Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] It is. There it is. Hey, good morning, church.
[00:00:03] What a joy to be together today. Amen.
[00:00:08] We are doing a little thing every year after Easter, we kind of take a break from whatever we're doing and do a short little series coming out of the Easter season. And I'm excited for this one. We're doing this short series, just three weeks that I'm calling who Am I? And we're going to be talking about the biblical teaching on identity. How can you know yourself and know your space in this world?
[00:00:33] And before we get too far into it, I'm going to take just a couple minutes before we get into today's text. We're going to be in Psalm 139 today if you want to go ahead and turn there. But before we get into that, I want to give a little bit of introduction to this series and kind of why we're doing it. And the reality is, I just think this whole idea is of outsized importance in our world right now.
[00:00:53] You know, we live in a time when folk have unparalleled access to. To information, unparalleled access to other people.
[00:01:04] And yet even in this instant age of digital connection, it doesn't seem like that has led to increased human flourishing.
[00:01:14] And don't get me wrong, right? Like things like computer science, the Internet, increased access to information, like they've done wonders for things like medical science and human lifespans and cross cultural education and all those sorts of beautiful things. Yet if you look at the sociological research, you'll find that this digital information age and age of connection has dawned and come into full bloom and has also had devastating effects on Western society because the mental health of young people is in an absolute crisis, absolute crisis level in the last 20 years. Anxiety, depression, isolation, loneliness.
[00:02:27] Oj is it both? Is it both?
[00:02:34] Thank you, Ben. I'm on camera this time, guys. Can we all go? Can we just take a moment and appreciate our entire tech team for a second?
[00:02:46] If it was up to me, if it was up to me to make these things work each week, it would be so bad. Thank you, Ben. Oh, man.
[00:02:58] Okay, backing up. This is a bleak way to start a sermon, but it's really important to talk about this kind of stuff, guys. And I apologize for the weightiness of what I'm about to say, but. But I think this is important.
[00:03:13] Suicide rates in the United States over the last 10 years are functionally identical to suicide rates in the United States during the Great Depression, which is the highest recorded rate of that in our nation's entire history. Do you know what the difference is?
[00:03:27] The difference is that during the Great Depression, those suicide rates were over 90% over the age of 25. And now that is flip flopped.
[00:03:37] Flip flopped.
[00:03:38] The leading cause of death for 10 to 24 year olds is suicide.
[00:03:43] In our country right now.
[00:03:47] That's a reality within which we live.
[00:03:50] That's intense, but it needs to be said. We are living in a moment in history. We're living in a cultural moment where people are desperate to figure out who they are and where they fit in this world. And there's a lot of growing consensus in the research.
[00:04:07] There's a really easy to read, accessible book on this called the Anxious Generation by a guy named Jonathan Haidt. It brings a lot of this down to, like, dumb, dumb level for people like me.
[00:04:17] There's a whole lot of growing consensus in the research that this can be directly connected to the rise of access to smartphones and social media for young people.
[00:04:28] And again, this is not me saying we should get rid of our smartphones and throw away the Internet and all those things because they bring a lot of beautiful and important things to our society. This isn't me, like, giving, you know, this is not my bid for why we should all be Amish. But the reality is people today are continually, continually digitally connected. And they carry the weight of comparison.
[00:04:52] They carry the weight of the expectation of availability. They carry the weight of the necessity of figuring out how to stand out in a crowd of everyone in the entire planet all the time. And it's a crushing weight.
[00:05:07] Children and adolescents are completely unable to engage this, and their collective mental health shows it, by the way. Adults are unable to engage this. And our relationship with social media and digital connection and coping mechanisms and vices shows it.
[00:05:28] I believe in my heart of hearts that every human being, every single one of us, in our core and our DNA, want to have a life that is significant and fulfilling.
[00:05:38] I think it's part of how God designed us. I think it's hardwired into us, but that is increasingly difficult to do in the world we live in.
[00:05:48] I mean, how do you figure out who you are and where you fit in in all of this?
[00:05:54] When just 30, 40 years ago you had access to like a small percentage of your zip code and that was it.
[00:06:00] And now you have access to pretty much everyone, everywhere, all the time.
[00:06:04] How do you find where you fit in this? It's too much to bear the weight of defining yourself in a unique and fulfilling way in a world as open and high pressure as ours. It doesn't work.
[00:06:18] But here's the beautiful thing.
[00:06:20] It's also completely unnecessary to do that.
