IS EVERY LIFE SACRED?
Sometimes we don’t let people get to know us completely because we are afraid they will discover something about us that they won’t like. We may have even thought at some point in our past that God doesn’t know about some of our actions or thoughts. By now, we know that God knows everything about us (Matt. 10:30) and yet He still accepts and loves us. God is with us through every situation, in every trial- protecting, loving, guiding. He knows and loves us completely because He values life and so should we. Psalm 139 is a very personal psalm. David wrote of God’s incomparable attributes- His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence- but he wrote of those attributes in the context of how God knew him and was personally involved in the details of his life. God places high value on each one of us and considers all of our lives to sacred and precious treasures.
Read Psalm 139:1-6
The theme of this beautiful psalm is the presence of God. David knew the Lord intimately. It is a powerful affirmation of faith. The psalm celebrates God’s knowledge, power and presence. We are not told the situation behind the scenes that prompted David to write this but it seems clear it is the result of his reflection on the greatness of God in his life. Of course this reflection likely came as a result of one of his many struggles he faced and David needed some quiet time and meaningful meditation. This psalm indicates David had been given a fresh awareness of God’s remarkable character. This psalm is most important and useful to God’s people as they worship the Lord who considered each of them sacred to Him. From these verses, how can we know that God values us? (David was telling that he felt God’s constant presence and sensed how much the Lord considered him to be a sacred treasure. These verses showed that the Lord knew David intimately and said that David was a man after His own heart.)
God knows us- everything we have ever thought or done- both good and bad. He knows the intentions of our heart, our very motives, which may not even be known to us. David said that God had searched him, and knew him (v.1). God knew his posture as well as his thoughts (v.2). He was acquainted with all of his ways and with all he spoke- his deeds and his words (vv. 3-4). God went before him and came behind him (5.). The poet concluded “such knowledge is too wonderful for me (V. 6 RBS). To make the most of life, we must include God’s plan in our plans. God alone knows what is best for us; He alone can fulfill His purpose for us.
Read Psalm 139:13-16
Our value to God is not based on our performance; it is rooted in the fact that we are created in His image. Think about it, He gave His only Son so that He could spend eternity with us. David showed us a distinct connection between how the Lord values us and His work in creating us. We can further see this connection because God has a plan for us. In verses 7-12 (not read), David seems overwhelmed by the Lord’s constant presence in his life. David was even more stunned by the fact that the Lord cared to bring him into the world as a baby. David knew his birth was no accident and his life had been no coincidence. His comment that “You knit me together” (v.13) is like a Hebrew skilled artisan weaving a lovely tapestry with exact precision- meaning that is what God did for David. That is exactly what God did for each of us. Does this mean we are predestined? (God always gives us freedom of choice but certainly wants all of us to be His “children”. He has planned our days. Once we make the decision to accept Jesus as our Savior we are “predestined” to do His Will- as much as humanly possible. For David and other pre-Jesus “saints”, it was like what we learned of Abraham in Romans 4:3 that it was their faith in God.)
God saw David as an embryo long before any person saw the evidence of his development inside his mother’s body. “The depth of the earth” was a way of talking about the creative work going on depth in his mother’s womb. God recorded David’s development day by day- a fascinating process we now know! The more we learn about the human body and the natural world, the more we should stand in awe and worship- just as David did. God’s character goes into the creation of every person. Thus no one is worthless as God’s Spirit is ready and willing to work within each of us. We also must have as much respect for all human life. Abortion is wrong as life begins at conception. David gives us a great example to follow when he prayed with a dynamic awareness that the Lord treated him like a valuable treasure. The Lord had given us life, and He alone has the final word over us and He does have a plan for each of us.
Read Psalm 139:17-18
Now David continued to praise the Lord and felt he had no choice but to make a heartfelt confession. He was confessing he lived with a serious limitation in his relationship with the Lord. The limitation had to do with his finite mid that could not comprehend the infinite thoughts of God. The problem rested in the reality that God’s thought were extremely difficult for him to grasp and some even were impossible for David to understand. This is like when Isaiah was told by God to appeal to His people to return to Him (Isa. 55:9). God declared His thoughts were loftier than their thoughts and His ways higher than their ways. God’s declaration Isaiah confirmed the difficulty David faced when he tried to understand the thoughts of God. So David’s writings provided a clear contrast between his thoughts and God’s. David could not hide his thoughts form God. They were finite and limited but God’s thoughts were vast and well beyond David’s realm of understanding.
How can this study help us exhibit grace and understanding to someone who has not valued life? (David gives us a beginning to answer this question when he tried to count the thoughts of God and found them too numerous. The vastness of God’s mind is too great to understand but especially it shows His love and caring for every single person even those just conceived.)
As David wrote in verse 18, he gave the impression that in the effort to comprehend God’s mind it would so preoccupy him at night when he went to bed and when he woke up. After a night’s rest, he would awaken to discover his thoughts still centered upon the magnificent mind of the everlasting Lord. Recall that when David confessed that his finite mind could not grasp God’s infinite thoughts, David was talking directly to God. Also notice that the Lord was there with David. God never left David because He considered David’s life sacred. Psalm 139 tells us to affirm the importance of agreeing with God on the value of human life and all life is sacred. As a result, we can see ourselves and others as valuable because we share God’s perspective on the sacred value of life.