©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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11/8/98
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More About That Mirror
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Psalm 139:13-18
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11/8/98 More About That Mirror
For a number of weeks now
we have been talking about how
the only way we can ever hope to gain
an accurate knowledge of ourselves
is through the knowledge of Christ.
It's not all that complicated -
the more we get to know Him correctly
the more we get to know ourselves correctly.
Our Lord provides us with the perfect mirror
through which we can see ourselves correctly.
Without that mirror
we will attempt to discover who we are
through the only other resource available to
us -
the people around us.
We will begin each day
asking them who we are
and why or if we have value.
And then,
depending upon how they respond to us,
and how we choose to process that response,
we will fall into one of two possible traps:
1. Either we will think two highly of ourselves,
seeing ourselves as superior in some way to
those around us,
because we did a tiny bit better on an IQ test,
or because we have decided our body is shaped a
little bit better then others,
or because we have accumulated
a little bit larger pile of junk then they
have,
2. or we will think too little of ourselves,
because our spirit has been crushed by the lies of
others,
or because we've allowed our sins
or our failures to become the dominant
factors in our self-perception,
or because we have chosen to
measure ourselves
by any of a thousand different cultural measures
of success,
or value,
or beauty,
or significance.
But when our Lord is successful
in taking our eyes off ourselves
with all the flaws and failures we may see
there,
and taking our eyes off those around us
and all the distorted and confused input we
receive from them,
and when He is able
to give us ears to hear Him,
in other words,
when we have finally asked our Creator who
we are,
we will say about ourselves
the same thing David said about himself in
Psalm 139:
Ps. 139:13 ¶ For You formed my inward
parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.
Ps. 139:14 I will give thanks to You, for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works, And my soul
knows it very well.
Ps. 139:15 My frame was not hidden from
You, When I was made in secret, And
skillfully wrought in the depths of the
earth;
Ps. 139:16 Your eyes have seen my
unformed substance; And in Your book
were all written The days that were
ordained for me, When as yet there was
not one of them.
Ps. 139:17 ¶ How precious also are Your
thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the
sum of them!
Ps. 139:18 If I should count them, they
would outnumber the sand. When I awake,
I am still with You.
I quoted a few phrases from that passage
about a month ago,
but we didn't spend much time on it.
The content of those 6 verses
is truly remarkable.
They describe what we see
and how we respond
when we see ourselves
in the mirror of our Lord.
In other words,
when our Lord is finally able
to offer us a clear, accurate reflection of
ourselves,
when we are no longer guessing
at who we are,
or where or if we fit in God's total creative
work,
when we see ourselves
through God's eyes
these verses tell us how we will respond.
And the first response we see
is a heart of gratitude
for our uniqueness
in God's creative work.
Ps. 139:13 ¶ For You formed my inward
parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.
Ps. 139:14 I will give thanks to You, for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works, And my soul
knows it very well.
And the first thing I want to point out about this
is that I'm not saying
this is something we SHOULD DO,
I'm saying this is something we WILL DO
when we see ourselves correctly.
David isn't simply choosing to thank God for who
he is,
even though he doesn't really feel it.
Sometimes we need to do that.
Sometimes we need to choose to thank and
praise our God
even though our emotions are in anguish.
But that's not what's going on here.
David affirms God as his Creator and Designer.
It was God who chose who David would be
in every aspect of his personhood.
But he doesn't stop there.
After affirming that truth,
David bursts out with an explosion of
gratitude because he was fearfully and wonderfully
designed.
And it is important for us to recognize
that David's comments here
are intensely personal.
He is not simply talking about the generic man.
He is not making a philosophical comment
about the wondrous design of the human body.
He was not writing the introduction
to a Moody Science film.
He was talking about himself personally.
He was talking about God's decision
to bring David into existence.
And, as he looks at himself
through the eye of His Creator
He says, Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
And in context,
the "works" he's referring to
are God's creative works
in the design and creation of himself.
Now, I said a few minutes ago
that this explosion of gratitude
was not something David choose
even though he didn't really feel it,
it was something that...well, in his own words,
my soul knows ... very well.
And my point here is simply this:
We will know we are seeing ourselves correctly
when we discover that same response within
ourselves.
Maybe it would help if I stated it backwards:
If we do not find that same kind of response
within ourselves
when we look at God's creative work of us,
it simply means that we have not yet
seen ourselves correctly.
When we look at our God
and in the reflection of His Glory
see an accurate image of ourselves,
we will say with David,
"Lord, thank you for creating me,
You have done very well indeed."
And we are not talking about an egotistical
arrogance here.
This is not David saying,
"See what I have done!
See how much I have!
Aren't I a great man!"
This is not David comparing himself
to the rest of the world
and then proclaiming, "I WIN!"
This is David standing in the presence of God,
looking at God's design of David,
and saying, "Thank you Lord,
for the person you designed me to be!
Let me offer it to you in a single phrase:
If you do not like yourself,
then you have not yet seen yourself
through the eyes of God.
When we see ourselves
through the eyes of our Lord
our first response will be a soul
that overflows with gratitude.
2. But David doesn't stop there.
He goes on to say,
Ps. 139:15 My frame was not hidden from
You, When I was made in secret, And
skillfully wrought in the depths of the
earth;
Ps. 139:16 Your eyes have seen my
unformed substance; And in Your book
were all written The days that were
ordained for me, When as yet there was not
one of them.
And in those two verses
David affirms God's intimate involvement and
careful plan and purpose for David
from the day of his conception
until the day of His death.
...in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me, When
as yet there was not one of them.
Here we all are,
inching our way through life,
agonizing over the past,
afraid of the future.
It's our nature...our frail, limited human nature.
We cannot change the past,
we cannot control the future.
We find ourselves caught between the two
every day of our lives.