[00:06:24] You don't have to carry that weight. You don't have to figure out who you are. You don't have to stand up to the pressures and narratives of this world. Because, beloved, hear this. You have already been defined by Christ.
[00:06:38] You have.
[00:06:39] It is one of the most beautiful and I think culturally appropriate facets of the gospel is that Christ has already defined you and his design for you, his design for your life is fulfilling and life giving and significant. You are already. You are already in this moment. You are already precious, you are already set apart. You are already unique, you are already valuable. You are already important. And you don't have to explore and define that for yourself. You simply need to come to Christ and see who he has already, what he's already said about you and see who he has already made you to be. And guys, how you can actually live into his wonderful design for you.
[00:07:23] And here's the thing. I know that as soon as I say some of those phrases, that's already, like, triggering for some of us in the room, right? Like, it feels restricting to have God seemingly box you in. And we, we live in a culture that celebrates individuality and defining our own purpose and our own direction and our own life and complete freedom. And to have God come in and remove some of that freed feels restricting, maybe even oppressive, right? Like, what if God's design for you requires you to live in a way that you don't necessarily want to?
[00:07:55] What we'll find, I think, as we dig into the scripture, as we explore this together, is that as much as that may be a cultural narrative, it doesn't actually work out in reality.
[00:08:06] I think what we'll find is that God's design for you actually is your real best.
[00:08:11] It's actually the best and most fulfilling life you can possibly live.
[00:08:15] And so here's what that means. For the next three weeks, we're going to talk about God's design for you in three distinct areas of your person and how these different areas of your person can tell you about your identity in the world. So we're going to take today and we're going to talk about a theology of the body. We're going to talk about how God designed your physical self. Next week we'll talk about your mind. And the last week we'll talk about your spirit. And there's a reason for this structure. And this is a little in the weeds. And so please don't, like, don't feel like you need to understand this next paragraph of what I'm saying. Right. But in the study of Christian anthropology and like the theology of understanding humanity, there is a debate that has gone on for a couple thousand years about the makeup of a human according to the scripture and whether you're made up of three parts or two parts. I know, I know. This is something that's incredibly interesting. It's called a trichotomous view. A dichotomous view. Are you body, soul and spirit, or simply body and soul? It's a debate and it's interesting and totally unnecessary for what we're talking about. The reason I share it is that we're going to do this series, which is distinctly a Christian anthropology, a study of the theology of humanity, and we're going to do it in three parts. Not because I'm espousing a trichotomous view. I actually don't think that is the better view. I think the simpler biblical reading is a dichotomous view that you are a body and a soul. You are both of those things. The reason we're doing it in three parts is because we're going to talk about your body, your spirit, and your mind.
[00:09:40] Because I think the idea of your mind is incredibly appropriate to the cultural moment. I think it's important for our specific discussion in this space. And here's the real thing, guys. The reason I even get us into those weeds is to say this.
[00:09:54] I think the actual important piece, right? Like you can go home and you can Google Christian anthropology and the debate about trichotomous and dichotomous, and you can geek out on it, and it's interesting and we can get coffee and talk about it if you want to.
[00:10:06] But the important piece that is across the board in Christian anthropology and the theology of humanity is this.
[00:10:13] God designed you as a unity.
[00:10:18] God made you as a unity. And that's what we'll see each week as we look at body, as we look at mind, as we consider spirit. We're going to see each time that even though you might have these pieces, you might be these pieces.
[00:10:31] You are a unity.
[00:10:34] God made humanity set apart from the rest of creation. You're a unity of body and spirit. And there's something uniquely beautiful and important about that. And so today we're going to talk about body.
[00:10:48] God made you with a physical self.
[00:10:52] It is a significant and important part of who you are. It is part of your identity. And hear this.
[00:10:58] You can safely learn about yourself from the body that God gave you.
[00:11:04] That's a really important truth.
[00:11:06] The body that God gave you, with all its strengths and weaknesses, with all its beauty and flaws, you can learn about yourself through it safely because it is a gift that God gave you. And so my main point today is going to be about as dead simple as it can be. It's simply this.
[00:11:22] Your body bears God's image.
[00:11:26] Your body bears God's image. We're going to consider this truth from Psalm 139.
[00:11:33] If you don't have a Bible with you, by the way, we have house Bibles throughout the room.
[00:11:37] I think this idea is beautiful. I think it's important. I think it's obvious. And yet somehow, right now, this is a controversial truth.
[00:11:48] And I'd be willing to go so far as to say some of you are already thinking that I'm making a political statement by talking about your body and how God made it. And while that may be to some extent unavoidable, I can assure you that is definitely not my intention. That's not what I'm trying to do right now.
