Sermon Notes for Psalm 139:1-7, 13-18

Key Verse: Psalm 139:14 “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.”

Today, as we talk about the gift of our Personality, we discover in Psalm 139 that God knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows our thoughts, our words, and our actions and always knows where we are. The word “known” appears seven times in the Hebrew version of this Psalm, emphasizing just how well God knows us. In fact, in the Bible, the number seven symbolizes wholeness or completeness. God knows us completely, inside and out.

This thought may seem frightening to us if we do not know God or when we try to hide from God out of guilt or shame. However, ultimately, the psalmist proclaims it as good news. We cannot escape from God’s love. Even darkness becomes light for God, and according to the psalm, hell cannot even take us away from God’s presence. We can never be lost, then, because God always knows where we are, going before us and coming behind us. This inescapable presence also makes everything in our world sacred, because God is with us. Remember that we call Jesus, “Emmanuel,” which means, “God with us,” and in this psalm we see this understanding of God’s character very clearly.

God knows us so well and stays with us all the time out of love, a creative love that knit us together in our mother’s womb. God had a hand in our creation, shaping and forming us even before we were born. Anyone who has ever witnessed birth can testify to the miracle of life, but here we discover that God creative work began long before that. Because God created you just the way you are, God does not want you to be frustrated with how you were made.

Instead, God longs for us to joyfully receive the gift of ourselves, to fully appreciate the “marvelous workmanship” that went into creating us. Of course there are some parts of ourselves that we need to change, but we also need to accept who God created us to be and work with what we have, putting it to the best use for God’s work. When we open our hearts to God, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and completely known, we discover just how very much God loves us and we begin to be able to love ourselves. Then, we can learn to recognize and use the aspects of our personality to serve God and others, and learn also how to let God team our personality with others to accomplish even more.

We can begin this process by examining our own personalities. As we look at how we relate to others and how we respond to opportunities, we find out about our natural tendencies and our personality traits. Of course, most of us have taken personality inventories, such as Myers-Briggs or behavior studies such as DISC. But, if you take some time with God in prayer, you can notice things about yourself that even these tools cannot tell you. For example, are you more reserved or outgoing? Do you process information aloud (externally) or inside your own mind (internally)? Do you prefer to cooperate with others or are you more competitive? Do you enjoy taking risks or prefer a stable environment? Are you task-oriented or people-oriented? Do you enjoy working as a team or by yourself? Do you prefer spontaneity or routine? As you look at these types of questions, try not to place more value or worth on one answer above the other, but honestly assess your tendencies. The more you understand about yourself, the more you will be able to be who God created you to be and allow God to use you to reach others. God has shaped and formed you in a particular way for a special purpose. Only as you accept yourself will you discover that wonderful purpose God has for you!

Questions for Reflection

  1—Is it good news or bad news to you that you cannot escape from God? When have you tried to hide from God or felt distant from God? How did you realize God’s presence in that place? When are you most aware of God’s presence?

2—Do you believe that God knows you better than you know yourself? How might that be true? How does it make you feel to be known so completely? Can you accept God’s complete knowledge of you and God’s complete unconditional love for you? Why is that hard to do?

3—What do you know about your personality? What parts do you like about yourself? What parts do you not like? Are the parts that you do not like something you can change? If not, how might God use even those aspects of who you are? How have you seen God use your personality to help others?

4—How did the Holy Sprit speak to you in worship today?