Walking With God

 

Text: Psalm 139:1-6

Focus: The believers walk

Function: to help people find an honest prayer relationship.

¹O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
²You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
³You search out my path and my lying down,
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
⁵You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

The focus of our sermon this morning is the believers walk with Christ.

Although the words are not the same, it sort of reminds me of Philippians 2:12b, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

In this Psalm, David talks about what it means for him to be living in a relationship with God and how God tests his heart and works to keep him honest in his relationship with the Living God.

David was walking with God. He lived his life knowing the God existed and was sovereign in his life.

I posted a meme to my Facebook wall last week that said: “When we say `feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and put down your weapons’ we are not being leftist or woke, we are merely quoting Jesus.”

Even though I value hard work as the way out of poverty, because of views like this, I get accused of being a liberal. If liberal means “generous,” then I gladly wear that badge. I see God as a generous soul with grace and giving and God expects us to be generous also. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said: ³⁸give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

There is no specific reference to what we are to give in this passage, but when we look at the life of Jesus, we see Him giving grace to people whom others didn’t think deserved it and He fed the 5,000, He fed the 4,000 and He told us to feed His sheep. Giving generously is living by faith and walking with God.

But, I am not a classic liberal theologian. It seems to me that classic liberal theology has denied the idea of being born again.

And I cannot deny that when I asked Jesus into my heart, He came inside and caused me to know Him. I know by faith that I have been filled with the Holy Spirit and God witnesses it to me every now and then.

You see, God knows our heart. David speaks of how God “hems him in.” (Verse 5)

It is a metaphor for the way that God protects him and keeps him honest in his relationship with God. That does not mean that David did not have his times of doubts and failures. God’s love covers a multitude of failures and brokenness in our lives.

When David says that God hems him in before and behind, it reminds me of how God allows us the freedom to be who we are specifically, but at the same time, God is leading and directing our lives for God’s purpose. To walk with God is to give our lives to Him for Him to use for His purposes. Look at Romans 12:1: I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

We are separated from this world and have become an holy people. Holy means that we are dedicated to God. That is why we are generous, loving, compassionate, forgiving and peaceful in our lifestyles.

Brother Paul calls this separation “a living sacrifice.”

Sacrifices, you know, must die. But not us. We are going to live forever. The sacrifice that we make is to give up a life of fighting and striving for ourselves for a life of giving and living for others.

In our text, verse 4, David tells us that he believes that God is able to know his thoughts to the extent that God knows what he is going to say even before he says it. For a second he breaks into worship and exclaims that the knowledge of God is more wonderful that an human can understand.

David is saying that God knows the intentions of our hearts and because of that, we cannot get away with lying to God.

We may tell everyone else that we believe, but God knows what we really think. We can’t lie to God about it.

Let me make this personal. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that God knows the thoughts and intentions of the hearts of over 7,000,000,000 people at the same time.

But then, I don’t understand why the sun just doesn’t burn itself out, that is what happens with fires eventually.

God knows that I don’t understand or that I have a hard time seeing the possibilities of what it means to be a supernatural being with that kind of capability.

God knows both that we struggle with faith, and that there are areas in our lives where our faith is strong. God knows us and God still loves us. And to me, that is one of the beauties of this passage.

David lived by faith.

One of my favorite stories in the bible is the story of David and Goliath. Not that I enjoy war, warfare, or killing, but I love the way this child walked by faith.

In 1 Samuel 17, we read how Goliath came at him mocking him, laughing at him and then calling down curses on him in the names of his own gods and David just stood there and faced him.

I wonder what Goliath was thinking as David was whipping up the stone in the slingshot right before he let the stone fly. Apparently, to him, it did not appear that this child was any threat.

But David kept his place. I love his answer to Goliath, “you come to me with sword, spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts…”

In the face of death, he rested in God and one wonder where that kind of courage comes from?

When David was preparing for battle and talking about it with the King. The king tried to give him the best armor an Israelite soldier can have. He had the option of trusting in human strength. And David said no, that he would trust God rather than mankind. David then told the king that he knew that God was with him because in his youth, he walked with God.

He had an active relationship with God and he lived by faith.

And when he sinned with Bathsheba, God hemmed him in and didn’t let him get away with it. God forgave him, but God also allowed the circumstances in his life to reflect the fact that David needed God’s guidance continually to keep himself from falling.

He failed by committing adultery and then murder, and God forgave him because in his heart he trusted in God.

I picked up a passenger last week who immediately asked me if I went to church. I said I was a preacher and he said, “Ask me how I knew that! I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in your car the moment I stepped in.” He shared with me his story of waywardness, prison and then he accepted Christ as his Savior and everything changed for him. I hope to include him in our next Kairos team.

That encounter reminded me that wherever WE go, God goes with us.

Let me end with the first verse, “...You have searched me and known me….”

God, knowing that David was far from perfect, still accepted him because he lived by faith.

So we too walk out our faith in fear and trembling by living in love for others, as Jesus said we would.