[00:12:06] Again, the most important part of talking about our pieces is not how we separate them out, but it's the fact that you are one person.
[00:12:16] You're one person. You are a unity. Your body and your spirit, that they are one.
[00:12:22] You are one person made in God's image. And every part of you can help you understand that identity. Our cultural moment leans into this idea that abstracts us away from the physicality. You are a ghost in a machine. Or as one meme put it, you are a mind piloting a bone mech covered in meat armor.
[00:12:43] Has anyone seen that one? Yeah.
[00:12:45] And here's the thing.
[00:12:47] That kind of meme can be funny, but it misses a key part of how God made you.
[00:12:53] I want you to hear this.
[00:12:55] You don't have a body.
[00:12:58] You are a body.
[00:13:02] You are.
[00:13:03] God made that for you.
[00:13:05] God embodied you.
[00:13:08] You don't have a soul.
[00:13:10] You are a soul.
[00:13:14] God made that.
[00:13:16] God embodied that spirit that is you.
[00:13:20] You have a mind.
[00:13:24] A mind is a tool you have to engage your person, your body and your soul. And our culture flips that. It reverses that. And when we look at scripture, we're going to see that it's putting the cultural discussion on its head.
[00:13:38] Your body is important. Even with all its failures, even with all its. Its struggles, even with all the ways the curse has broken it. God made your body, and it is sacred. And it points to God's good design for you. And so if you're already trying really Hard not to check out of this sermon because either it just sounds boring or because you're like, that's way too triggering. Please stick with me today. I do believe in my heart of hearts, God has refreshment for us today. So let's pray and let's jump into this text. Jesus, we need you this morning.
[00:14:08] We need you to be our discipler. We need you to speak truth to us, Lord, as we begin to dig into stuff that is so fundamental to your scripture and yet has such a hot button, such a tender topic in our society. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would be our discipler, that you would remove distractions, you would remove disunity, and you would allow us to rally together around the truth of you and your accomplished work on our behalf. And that would be what fuels us to engage your word and to consider what it means to live out this faith in this world.
[00:14:41] God, we love you, we trust you.
[00:14:44] Pray all these things in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:14:48] Psalm 139 is one of the most famous texts in Scripture, one of the most famous psalms. And to be totally honest, it's most often quoted in pro life discussions. Like, that's usually where this psalm gets pulled out in proof texting. And that's fine. There's reasons for that. But today I want us to engage this text for really what it says about our identity as God's creatures, as God's creations.
[00:15:10] And I would say this text grabs a hold of some of the deepest parts of what it means to even be human. It speaks to this truth that to be human is to be known and beloved by our Creator.
[00:15:23] And by the way, that's like a big thing to walk past. But can we just stop there for a second? Beloved, in Christ, you are fully known and fully loved.
[00:15:32] Fully known and fully loved. That is an intense statement, and that's really what this psalm is getting at, is how intense that is, if you actually begin to think about it. A couple things to know about this before we step into it. This is a longer psalm, but it has a really structured flow that makes it easy to follow. This is one of the psalms directly attributed to David. We don't know when he wrote it or why he wrote it, but even just kind of knowing his authorship is going to shed a little bit of context on us for it as we dig into it.
[00:16:04] Structurally, Psalm 139 is one of the most uniform Psalms. It's four movements made of six verses each. It's very tightly structured. We lose some of that structure in translating it. To English, but it feels very structured even in English as you read through it. This psalm has a progressive element as David moves from the opening statement, building stanza upon stanza.
[00:16:26] The text goes through an easy to follow progression of thought and then lands back where it started, which is really interesting. There's also a comparative and contrasting element as the first two movements line up with the second two movements, contrasting David's first response to God's vastness with his second response to it. I give all that to you ahead of time as we read through it, because it's a little bit of a longer text, and I want you to have some of these ideas in your head as we go into it. The larger theme here is that David is reflecting on the vastness and greatness of God compared to human limitations.
[00:16:58] That's what Psalm 139 is really about. In this text, then gives David's various reactions to this idea of how grand God is. And it wraps it up by going back to how our physical selves speak accurately to our identity. So to better wrap our heads around this, instead of reading the whole text at once, let's go through this chunk by chunk. And what I think we'll see is this will draw us back to the heart of David, like what he's expressing in these opening closing verses. We long to be fully known by God because we are made to be fully known by God. It's God's knowledge of us, his creative authority over us as his creatures, that gives us our identity. Okay, that's a lot. Let's read. Starting in verse 1, Psalm 139 reads like this.
