Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Thank you for all the testimonies. I really appreciate the prayers, vulnerability, the honesty. Very thankful to be a part of what God is doing in this place.
Please turn with me to Psalm 139. Why don’t we just read the entire Psalm?
I did also hear news of a passing, rather sudden, of somebody I served with at a former church, and he was only 56 years old. We even did missions for one year in Japan together. It was so shocking to hear of his sudden passing. His name is William. You can pray for his wife Esther and the two children.
But let’s read Psalm 139 first.
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. 7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. 19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! 20 They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalms 139:1-24, ESV)
Amen. Let’s pray.
Father, you know us so well. You created us in our mothers’ womb. You knew us even before the foundation of this world. We can’t even fathom what this is. How you knew us even before we were born.
You know the number of hair on our head. You know every thought, every action, every motive, every thought in our hearts. You know everything so intimately.
And so, Lord, we rest in that knowledge. We rest that you know us. We bring our hearts before you. We pray that you would reveal secret things in our hearts that we may not even know are there: the anxious thoughts, the sins. We bring everything before you. We pray that you would do surgery on our hearts. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Had a bonfire yesterday with some postgraduates, Encounter Jesus Fellowship, the ministry that began only a couple months ago. But we have a solid group that is forming.
And so we went to Huntington Beach, and we shared some meal together, and people shared their salvation journey and their prayer requests. There’s something about a fire, especially with men. We end up sharing a lot more than we normally do. I was blessed to hear the journeys of these young men and women.
And it brought me back to my undergraduate years when I also had these experiences. I had people I thought were my lifelong friends, really close brothers. We would share late into the night, sometimes by the fire, sometimes just in each other’s bedrooms.
Of course, these people, unfortunately, are no longer… we’re no longer walking closely together as we once did for various reasons that are not really personal to us, but it was because of church issues. But I remember the fond sharings and the memories with these brothers.
And it is such a blessing to have people in your life that know you and that you can share with. And I remember in these formative years when I was a brand new Christian, to have people that I can—at a time when my emotions are so up and down, when my faith is so shaky, and so I have good days, bad days, and just a lot going on, a lot of turmoil, a lot of laughter, a lot of joy, a lot of dreams and plans for the future.
It was a very vulnerable time, but very safe with just a handful of brothers.
And as life goes on and as we get older, I think the number of people that we are honest with and share with dramatically shrinks. I don’t know, we just become more private. We become more isolated. We are older, and so we have images to protect. And so we don’t want to share the same dirty laundry that we did when we were younger because we had no image to protect… “This is just my best friend. I can share everything with this person.”
And as I read Psalm 139, I am so comforted that the Lord knows me so well. He knows me so well. Jackie knows me very well. But the Lord knows even before I was born. He knows everything that happened from birth. I married Jackie at 25. The Lord was with me from 0 to 25. He has been with me from that point for the next 25 years. He knows everything about me.
And that is, that is so comforting that I have somebody I can turn to, and He is safe. He is safe. I don’t have to worry. Is He gonna cast me out of His presence? Is He going to be upset with me? Is He angry with me?
I think the only person He would be angry with is somebody who is deliberately putting on a show. As you look at the Gospels, Jesus looks at hypocrites, especially leaders who are acting a part, but inwardly they are not living out what they are saying. I think there is a… To that kind of a person, Psalm 139 is scary because I can’t hide from Him, and yet I’m trying to hide from everybody else. I’m putting on an act. And so, for a hypocrite who is deliberately lying and not intending to live out anything that they’re saying, and they’re just projecting an image, and in secret, there’s so much darkness, there’s so much hypocrisy, there’s so much addiction. And that person reading Psalm 139, it would be so scary that one day I will face a judge, and all the pretending will be brought forth. That one, to that group of people, I can understand why Psalm 139, the Lord knows us so well, is not a comforting verse.
But for the rest of us, as we are trying our best to be sincere, not perfect, having some bad days, having some days where we struggled. This, this week for me was a struggle. I don’t have to hide that. I feel safe in the Lord’s presence. I feel safe in this body of Christ. Just people in my life I want to help I just can’t help. And it’s, it can get lonely at times, but the Lord, He knows all of the things that I go through as I try to help people around me.
