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Sep 10, 2017

The Glorious Presence of God

The Glorious Presence of God

Passage: Psalms 139:1-24

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: Psalms

One of our greatest fears is being alone; Truly Alone. Not the kind of alone where we get refreshed and gather our thoughts, but the kind of alone where we are discarded, abandoned and left to die. Simultaneously one of our greatest survival tactics is to hide; our sins, our weaknesses, our fears, our failures, our doubts, our true selves. In Psalm 139 King David passionately proclaims how it is impossible to not be in the loving, powerful presence of God. God can never leave us even in our darkest hour and we can never hide one fragment of our true selves from him. He accepts us as we are because Jesus took our just Divine Abandonment on the cross, permanently giving us his Divine Adoption.

Order of Worship:

Call To Worship: Psalm 139

Song Lyrics

Reading: Psalm 139

Central Text: Psalm 139 (ESV)

Sermon Title: The Glorious Presence of God

Sermon Slides

Sermon Illustrations:

Response: Baptisms

Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26 NIV

Sermon Resources

Scriptures & Readings
Call To Worship: Psalm 139
LEADER: 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.

ALL: 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

LEADER: 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,

ALL: 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

Reading: Psalm 139
LEADER: 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.

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.

ALL: 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!


Central Text: Psalm 139 (ESV)
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! 

Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26 NIV
LEADER: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

ALL: Praise be to God.

Post-Service Text: Spam 139:23-24 ESV
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!


Related Scriptures:

Matt 27:45-46
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”


Romans 8:35-39
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Rom 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Discussion Questions & Applications:

  1. Explain what it’s like to feel alone, abandoned, even discarded? When have you felt this way?
  2. What are ways we try to hide from and even abandon God? Why do we do this?
  3. What is your reaction to hearing that God is always with you, sees everything, directs your paths from before you were even born, and even knows your thoughts? Is there more comfort and hope, or fear?
  4. What does it say about God and us that He abandoned His son Jesus on the cross rather than abandon us, which will also ensure that God is now wholly UNABLE to ever abandon us?
  5. What would change in me (thoughts, behavior, priorities) if I truly owned God’s loving, powerful presence in my life?

Sermons:

God’s Thoughts and Our Thoughts by Charles H. Spurgeon; Psalm 139:17

Living In the Valley - For Now by Jonathan Parnell; Psalm 22

A Christian’s Happiness by Timothy J. Keller; Romans 8:28-30

Related Media:

09.10 Album