[00:17:46] Lord, you have searched me and known me.
[00:17:49] You know when I sit down and when I stand up, you understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest. You are aware of all of my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it. Lord, you have encircled me. You have placed your hand on me. This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty. I am unable to reach it.
[00:18:14] David, in this opening set of verses, he tells us one of the fundamental theological truths of scripture about God. And that is, God knows everything.
[00:18:25] That's where he starts. Here. This is what theologians call the omniscience of God. He knows everything about everything, which means he knows everything about you and about me.
[00:18:41] And in our text, David is laid out before God. Bear what he does, when he rests, where he goes, what he thinks, what he says. And it's so absolute, it's so complete, this knowledge, that David says, God encircles him and has his hand upon him. This is this poetic way of saying, all of David, every facet, every ounce of David exists within the scope of God's knowledge and will.
[00:19:14] That's intense.
[00:19:16] Like, can we sit in that for. That's a huge thing to say.
[00:19:20] All of you, every ounce of you exists within the scope of God's knowledge and God's truth. You cannot escape this because he's simply bigger than you.
[00:19:36] This is the sort of truth that is so grand that it can very likely, like, it can fit into our theological box. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, God, God, he knows everything. Yeah, that makes sense. But when you consider it in real life, when you consider it in practice, when that theology enters into your world, it's all of a sudden astounding, right? And if we're honest, disconcerting, Right?
[00:20:05] There is nothing about you, nothing about you that is mysterious to God.
[00:20:12] Your entire person is laid out before him.
[00:20:16] I get this weird thing in life where when I meet new people, they eventually figure out I'm a pastor.
[00:20:25] It's like a slow piece. Like, when I meet people in normal settings, right? Like, not here. Like, I'm out at a coffee shop or I'm out at the game store or whatever, and I meet people, eventually they find out I'm a pastor. And the vast majority of the time, I mean, I'm not joking when I say this 95 out of a hundred times, when someone figures out I'm a pastor, the first thing they do is apologize for their language.
[00:20:48] And I'll watch them like, there's the moment of, like, so what do you do?
[00:20:54] I pastor a church here in town, and then I just watch the gears turn as they go back to the last 10 minutes and go, did I say any blasphemies?
[00:21:03] Did I utter any curses? And every time, I mean, almost every time. Wow. Yeah. Hey, I'm sorry for a minute ago, and you guys know me, you know, I don't really super care.
[00:21:17] The amount of folk who get embarrassed and apologize because they realize they just cussed in front of a pastor, in my opinion, is actually funny.
[00:21:25] But considering that the holy God of the universe knows every word that passes your tongue before you even say it.
[00:21:37] From the moment you were born until the moment you die, every thought that transitioned to words coming out of your mouth is known and understood and seen and heard by God.
[00:21:52] That's a different level, right?
[00:21:55] I mean, honestly, I'm right now doing the thing people do to me, going, okay, all right. Yep. Oh, God. Heard That. Yep. God heard that. Okay.
[00:22:04] If we actually thought about that, if that lived in our hearts and our minds day to day, I'm gonna go on a limb and guess it might change the way we speak. Right?
[00:22:13] It's no wonder here that David's response is what it is.
[00:22:18] You are lofty.
[00:22:20] You are above me. This is too much for me. I mean, who here has not been scared of real intimacy before, right?
[00:22:30] It's scary to think of people actually knowing you, to let your guard down and let people see the real you. And that's when we're talking about people who can only know us so much.
[00:22:42] But David's response, honestly, it's really relatable considering that he's contemplating the mind of God who knows everything, right? Which makes the second movement in the poem here make much more sense. Read on with me. Verse 7.
[00:22:57] Where can I go to escape your spirit?
[00:23:00] Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you're already there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I live in the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, even there your hand will lead me, your right hand will hold onto me. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like day. Darkness and light, they are alike to you.
[00:23:28] David now reflects on what theologians call the omnipresence of God. He doesn't just know everything, he is everywhere and everywhen.
[00:23:37] But notice that David's reflection doesn't seem so terribly positive anymore, right?
[00:23:46] As he's contemplating God's grandness, he goes from wow, God is huge, God is grand. To oh, wow, I can't get away from you.
