What if being fully known wasn’t something to fear, but something to celebrate? In Psalm 139, David reflects on a God who knows every thought, every action, every success, and every failure—and yet never turns away. Rather than presenting God’s knowledge as distant or merely theological, this message explores how deeply personal God’s love really is.
Just as close relationships grow through trust and familiarity, God invites us into a relationship where we not only understand facts about Him but begin to know His heart. As we learn His character, we become more responsive to His leading, more compassionate toward others, and more confident in His grace. This message encourages us to embrace the security of being fully known by God while taking intentional steps toward a deeper, more intimate walk with Him.
Reflection Questions
- What part of Psalm 139 speaks most personally to you?
- Do you find comfort or discomfort in God’s complete knowledge of you? Why?
- How is knowing about God different from knowing God?
- Where might God be inviting you to trust Him more deeply?
- How can you reflect God’s compassionate heart to someone this week?
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Full Transcript
Four Movements in the Psalm
This morning we’re looking at the Old Testament lesson, Psalm 139. As I first prepared this message, what stood out to me was the theme of God being with us. But as I dug further into the text, I realized there are really four different movements happening in this psalm.
The first six verses speak of the God who knows us. The next section speaks of the God who is always with us — which is what I originally gravitated toward. Then the psalm speaks of the God who created us, who knit us together in the womb, fearfully and wonderfully made. The lectionary skips over a section in between — the verses where the psalmist expresses hatred for his enemies, what’s called an imprecatory psalm, calling on God to destroy evildoers. It’s a section that makes us squirm, so it tends to get passed over. Finally, the psalm wraps up with the God who changes us.
So we have the God who knows us, who is with us, who creates us, and who changes us. This may unintentionally turn into a series, but today, we’re going to focus on the first six verses.
The God Who Knows Us Intimately
The psalmist begins: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.” At the heart of this passage is the truth that the way God knows us is deeply intimate and relational.
We have a fancy theological word for this: omniscience. God is all-knowing. But I don’t care much for that word on its own, because it only speaks to the breadth of God’s knowledge — that God is infinite and knows all things. It’s easy to think of that the way we think of a “know-it-all” — someone whose knowledge is simply vast, made up of facts and information. It would be easy to treat this as a sermon about factual, informational knowledge. But that isn’t what David is expressing here.
David, who was a deeply broken and fallible man, is moved to worship and exalt God because of the realization that God has searched him and knows him completely — the good, the bad, the ugly, the hopes, the dreams, the failures, the mistakes. God knows all of it, and David is overwhelmed by that.
David made significant mistakes in his life. I once heard a preacher describing different biblical figures this way: Abraham slid, but he did not backslide. Jacob slid, but he did not backslide — his name was changed. But David slid, and he did backslide. David was a deeply broken man. And yet, knowing that God knows everything he has done, David isn’t in a place of fear and trembling. He knows the heart of God — that God loves him, holds onto him, and walks with him despite his brokenness.
This kind of knowing isn’t scientific, like something you could find written in every book in the world. It’s the deep, personal knowing of someone inside and out — to the point that you can almost predict their behavior before they act.
A Story of Being Known
Those who have been married a long time know a version of this kind of knowing. Yesterday, my wife Susan and I were sitting in the kitchen, and I noticed it was getting dark outside. We checked the weather and saw there was a slight chance of rain. As it got darker, I decided we should pull in a rug we had cleaned and left out on the driveway, so we brought it in. I also thought about bringing in some pillows Susan had set out on the patio to air out, but I didn’t get around to it before we sat back down.
Then I got a phone call from my nephew Jeffrey and his wife Stacy about their new baby. While I was on the phone with them, I saw a call coming in from Susan, who was volunteering at a rodeo. I merged the calls so she could say hello to Jeff and Stacy. While she was greeting them, I got up and dashed through the house, out to the patio, and grabbed the pillows — because I knew exactly why she was calling. As I came back inside, she finished her hello and said, “The reason I was calling is I wanted to make sure — it looks like it’s going to rain. Can you bring in the rug and the pillows?” Just as she said “pillows,” I was already stepping back through the door. “Already taken care of,” I told her.
I knew the moment the phone rang what she was going to ask, because I know her. And if I have that kind of knowledge of my wife, God has far more knowledge than that of each of us — because God actually understands us completely.
Knowing vs. Knowing About
This is where David is in his relationship with God — not just informational, but relational. We should be in a place where we’re not just aware that God has searched us and knows our hearts, but where we are searching for God’s heart in return. It’s one thing to know about someone. It’s an entirely different thing to truly know them — to know God to the point that you can anticipate His heart for a given moment, and act on it without hesitation.
We know that God wants us to love our neighbor with all our heart, strength, soul, and mind. So when we see a neighbor who is hurting, our first response should be to run toward that need with the grace of God — to be Jesus, tangibly, to that person — because we know God’s heart. Too often, instead, we run the calculus: Do I have time? What if they need more than I can give? We calculate the cost rather than acting simply because of the need. It’s an easy trap to fall into.
The psalmist continues: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up… you discern my thoughts from far away… you search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.” To discern is not just to know — it’s a word of wisdom. God doesn’t just know our thoughts; He knows the thought beneath the thought — the history, the emotion, the motive behind it.
“Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high I cannot attain it.” Rather than being a place of fear, this is a place of deep security — being held, in trust and love, in the hands of God.
Living From What We Know
As human beings, I think we carry two competing yearnings. Part of us hopes no one fully knows us — because there are broken, messy things we’d rather keep hidden. And yet at the same time, we long to be truly understood. We want grace. God is the perfect answer to both of those desires.
We see this throughout Scripture — the woman at the well, for instance, who was deeply lost. Jesus saw her pain and accepted her exactly where she was. He takes people as they are and loves them too much to let them go, while still meeting them where they stand.
Conclusion: Seek to Know God’s Heart
The one thing I would ask you to take away this morning is this: have a heartfelt desire not just to know about God, but to know God — moved by the understanding of how God behaves toward you. Would you earnestly strive to know the heart of God, not merely facts about Him, so that you might respond, reflexively, in ways that bring love, joy, and peace to His heart?
It may take us a while to get there, or we may never fully arrive — but the Lord is patient. His love is steadfast, and He always responds to a heart seeking Him. Let us seek Him with all we are. Amen.
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