And we worry.
And we try to put together
all our little schemes
to make life turn out the way we think it
should.
But here in this Psalm,
speaking as only a child of God can speak,
David affirms for us the truth.
Oh Lord my God,
You have done well in Your creation of me,
and You have done well
in Your purpose and plan for my life.
I can see only a little bit of it
as I look back.
I can see none of it
as I look forward.
But I know enough about You to know
that my fear has no basis in truth.
You have held my life in your hands
from the day of my conception
until the day of my death,
and both those days
were ordained by You
before I ever existed.
I hope you see what David is saying.
When we see ourselves correctly
in the light of our Creator,
we will find within ourselves
both a heart of gratitude
for His design of us,
and a confidence in our Creator's
life plan and purpose for us.
But there's more.
Ps. 139:17 ¶ How precious also are Your
thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the
sum of them!
Ps. 139:18 If I should count them, they
would outnumber the sand.
The word translated "to" in that first phrase
actually means "concerning".
David is saying,
Ps. 139:17 ¶ How precious also are Your
thoughts concerning me, O God! How vast
is the sum of them!
Ps. 139:18 If I should count them, they
would outnumber the sand. When I awake,
I am still with You.
Of all the passages in Scripture
that I have ever wrestled with,
those two verses continue to be
among the most amazing I have ever
found.
God thinks about me.
Have you ever had a friend say to you,
"You know, I was thinking about you just this
morning..."?
How did that statement make you feel?
Felt good, huh?
Felt good to know
that someone you like
was thinking about you.
God thinks about you.
Not just on the day of your birth,
and the day of your death.
But His thoughts concerning you
are vast beyond number.
If you tried to count them
they would outnumber the sand.
You know what that says, of course.
That says you have value to Him
beyond anything you could ever even begin to
imagine.
We've seen those pictures
of huge crowds of people -
maybe all crowded into a massive stadium,
maybe packed like little bugs
into the streets of some huge city.
So many people.
Why would God care about you?
Why would He even notice?
And yet He does.
Not only does He notice,
but His mind is fixed continually upon you.
Because He cares for you
...He loves you
...He thinks about you.
When we see ourselves correctly
reflected in our Lord
1. we will overflow with gratitude,
2. we will recognize His life plan and
purpose for us,
and 3. we will discover our
incredible value to Him.
And there is one more thing as well.
It is found in that final phrase
in verse 18:
When I awake, I am still with You.
I think I may be able to illustrate
what I see happening in that phrase best by
sharing with you
an e-mail my daughter received from the
tooth fairy a few weeks ago.
Most of you know
my daughter, Joni, is currently in college
at Trinity Western University
in Langley, B.C.
When she was a little girl in pig tails,
back in those few years
when her baby teeth were falling out
and she was putting them under her
pillow for the tooth fairy,
after the tooth fairy had taken one of her teeth
she decided she wanted it back.
So she took the money she had gotten for her tooth,
and then wrote a note to the tooth fairy asking if
she could buy her tooth back,
and then she put both the note
and the money under her pillow.
The tooth fairy returned that night
and returned her tooth,
and let her keep the money as well.
But then Joni got the exciting idea
of writing to the tooth fairy every night.
She adopted the tooth fairy as her pen-pal.
Each night she put a letter to the tooth fairy under
her pillow,
and each morning she looked for the fairy's
response.
This went on for several days,
until the tooth fairy got so far behind
in collecting other children's teeth
that the correspondence had to stop.
A little over a month ago
I received a gift from my daughter.
It is a tiny wood canister
with the label "Tooth Fairy" on the front.
Inside was this note:
"Dear Tooth Fairy,
I haven't lost a tooth for a bit, but I thought I'd say
'Hi'. I'm giving you this little monogrammed box
as a token of my appreciation for all your years of
worthy service. I'm hoping you'll visit college
campuses. I love you. Joni Sue."
In response to that notice
Joni received the following e-mail from the tooth
fairy:
Dear Joni,
Thank you so very much for the wonderful wood
tooth container. I am
using it on my travels each night now to put
children's teeth in as I
collect them. It makes it so much easier to keep track
of them,
especially the very small ones.
I have missed my visits to you very much, though I
must confess sometimes I slip by and take a peak at
you when you're sleeping and give you a little kiss
on the forehead even though I know you no longer
have any teeth for me. I have such fond memories
of our correspondence years ago. You asked if I
ever visit college campuses. Yes, I do sometimes
visit college students when they have a tooth that is
knocked out or pulled out and they remember to put
it under their pillow. That doesn't happen very
often, though. When you had your wisdom teeth
pulled I stopped by and checked to see if you might
have saved them for me, but I guess the dentist must
have beat me to them. I must be honest, Joni - I
have gotten into the habit of stopping by your room
quite often at nights recently. On nights that are not
extremely busy I will sometimes sit with you for
several hours. I must say I do love the stars you
have put up on your ceiling. They are so pretty and
they give me just enough light so that I don't bump
into things and wake you up.
I love you very much, my little one, and treasure
my friendship with you more than you could ever
imagine.
With much love,
The Tooth Fairy
I share that with you
because it helps me to understand that last
phrase in Psalm 139:18
...When I awake, I am still with You.
You see,
as much as the Tooth Fairy would like to,
he cannot spend all night,
every night sitting in my daughter's dorm
room as she sleeps.
But our Lord can...and does.
In that one phrase David is talking about
the true security we discover
when we see ourselves correctly
through our relationship with God.
David is saying,
"Every night I close my eyes and in my mind
I leave You
and this world
and all its pain and confusion for a
few hours,
and I sleep.
But YOU do not leave me.
You're still there.
You still care.
and When I awake, I am still with
You.
And there is no place else
I ever want to be.