[00:23:56] I want to get away from you, and I can't. David can't escape God. And that he realizes that that is genuinely disconcerting. And no matter where he goes, God is there. God is everywhere. And every wind David could could possibly try to escape him. Anywhere he would go, God is already there. He's in the places where David wouldn't go or couldn't go. He is everywhere.
[00:24:21] For some of us, the constant presence of God is a comfort, right? He's always with me. His hand is always guiding me. But then you think about how intimately God knows you when you start to marry those. Those truths together, that he knows every facet of you, the good parts and the bad parts, the parts that you hate, the parts that you hide, the parts that you cover up, and all of a sudden that Same truth can switch from comfort to, if we're honest, something dreadful.
[00:24:52] God really knows you.
[00:24:54] And he's with you all the time.
[00:24:57] He knows what you do in darkness.
[00:25:01] He knows the thoughts, hurts, struggles, the sins, the parts of you that you fight so desperately to keep hidden from the world, hidden from yourself. God knows them just as well as he knows you. And beyond that, hear this. He is with you while you actively participate in the deeds of darkness and destruction that's intense.
[00:25:31] The darkness cannot hide your sin, beloved. The dark is as day to God.
[00:25:36] He knows the sins you run to in secret.
[00:25:40] He's there while you run to it.
[00:25:42] Beyond this, he knows the dark times when you buy into the lies about yourself and your identity. He's there while you contemplate those things, when you struggle with hating yourself, when you believe the lies of this world about yourself, when you are at your absolute lowest in darkness. Whatever the heck that means for your particular story, beloved God sees it.
[00:26:05] And beloved God is present.
[00:26:09] I gotta be honest, I get David's response here.
[00:26:14] I don't like that there are places I go in my heart and my head in my sin that I hate.
[00:26:20] But I wish weren't there that I wish God didn't know about me, much less anyone else.
[00:26:27] It's painful to think of him knowing this, much less being with me in the midst of that darkness in my life. Oh, my gosh, that's awful.
[00:26:37] I think some of us need to sit in that truth today.
[00:26:43] That's you. The thought of God being with you in darkness gets your shame on overdrive. Right?
[00:26:50] I would encourage you.
[00:26:52] Your God does not meet you with shame.
[00:26:54] That's not how God works. He doesn't meet you with condemnation. The Lord meets you with grace, beloved. God fully knows you and fully sees you, but he fully loves you.
[00:27:07] He fully loves you deeply and powerfully. The reaction is perfectly normal. Right?
[00:27:14] I don't want anyone to know that about me, much less God.
[00:27:17] But you need not worry. You need not.
[00:27:21] God knows you and he is with you. And that knowledge and that intimacy doesn't lead him to judgment. It leads him to sympathy, to compassion, to love and to self sacrifice on the cross. For you and for me.
[00:27:36] That is how God responds in his love to our sin.
[00:27:40] Read on with me. Verse 13.
[00:27:42] For it was you who created my inward parts. You. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.
[00:27:58] My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw me when I was formless. All my days were written in your book and plan before a single one of them began. God, how precious your thoughts are to me. How vast their sum is. If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I wake up, I am still with you as you consider God's knowledge and God's presence. The truth of the matter is that all of that makes sense.
[00:28:34] It makes sense that God would know you so well, that God would be with you even in your failures, in your darkness. It makes sense because he made you.
[00:28:45] Of course he knows you.
[00:28:48] Of course he's with you. Of course he cares for you. He knows you like a master builder knows a project that he poured his heart and soul into.
[00:29:00] If you've ever been to my house, I've got this. Kind of.
[00:29:03] Not kind of. I've got this terrible old coffee table in the middle of my living room.
[00:29:07] My kids have broken it. It's got holes in it. It's got chunks missing. I love that coffee table because I made it when Kim and I were first married. And we didn't have kids yet. We didn't have kids, but we did have a garage. And I got really. For a short amount of time, I got really into woodworking, and I wanted to learn how to build stuff. And I tried building lots of things, and none of them survived because I didn't know what I was doing. And most of them had to be burned immediately upon completion. But.
[00:29:34] But the only thing that I ever really built that actually really came together well is this coffee table. I made it out of a friend's old cedar deck that I had helped him tear down.
[00:29:47] And at this point, that table in its current form is about 15 years old. And I really do like. I love it. I love my coffee table. I made it. I think it's cool.
[00:29:56] But I could also tell you every single little thing wrong with it.
[00:30:01] I can tell you the part where I messed up a measurement. I can tell you the part where I had to add extra screws. I can tell you the section that is glued together because it broke later, after I built it. I can tell you all the weak parts, all the parts I messed up because I was intimately involved with making this thing.
