Psalm 139 is a psalm of David. David talks about this very personal relationship between him and God. In fact Psalm 139 basically talks about two attributes of God. One is His omniscience. Second is His omnipresence.

But the psalm is more than just talking about these divine attributes of God; it doesn’t just talk about God knowing everything, but God knowing everything about US. He knows each of us thoroughly; very very well. The psalm also talks about God’s omnipresence. But the focus is on His ever present influence in our lives.

Psalm 139 will be discussed in this sermon to talk about how intimate our relationship is with God.

1. Our relationship with God begins even before we are born
   Firstly, we have our relationship even before we are born.
   Psa 139:13-16
   We had a relationship with God before we were even born. If we take a look at parents and their child, they develop a real relationship only after the child is born. Of course before the child is born, parents may have some expectation and imagine what their child will be like. That’s why parents think very hard what names to give their child.

The name represents their hopes for their children. But do parents actually know their child before they’re born? Of course not. We don’t even know what their character is like or what they’ll grow up to be like.

But our relationship with God goes into the mother’s womb. Before you even live one day on this earth, God already knew us. Before we even had the capacity to know God, God actually knew us.

That’s why God told Jeremiah, “I knew you before I even formed you.” So our relationship goes BEFORE we were even born.

Secondly, God is actually the one who formed us in the womb. v13 tells us “You formed my inward parts, You covered me in my mother’s womb.” Our parents may give birth to us, but they’re not our makers. Our mothers may have borne us, but she’s not the one who formed us.

Here tells us God is the one who made each and every one of us. Sometimes we think that God made Adam, but after that man made man. But here tells us God is actually the one who makes every one of us. And how we’re made us also a mystery.

The first time the speaker saw the ultrasound of his daughter, he thought to himself, “Wah how does this become a fully formed being? How does that actually take place?”

Even though science is very very advanced today, scientists don’t actually know HOW it takes place.

Solomon says no one actually knows how the bones form inside the womb of a mother.

This is the very work of God. And that’s why v15 says, “I was made in secret and skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.”

Thirdly, here tells us that even before we were formed, God already knew how we would look like.
“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.”

Some people are unhappy with how they look. Some of us say, “I wish I was taller.” “Thinner.” “More beautiful.” When we look at other people, we admire them and say, “Wah! They hit the genetic lottery!” (they think it’s random)

But for us children of God, David says God already knew exactly what we would look like. What we look like is actually not random, God determined EXACTLY how we would look like. He actually is the one who has fashioned us and made us into the exact way He wanted us to look like.

Therefore in v14 David concludes, “I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Each and everyone of us have been fearfully and wonderfully made by God. And David says, “My soul knows it very well!” He praises God because he knows it was God who made him as he is.

Do we also praise God for making us just as we are?

1. God knows us completely
   The second thing that demonstrates God’s intimate relationship with us - how God knows us so very well.
   v1-6
   Here David extols God’s omniscience because God knows everything! In fact, God knows everything about me because He searches me.

There’s a chinese saying: no one knows the son better than the father.

It is true because it is the parents who watched the child grow up. Therefore they know what the child’s character is like. They know what the child tends to do. Because they were the ones who brought up the child.

There was once the speaker’s daughter started to be able to run. She’s a sly person (lol). The speaker doesn’t allow her to pull the kitchen drawers because there’s lots of knives and medicine. Every time she tries, he’ll tell her no. He’s the only one she doesn’t try to pester because he firmly tells her no. So she starts to walk away. But he knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to trick me. (If she could whistle, she probably would’ve whistled as she went along.) But because she’s a child, her eyes kept looking at the drawer. Suddenly she turned around and ran to the drawer trying to open it. He was waiting for her because she had tried this before even when she was younger. He caught her and said, “Don’t pull a fast one on me.”

Parents know their child well because they raised them. But still sometimes the child can shock their parents. Sometimes the speaker’s daughter will grab something without him expecting it and run away. He has to run after her.

We may know our children but we don’t know them as well as God knows us. In fact, God knows us better than our parents!

v1 says “You have searched me and You have known me”
God’s examination is complete and impartial.

v2 “He knows our sitting down and our rising up”
How can anyone remember when we woke up and slept a few days ago? Who we met with a few days ago? Sometimes we don’t even remember what happened today.

But here says God knows everything that happens to us; when we sit down and rise up.

v3 He knows all the paths we have taken! Do we ourselves remember the route we took today?

That’s why contact tracing is quite difficult. It needs the person to remember every person they interacted with.

Yet God knows such fine and minute details of everyone of us. He knows every single thing we have done, from the time we’re born to the time we die. Even things you yourself have forgotten.

Testimony:
A brother stole something and forgot about it. Because he forgot about it, of course he didn’t repent about the wrong he did. Then later on God took extreme measures to remind him that he had once stolen something. He quickly repented of his sin.

Even if we have forgotten what we did long ago, God never forgets.

Secondly, God knows every thought we have. “You understand my thought afar off.” He knows everything that we’re thinking. Sometimes when we’re angry with a person, we don’t scold him in the face but may scold him in our hearts (maybe he’s our boss so we don’t dare HAHA). But to God, it makes no difference because He’s already heard what’s in our hearts. That’s why when Sarah laughed in her heart, God immediately asked Abraham why Sarah laughed. Sarah was very afraid because she didn’t laugh out loud, just in her heart. “I’m so old already! How can I have a baby? What’s this person talking about?” When God told her what she thought in her heart, she was very afraid and denied it. God knows the thoughts in our hearts.

