 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 settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night’,
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Well, David sees it first as good news…but also as bad news. This is a full invasion of his privacy. It’s not just some of his life that God knows, it’s all of it. Nothing is truly private. And David’s response is like ours might be: Maybe God is a little too close for comfort! Haven’t you ever wished that God didn’t know certain things about you? There are certainly facets of my life, ugly things I’ve said and done, that I wish could simply be washed away, hidden forever from the face of God.
And David was the same. After all, he had an affair, laid out a plan for murder, lied to cover it up…I mean, he certainly had his sinful side. And so David recounts some ways he would like to escape from God’s presence. Undoubtedly he tried some of these. He writes: “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” I doubt that’s a rhetorical question he’s asking. The good news of God knowing him feels like bad news sometimes, too, because there are parts of his life he’d like to hide. He can ascend to the heavens or go down the depths of hell, travel to the ends of the sea, hide in the darkness…it doesn’t matter. He’s tried them all, and he realizes that God will be with him and seek him out.
So it’s good news, then it’s “bad news”…and then in verses 13-18 he comes back full circle.
13-18
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
It’s good news that God knows him, and he expands it even further in these verses. He acknowledges that God formed him. God knit him together in his mother’s womb. Verse 14 is particularly well-known. It’s a verse worth committing to memory – hiding away in your heart, as we talked about a couple weeks ago. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” You know, if you’re struggling with self-esteem, self-doubt, depression, and so forth, this is a wonderful verse to hold onto. It’s been said that God doesn’t make junk. And this verse reminds us that when it comes to each and every one of us, that is true as well. Junk enters into our lives through sin and temptation, and so forth…but what God has made is beautiful and wonderful, and sometimes we need to be reminded of that. Maybe some of us need that verse today.
Now here’s a thought for you that turns things upside down a little. We see in the first 12 verses that God knows us. Nothing is private and hidden from him. But here we see the reverse: What is initially private information to God becomes made known to us as we live out our lives. Verse 16 says, “Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” You see, God not only knows us as we live our lives out, God knows our lives before we live them out. It’s private knowledge that God has about us…and it’s revealed to us over time as we live. This is, in a sense, us invading God’s privacy. He has the knowledge, and we get to participate in it over time.
Now, this is all a really lovely and wonderful Psalm up until this point. We’re cruising along in this blissful state, relaxing in the knowledge that God knows us, he loves us, and so forth, even if there were times we wish he didn’t know us that well…and then comes this rude awakening of verses 19-22.
O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
those who speak of you maliciously,
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
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 perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
I mean, don’t you feel like you’ve been watching a romance movie on television, and someone changed the channel to “Nightmare on Elm Street” or something like that? Where does this come from!?!
I think what’s going on here is that David is simply being honest with who he is and what he’s thinking. As he’s written all this stuff about God knowing him forwards and backwards, that nothing his hidden, that God knows all of his days before he lives them out…I think he suddenly realized that he may as well write out these thoughts that he’s had in his head. No point in hiding his ugly thoughts, or pretending they don’t exist. In fact, he can’t hide them from God, as he just acknowledged, so why not write them down? It’s as if he’s saying, “See if you can top this for ugliness in your life that God knows…” And clearly, he’s feeling like not only is he being hounded by someone, but God’s name is being slandered as well. And so in this moment of brutal honesty he shares his thoughts about these people who “lift themselves up against you for evil” and who “hate [God]” as he puts it.
And maybe our response is two-fold. First, maybe we say, “Sheesh, glad I never have thoughts like that.” And second we might think, “Wow. I’m glad that people don’t hate God that way anymore.” Well…sorry to say it, but I’m sure we’ve all had similar thoughts, and I’m also sorry to say that this kind of thinking about God is not obsolete. In fact, just this past week an article ran in the Seattle Times that had to do with Jesus and the church, and a bunch of comments from readers came in to the Times’ website. Here are a few of them that weren’t very nice about our faith:
“Religion! Created by humans to control humans! That being said as long as you don’t infringe on my rights I don’t care what magic fairy tales you believe or how you spend your sundays. Go Seahawks!” (Guess we know how that guy spends his Sundays.)
[Speaking of Christians, especially pastors:] “Teaching idiots and children to disparage those different from them, working to legislatively enact bronze age morality, and otherwise being smug [jerks] is fear mongering. Calling them out on it is a public service.”
“Religion is little more than “holier than thou,” dogmatic hate speech. It’s aimed at controlling women, terrifying children, and aggrandizing men.”