[00:30:18] And now I've lived with it in my house for, like, almost 15 years. Right?
[00:30:23] Praise be to God that he is a better builder than I am.
[00:30:28] I made this table out of a WHIM out of scraps, and I messed up a whole lot. But God is the perfect master creator who designed here, this every detail of you, beloved.
[00:30:40] And notice when I say this, this text is referring to specifically to your body.
[00:30:49] Like, that's the thing David chooses to zone in on here.
[00:30:53] Beloved. God put specific attention and effort into making you and making your body you. He thought of you.
[00:31:04] He designed you.
[00:31:07] The parts of you that you love about yourself.
[00:31:09] When you think through the whole thing, the parts of you that you hate about yourself.
[00:31:17] God designed them.
[00:31:19] God delights in them.
[00:31:21] The text uses this image of a weaver making a garment. Talk about God forming you together in your mother's womb. If any of you sat and watched Maddie Donahue knit, ever, just have dinner with them and you'll get to see it. It's amazing. And she creates all these wonderful things, like just while she's sitting, talking or watching TV or whatever she doing. It's so cool to see.
[00:31:42] The text goes beyond this and states that God had you in mind and designed you down to your very bones before you were even in the womb, before that part even happened. He'd already thought through the different facets of you.
[00:32:00] But that's not even enough. Our God goes beyond this and says before you ever existed, he saw you and had designed your life beginning to end.
[00:32:12] That he considered every moment you would live.
[00:32:16] He considered every day you would wake, every fear you would have every accomplishment you would come to, every strength where you would have victory, every weakness where you would fail. He considered every moment beginning to end. This is how intimately and how intentionally God was involved in bringing about yourself specific life that's intense.
[00:32:45] In Genesis 1 and 2. We read about God's original design for creation. And there's this beautiful bit of poetry in the middle of the story. It's right when God makes humanity and it says, this is Genesis 1:27. So God created man in his own image. He created them in the image of God. He created them male and female. And you have to remember this in the midst of all the physicality of creation. The stars and planets, oceans and islands, birds and reptiles. When it talks about the creation of man, it's incredibly physical.
[00:33:16] He scoops up clay and dirt and forms it and breathes into our lungs to set us apart from the rest of creation.
[00:33:26] See, everything else in that narrative comes into being through the word of God, straight from God's mind into reality. But people come into being in that story through God's hands, through his mind, through his breath, through his action.
[00:33:43] It's a reminder that your body is a part of God's good design.
[00:33:49] It's a part of how he thought of you. It's a part of God's image stamped in you. Your physicality is a part of God's good and original design. It's beloved. It's beautiful, it's precious.
[00:34:02] It is good.
[00:34:05] It's good that God made you.
[00:34:09] Embodied beloved. Your body speaks to your identity.
[00:34:14] And many of us struggle with that truth.
[00:34:17] We struggle with it.
[00:34:19] We think surely the good things God put in us, the image God put in us, that's in our soul, our spirit, surely that's what it is.
[00:34:29] Because we don't like things about our bodies.
[00:34:33] We don't like the way the genetic lottery worked out for us in the shape of certain things or our predisposition to how high our metabolism is and how easy our body holds weight and what illnesses we're more prone to and how we look like this compared to this person. We have all these things, all these things about our bodies that we don't like.
[00:34:55] And whether that looks like self hatred, whether that looks like negative self talk, whether that looks like body shame, fill in the blank.
[00:35:02] That includes mental illnesses that drag people down, things as intense as body and gender dysmorphia. Those are real, painful experiences. And guys, hear this. I'm not ignoring or downplaying any of this because I know those are real experiences. But I want you to hear this today, regardless of, of your experiences of your body, positive and negative, you live, you breathe, because the God of the Universe delighted to make you as you are.
[00:35:36] And don't mishear me.
[00:35:38] Yes, the curse is real and it affects all of us.
[00:35:43] There are disabilities of all sorts of categories that are real, that mess us up, that affect our bodies, that make living in this embodied physical universe difficult. Aging and illness are real and they affect our bodies and they make living in this physical universe difficult. But beloved, in spite of all of that, the deep core, bedrock, abiding truth of your physicality is not the ways the curse has harmed it, not the ways our culture has formed the way you think of it. The bedrock of the reality of your physicality is that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
[00:36:25] God did not use leftovers or scraps when he designed you. He didn't.
[00:36:32] He lovingly, lovingly designed you and sustains you.