Thirdly, He knows what we think and do even before we think and do them. v4 “There’s not a word on my tongue, but behold O Lord, You know it altogether.”

Therefore v16, God has written everything in His book already, before it actually happened. This is God’s divine foreknowledge.

Philosophers like to ask this kind of question. “If God actually knows your choice before you make it, do you actually have the freedom to make the choice?” “How can God know the future? If God knows the future then you have no choice!”

Those are philosophers. Of course none of us know the future so we don’t know if knowing the future has effect over whether we have freedom or not. Further, David wasn’t a philosopher but a man of God. The man of God understands God knows everything - everything you’re going to do and say.

Trying to understand it is also beyond our human mind.
v6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot obtain it.

God’s knowledge is beyond our human comprehension. But we can believe. We can marvel at God’s knowledge. God’s knowledge of us is indeed wonderful.

1. God is ever present in our lives
   The third intimate point we can learn about God from this chapter, the third aspect is His omnipresence.

God is ever present in our lives.

v7-12
David asked hypothetically, “Is there a place we can run away from God?” Sometimes when we do something wrong we want to run away and hide. Adam and Eve tried to hide when they sinned because they were afraid to face God. This is human nature. When we do something wrong, we try to run away and hide because we’re afraid.

When the speaker was young, there was once his eldest brother didn’t do very well for his test. He was afraid to go home. His mother waited. He didn’t return home. His mother asked him, “Where did your brother go to?”
“Maybe he has something on ah.”
“No. He’s always back on time.”
Of course she was worried, so she went downstairs. She found him hiding at the stacks of the mamak shop below. She brought him home; she didn’t punish him that night.
So the speaker thought to himself: Maybe next time when I do badly, I’ll run away too!
Then his mother said, “You all don’t try this stunt too ah!”
He was very timid so he didn’t try it.

The same question was asked by David. “Where will I run to?”

A mother told her boy that the universe would be destroyed one day. The boy said, “I’ll fly to outer space!”
“Even outer space will be destroyed.”
He was very shocked so he asked innocently, “Is there still anything beyond outer space?”

There’s nowhere for you to run from God. Jonah thought he could run, but of course he couldn’t run from the Almighty God.

v9 Even if you run like the morning rays, you still can’t run from God. So maybe we should hide?
v11 “Even the night shall be light about me.” There’s nowhere to run, nor anywhere to hide from God.

Heb 4:13
Everyone stands naked before God. We are without clothes, without anything to cover ourselves. All our thoughts and actions are exposed before Him. Ultimately, one day, all of us must give an account to Him.

The speaker imagines judgement day to be a video playback on our lives. Probably there’s a stop button where God will ask why we did such a thing. And we have to explain, because this verse says we have to give an account to Him - why we did this and had this thought.

If this is the case, how should we conduct our lives? We should live as if God is looking at us every second of our lives.

Just like Joseph. The mistress thinks no one knows, no one sees! But his answer was, “How can I do this great evil and sin against God?”

When we have this idea God is always looking at us, how will we dare to sin?

So this passage tells us God is ever present in our lives, so how should we lead our lives?

1. God is always thinking of us
   Fourthly and finally, God is always and ever thinking of us.
   v17-18
   God is thinking of us. Some people reckon thoughts to be the measure of love, which is true. How much we think of a person reflects how much we love the person. Isn’t it so in courtship? Couples ask each other, “Did you miss me?” In other words, “Are you thinking of me?”

Parents are also always thinking of their children. Whether they’ve eaten, whether they’re well.

If thoughts are the measure of love, then no one loves us more than God. Because no one thinks of us more than God. Not even our parents.

Think about it: no matter how much parents love their children, it’s not possible for them to think of their children all the time. If you’re busy with something, you’d forget about them. If you’re asleep, there’s no way they can think of their children.

But God is forever always thinking of us. In fact, God has been thinking about us before we were born!

v16 “when as yet there were none of them” God was already thinking of us!

David takes a step further that since God thinks of us so much, he’ll try to count them.
v18 “If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand” It would be innumerable.

“When I awake, I am still with You.”
Means God is still continuing to think of us.

This is David. David understands God’s love for each and everyone of us. And therefore He doesn’t take God’s love and thoughts for granted. Therefore he counts God’s thoughts as well.

What about us? Do we remember to treasure and count each and every thought of God towards us?

Finally, how does David respond to all this? This entire psalm is an expression of how intimate our relationship is with God. Our relationship goes even before we were born in the womb. He also knows us completely, utterly. He’s also ever present in our lives. Finally, He’s always thinking of us.

How does David respond? In conclusion we read v23-24.
He asks God to search him. In v1 he says God has searched him, that’s different. God searched him because God searches everyone. We have no choice. But v23 David is a willing participant. He wants God to search him! Because he wants to know what God actually thinks of him. David knows he cannot be presumptuous - just because I think I’m good, I’m good.

Very often, we have a high opinion of ourselves. In fact, we tend to have a higher opinion of ourselves than other people. But David doesn’t want to overestimate himself. He knows God knows him better than anyone else. So he wants God to search him and point him in the direction he should go.

David knows God ultimately is the one that knows him so well, so it is God can lead him to the way everlasting.

This is his response to God’s intimate relationship with him. Of course this intimate relationship is not just enjoyed by David. We also enjoy an intimate relationship with God. He also knows each and everyone of us before we were born. He also searches each and everyone of us. He’s ever present in our lives. He’s always thinking of us.

The question is: how do we respond to God’s love?

Are we like David? Or are we nonchalant?

May this psalm of David serve as an exhortation to us.