And people seem stuck and I’m trying, and it doesn’t seem like it’s helping, but the Lord, He knows. The Lord, He knows. And I’m so comforted that I can say in Psalm 139:23,
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! (Psalms 139:23, ESV)
If you are deliberately hiding, then you would never pray this prayer. You would never pray this verse. But if you’re sincere, then you pray this because you want God to know all of you. He already does, but you’re inviting Him to know you in a way that no human ever could.
And here it’s not just thoughts in a neutral sense, the thoughts that come and go—we all have thoughts—but specifically here He’s talking about anxious thoughts. He’s talking about thoughts that cause disquiet and unrest.
And we know Jesus in the New Testament, Matthew 11, He says, “Bring me all of your heavy burdens.” And I think He’s thinking of this verse in Psalm 139. All of the anxious thoughts that we just hold on to. God knows it already. And we ask Him to search us, but He already knows us. We ask him to try us. He already knows everything about us, but He’s inviting us to voluntarily bring the anxious thoughts to Him because He wants, Jesus wants to carry them for us.
And that is how we can do life so differently. It doesn’t have to be anxious thoughts, swirling thoughts, unrest, restless thoughts. And we think, “Okay, well, this is fruitful to keep thinking these thoughts.”
Jesus says, “Why don’t you bring it to me? Why don’t you turn these thoughts into prayer?” It is one of the most loving things that Jesus ever said, that we can bring all of the things that bog us down and bind us and make life so heavy and difficult to go through, that He invites us to bring all the thoughts to Jesus.
Jesus says, “Cast all of your anxieties to me” because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7. And then it says in verse 24, “And see if there be any grievous way in me.”
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalms 139:24, ESV)
Now, this one is something that maybe you’ve never prayed before. I pray this often because we think we know ourselves, but we’re not that good at knowing ourselves. There are deep things in our hearts that we just don’t know. We just don’t see. But the Lord sees it, and He’s waiting for us to ask Him to search us in this way and to invite the Holy Spirit to convict us of our sins, the hidden sins, the deep sins that we don’t even know.
And you can operate out of a hidden motive for most of your life. But the Lord, He says, “Why don’t you invite me to search you in this way? The sins that you don’t even know that you commit.” Because we, the obvious sins, we can easily and readily repent of. But the hidden sins, the hidden motives, this one, the Lord, we have to invite Him into examining us here. And the Lord, He will show it to you. He will show it to you if you just keep on asking him.
Search me, know me. Is there an offensive way? Is there a grievous way? Am I grieving you? You know everything about me. It’s very safe to invite the Lord to examine your heart. Why can I not love this person? Why can’t I? Why don’t I? Why do I want to run away from this situation?
There are things in our heart that, if you ask the Lord, the underlying thing, He needs to bring out. The trauma, He needs to heal. The bitterness, He needs to uproot. There are things deep down that I know I have in me. That unforgiveness, I haven’t fully let go of certain things and released certain people from my past. And I know they’re there because it comes out in these ways that surprise me.
And then I just ask the Lord, “Where did I come from? Search my heart. Is there a grievous way in me? Can you search me? I, I don’t want to act this way. I don’t want to think this way. I don’t want to talk this way. I don’t want to have this emotion. I want to be lighter. I want to be brighter.”
We need to ask the Lord to search us in this way.
Isaiah 53… and we’ll end with this section. Isaiah 53:1:
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:1-6, ESV)
And I want to connect this with the griefs that we’re asking, the sinful, the grievous ways, the offensive ways that we’re asking the Holy Spirit to search us and to pierce our hearts and to convict us of our sins.
These very sins Jesus bore on the cross in His own body. That’s why we celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. We are remembering what put Jesus on the cross. And we might think Jesus is just laughing all the time and He’s light and bright, and of course He is that. But He is a man who is familiar with sorrows. And He’s sorrowful because He’s carrying all the sins of the world.