[00:36:38] You as you are right now, with all the things about your body that will be prepared, repaired, and different in heaven. Right?
[00:36:51] There are a whole bunch of things in your body right now that won't be there in eternity, right, Where God will restore and redeem what the curse has broken. Yes, of course, like that is true, the curse has affected us all. But that is not the core truth of your physicality.
[00:37:09] None of that takes away from what a precious treasure you physical, embodied you actually is, beloved. That's the truth of the creation.
[00:37:24] That you are precious, that you are valuable, that you are a treasure to God.
[00:37:31] And here's where I'm going to say something that is biblically simple but culturally difficult.
[00:37:38] You can look to your body as it is right now, and you can accurately learn about who you are.
[00:37:45] Not completely and totally, because you're not just a body, but that is part of you. It's part of your identity. And you can look to your body as a trustworthy source to learn about who you are and where you exist in this world.
[00:37:59] This piece of bone and meat is God's custom design for you, and it bears his image.
[00:38:07] And even though the curse distorts that message, you can learn about God's good design for you and your physical self.
[00:38:13] You have the body, you have the sex, you have the physical ability, you have the hand, eye coordination, you have, et cetera, et cetera. We could go down the list again. Not to say that the reality of the curse can't distort this, but generally speaking, you can trust what you learn about yourself from your body.
[00:38:30] You can.
[00:38:32] You were made to engage this world physically. You can move, you can affect the world around you. You can explore, you can use your strength to protect, you can build a family, you can work and make the world a better place. All of these things come from your wonderful body that God made for you.
[00:38:47] All that is a gift.
[00:38:49] All that's worth engaging.
[00:38:51] Can you hear this? All of it is worth taking care of, Right?
[00:38:56] Like, that's a conviction on my own part as well.
[00:39:00] Your body is a gift from the Lord. It's precious.
[00:39:03] It's worth engaging. It's worth learning about. It's worth trusting. It's worth taking care of.
[00:39:11] God is so beyond our understanding. He truly is awesome. He truly is vast.
[00:39:17] In the beginning of our text, David responded to God's knowledge with this sort of mixture of reverence and discomfort, right? You remember this. He seems to like he wants to get away from God, but he figures out he can't. And now, however, as David considers the intimacy with which his God knows him, his knowledge and his presence, as this third movement comes together, all of a sudden his response is joy.
[00:39:43] It's worship.
[00:39:45] God knows Him.
[00:39:47] The thoughts of God are precious. The the presence of God when I wake is a comfort. God is so good to us like this, guys. This is what is so engaging about accepting the truth of God's design for your physical self.
[00:40:01] When we, when we understand, when we accept God's design of our physical selves and we see the limitations we have next to his grandness, and we understand the relationship of the passionate, loving, self sacrificial, all powerful creator next to us broken and flawed embodied creatures.
[00:40:23] It takes that from a shame hiding, scary, disconcerting truth to a powerful, worshipful comfort which by the way, makes our transition to the last chunk of the text. All the stranger. Read on with me in verse 19. This is how we'll land out. And man, this is a weird landing.
[00:40:40] God, if only you would kill the wicked.
[00:40:43] You bloodthirsty men stay away from me who invoke you deceitfully. Your enemies swear by you falsely. Lord, don't. I hate those who hate you and detest those who rebel against you. I hate them with extreme hatred. I consider them my enemies. Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me and. And lead me in the everlasting way. That took a turn.
[00:41:10] Extreme hatred.
[00:41:12] That took an intense turn.
[00:41:15] Even though the fourth movement is probably the weirdest one for us as modern Western readers to read, I don't actually want you to miss what God has for you here. And so for the sake of our time today, I want to put this section a little bit of context and then kind of jump through it pretty quick.
[00:41:31] You see, you have to remember, David is not a modern Western person. He's an ancient Near Eastern warlord. Like, that's who he is. He ran a mercenary company for most of his adult life. Like, this is a pretty intense dude. And this is God, David's impassioned way of expressing that he wants to be fully aligned with God and separated from the enemies of God.
[00:41:54] He wants there to be nothing but in between himself and God. And again, the language here is super intense, but this is an ancient warrior king's way of crying out for deep intimacy.
[00:42:06] Rather than dismiss this part because of its violent imagery, take a moment with me and let it be what it is.
[00:42:14] David is trying to separate himself from God's enemies so that he can be deeply connected to God.
[00:42:21] Take that. Take that text as it is for a minute and let's see how this actually connects to this, this larger teaching of the psalm. Because when we do that we see that something has shifted for David.