I suspect that was the kind of thing David was facing that made him write these words, and sadly, it’s thinking that still exists. Now, here’s the thing: When I first read these comments and others like them, I had a lot of different thoughts go through my head, and a lot of them weren’t very holy, kind of like these few verses in the Psalm where David lays out his dark side. But God can handle the truth of our thoughts and feelings. And sharing them with God is a healthy way to get them out. Taking them to God, as David does, is a lot more productive than retaliating to people out of our anger.
So God knows David’s thoughts, and David takes a moment to share some of the worst of his. But then what? Does David stay in this place of anger and self-righteousness? Does he say he’s “holier than thou” as one of these commenters said in the Times? Listen to the last two verses (23-24):
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).
The final spiritual condition is not a “holier than thou” attitude, but rather, it’s one of humility and seeking God’s leading. It’s a return to the theme that was throughout the first 18 verses. And he even takes it a step further: rather than just acknowledging that God knows him inside and out, from the moment of his conception to the moment he writes these words…he takes it further and invites God to know him, to test him and to know his thoughts. And if – and really it’s a matter of “when,” not “if” – there’s anything wicked found in him, David asks God to lead him in the way everlasting. In other words, to lead me in the way that You have intended from the beginning. And that way is not the way of hatred, but is the way of balancing grace and truth; balancing love and righteousness. David shows us that in the end, even his dark, ugly thoughts drive him back to God. He humbly recognizes his imperfection, and his need for God’s grace in his life, and he turns to the Lord.
We probably need to do more of that in our lives. Confessing our sins and asking God to lead us down right paths for his name’s sake – as Psalm 23 puts it – is utterly necessary, otherwise we live lives that are arrogant, hard-hearted, and full of self-deception. The Bible says that “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). One way that we tell our selves that we don’t have sin in our lives is to re-define what sin is, to change the words of Scripture so that it fits our lives, rather than us fitting our lives to Scripture. But when we do that, we deceive ourselves, and we draw ourselves away from God and his forgiveness, rather than inviting God’s presence into our lives. David shows us how to turn to God in these last couple verses, and it’s by being honest about who we are and who God calls us to be.
As I ponder this Psalm and its themes – the intimate way in which God knows us, even the dark and hateful thoughts, and the right way of living God desires to lead us into…as I think about these themes, I’m reminded of an encounter Jesus had with a woman at a town well that’s recorded for us in John 4. She was a Samaritan and a woman, both of which meant that because of religious and social customs Jesus shouldn’t talk to her. But he did. And you know what? It turns out he knew “everything” about her. That’s what she told her friends herself. Jesus knew all about her, including all the promiscuous stuff that had been a part of her private life. And yet just as this Psalm ends on a note of grace and invitation to living rightly with God leading the way, Jesus does the same thing with the woman. In the course of their conversation as they’re talking about being thirsty and the water in the well, Jesus says to her, “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). That’s grace being extended to her.
At this point, the woman could have arrogantly and in self-deception, said, “That’s nice, but I want to keep living the way I am. I think I’m just fine.” But like David, she recognized the ugliness in her life when confronted with the word of God, and in a step of humbleness, she opens herself up to Jesus and a new way of living. Jesus already knew everything about her. She couldn’t hide her life from him, just as the Psalm this morning makes clear. And so she lives out the last verse of the Psalm, allowing God to lead her in the way everlasting.
And it’s the same for us, because that’s the way Jesus works, even today. He knows everything about you and me. He knows what thrills us and what ticks us off. He knows our fears, he knows our comfort zones. He knows what we were like when we were kids, in our 20’s, middle age, our golden years, and beyond. He even knows the sins and stuff we wish he didn’t know. He invades our privacy. But he still offers to you and me the way everlasting, or to use the metaphor Jesus uses, he offers water that will continually refresh us and renew us and well up to eternal life, which is how you and I were meant to live to begin with.
Several of you have told me in the course of this series that you don’t care for roller coasters. They’re not your thing. But we’re all on one roller coaster from the moment we’re born. So as you go through the roller coaster of life, ride it the way it was meant to be ridden: With Jesus in the car with you. He knows everything anyway, so you may as well let him into your life further than you ever have before. Let him be Lord of your life as well as your savior. Let him join you fully for the whole ride, not just the parts where you need him like a security blanket. Let him on from start to finish, for the whole thing. No holding back any facet of life. And he promises that he will forgive you and renew you, and lead you into life that is everlasting. It’s a ride with Jesus that lasts into eternity. And that is one ride that we don’t want to miss. Let’s pray…Amen.