Just think about even your sins, how heavy it feels for you, how much sorrow it brings for you. And then you embrace just one other person’s issues. Oh, it becomes very heavy, very quick. And then you take on another person’s burdens. It becomes, you become… you can understand why Jesus is a man of sorrows because life is hard and Satan is very clever.
People make terrible choices in their lives and they reap the consequences of these sins. And we live in the trauma of other people’s sins that they committed against us. And so Jesus bears all of this.
And you might ask, how come? How come I’m not moved by this Lord’s Supper? How come I’m not moved by the fact that I’m saved and Jesus died for me, and it was my sins that put him on the cross?
Perhaps you haven’t asked the Lord to search you and to see if there are offensive ways in you. And Jesus was so sorrowful because, except for a handful, all of the world thought He was cursed. All of the world thought He was wrong, that God was against Him, and He died a relative nobody. He didn’t have a big following—120. That’s not big for the Son of God.
But He took on the unbelief, the rebellion. He took on all of our inconsistencies, all of the offensive ways. He took on our lack of gratitude for what He did for us.
The grace that He shows us, that feels so foreign and it doesn’t move us like it once did. Like I was readily in tears in my twenties. In my fifties, rarely do I cry. That’s a problem. That’s a problem. That’s because I’m not asking the Lord often enough. Can you search me?
I know there’s a lot more sins deep down that I’m not seeing. The surface level, obvious sins. Lord, you’ve been gracious. You’ve given me victory. I’ve overcome many sins. But, Lord, please search me. I know there’s still a long way to go. Please pierce me, convict me of my sin, so that when I take the Lord’s Supper, it would move me, that I would shed tears for the amazing grace that was shown to a wretched sinner like me.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, you know everything about us. You are our Creator. You knew us before the foundation of the world. We don’t, we can’t even grasp intellectually—we can’t even explain theologically what that is. That you saw us, our unformed substance, in our mother’s womb. You knit us together exactly the way that we were supposed to be. Even with our flaws, even with our imperfections, we are exactly the way that you meant us to be. You know the number of hair on our head. You know everything about us.
Even if we try to run from you, even if we try to put our bed in Sheol, even there, you find us. Where can we run from your presence? We fear your name because you see everything about us. We cannot hide from your presence.
We take great comfort in the fact that you know us so, so well. And we pray that you would try us, that you would test us, and that you would search us if there’s any grievous way in us.
We pray that Holy Spirit, you would convict us of our sins so that we can be renewed in our gratitude, in our first love. We would be moved to tears for the grace that you showed us. Even our own sins are so heavy, Lord. And we take on even one other person’s sins, and they’re heavy.
You are a man of sorrows. You’re familiar with all of our sorrows and all of our sins, Lord. Thank you that you love sinners like us. Search us, Lord. Search us, Lord.
We bring all of our inconsistencies to you, all our lovelessness to you, all our grumbling to you, Lord. Forgive us, Lord. We deserve hell. But you sent your son to die for sinners like us. And you call us to love and to bear other people’s sorrows. It’s heavy, but lo, we cast all of our heavy burdens to you. We cannot carry them. Even one other person’s burdens are too many. We give them to you, Lord. Lord, lead us to everlasting life. Jesus, we need you. Our loved ones need you. Our family needs you.
All the brothers and sisters at Hill Community Church need you. Our ailing and elderly parents need you. We pray that you comfort all the people who’ve lost loved ones: Edward, Jim, Sophia, Tim, Esther, up in Chicago. Please save each one. May not one person be lost. May every one of us and all of our loved ones understand how much you’ve forgiven us, how much you bore all of our sins. We don’t have to carry them any longer. We can give them to you, Lord.
All of our pride, all of our selfish ambition, all of our judgment—we can give them to you. Thank you that you carry them, that you forgive us. You bore them on a cross, and it is finished. You paid for it with your blood. By your wounds, we’re healed.
We plead the blood of Jesus over this congregation, over our loved ones. Cover, cleanse, and sanctify them by the blood of Jesus. We pray that as we partake in the Lord’s Supper, you would lighten the burdens that we carry.
We don’t have to live with our anxious thoughts any longer. We can give them to you. Thank you, Lord, for meeting us in surprising ways.
Please minister to us as we close this service. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.