[00:42:32] No longer does the knowledge and presence of God push him away. Now he longs to embrace this God and have relationship with him. He wants to draw near as possible. There's something about accepting his embodiment and his relationship to God that is so immense that has changed the equation for David that is basically being said here is that David's desire is to have nothing in between them. Anything that might draw him away, anything that might separate him from God. Before he's going, how can I get away? Now he's going, anything that might come in between us, get rid of it.
[00:43:07] I think a better way to see this section is not necessarily as David standing in judgment against sinners. I mean, remember, David is a sinner, right? Rather, David being against the kind of rebelliousness that draws sinners to stand against God. David wants no part of this and invites God to check his heart because he really does want intimacy with God. And so ultimately the text lands with David asking God to do again what he has already done.
[00:43:33] Search me and know me.
[00:43:36] And I think that's really beautiful. Like, we see this progression of David considering who God is and what he does. And he moves from fear and shame to worship and intimacy. It's beautiful. But what does that mean for us?
[00:43:49] Like, what do we do with this text besides simply read it and go like, amen, Right?
[00:43:54] I think first we have to see in this text is the inherent human desire to be connected and loved. Like that is part of our identity. It's part of what we see in this text. We as humans long for deep connection on a bone level. And there's a reason for this. You are made in the image of God.
[00:44:11] That means we're made for community, right? God is triune. He's three in one. To be made like him is to be made as a communal creature.
[00:44:20] The irony here is that while our souls long to be known and loved, we live in this sort of exchange of love and relationship.
[00:44:30] We can't fully get there. We can't fully experience that in this world because sin separates us. We long for it, but we can't fully get there.
[00:44:39] At the end of the day, God is so beyond us, right? He knows you in ways you literally don't understand. And you can't know him the same way.
[00:44:49] He's too grand for you. Scripture calls him the invisible God. This is a creative way of reminding us that God is so beyond human comprehension, so complex, you can't fully grasp Him. And this isn't just an Intellectual problem, right? Like God is too holy for your sin. You can't fully be in the presence of God because you would straight up be destroyed. Sin can't be in the presence of God's holiness.
[00:45:13] And so bring that Back to Psalm 139. The text opens and closes with this invitation for the speaker to be searched and known by God. And the strange thing about this request is this is very like. This means like, because of God's nature, He's already done this.
[00:45:27] God has already searched you. God already knows you. This is simply a fact of who he is.
[00:45:33] But you have to remember the nature of community is reciprocal.
[00:45:37] If God is to know us so intimately, we want to know him intimately as well. If there is love and relationship and community, it must go both ways. But as we just talked about, because of your sin, you can't.
[00:45:48] And this is why the Gospel is so important, because Jesus makes a way for God to be known.
[00:45:56] Ben, if you want to come back up. John 1:18 says, no one has ever seen God, the one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father's side. He has revealed him.
[00:46:07] Beloved, Jesus reveals the Father.
[00:46:09] Jesus gives us access to truly know in our limited ability, the holy and righteous God. And this means the gospel opens the door to do what you were built for. Coming back to your identity, who you are.
[00:46:23] You are a creature who's meant to be known and loved by God.
[00:46:27] And Jesus opens a way for you to actually do that.
[00:46:33] Many of us live under the mistaken assumption that this world and our present circumstances, our current dreams, that those define meaning and purpose for our lives.
[00:46:43] But the reality is, beloved, that simply isn't true.
[00:46:46] The dreams you have, they're awesome. I'm glad you have them.
[00:46:50] But you are more than that.
[00:46:52] You were built specifically, set apart from all creation.
[00:46:58] You are not a spirit like the angels.
[00:47:00] You are not an animal like the creatures. You are a human.
[00:47:05] You are an embodied soul, body and spirit, like God.
[00:47:09] Made with a will, made with hopes. You're made with longings deep within your DNA. And they aren't for a career, right? You weren't made with your very DNA, crying out for more money. You weren't made with a soul that longs daily for more sex, more or a great family, or less anxiety or a dream vacation or a bigger house. You are so much more than that.
[00:47:35] You're a human being.
[00:47:37] So much more than that. You are like the Creator, God, made especially by him, made especially for him, designed to long, to connect with him, to love him. And be loved by him. And, beloved Jesus makes a way for you to do that, that he's with you always, regardless of your circumstances. Today, God is with you. His hand is upon you as you come and as you go, he sees you. He knows you. And because of Jesus, you can know him and you can do the very thing you were made for.
