Rev. David Holwick V
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
July 12, 2015
Psalm 139:1-18
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I. The miracle of birth.
A. My eventful trip to Denver this week.
I could only stay three days.
Kara was due on July 5, and doctors usually don't wait more
than a week after that to deliver a child.
So I decided to go to Denver on July 7 and leave on the 10th.
This way I wouldn't miss church, and I might see a baby.
Celeste and I arrived in Denver on the 7th to see a very
pregnant Kara.
She did have a sonogram that showed a full face with smooshed
nose and pudgy cheeks.
I didn't want pregnant, I wanted baby, so we took her for a
long walk in a local park.
That night, around 3:00 a.m., she went into labor.
It brought back lots of memories of having our own kids.
Daniel took off for the hospital so fast I never caught up
with him.
Just like the old days, Celeste and I were relegated to the
waiting room.
We heard lots of moans down the hall.
Every once in a while we heard a baby cry. False alarms.
They gave Kara an epidural pain block and she felt much
better, and even took a nap.
An hour later, on his father's own birthday, little William
Weston Holwick was born.
It took them two days to nail down the "Weston" part but he
is now official.
I am nervous about holding babies, but I held him.
His nose really was smooshed and his cheeks were pudgy.
But the most amazing thing about him was his fingernails.
Each tiny finger had a perfectly formed nail.
They tell me he gets more handsome each day.
B. Lots of things are amazing in life.
1) Some things are more amazing than we realize, like God's
knowledge of us.
2) Do you know you like God knows you?
a) Not just what you are, but what you can be.
3) Do you know God as he wants to be known?
II. How God sees you.
A. David begins by saying God has searched his heart.
1) It gives the impression of a government background check.
2) If you have ever had one of these done, the government is
not the only one who knows all about you - the Chinese
do, too, now that all those records have been hacked.
3) It can be beneficial to do a personal background check.
a) What are your real motivations in life?
b) What is your genuine character?
B. God knows the most intimate details about us.
1) When we are stationary and when we are moving. 139:2
2) The thoughts in our head, our words before we speak. 139:2,4
III. This kind of knowledge can be disconcerting.
A. People who lived through Communism in Eastern Europe know this.
1) After Communism fell, they opened up the secret police
records.
2) People found out that their spouses had reported on
them, that government workers had opened their mail
and kept track of their every movement.
3) Imagine that this was done to you...
B. David sort of felt like God was doing this to him.
1) He says it is like being hemmed in, like having a heavy
hand on you.
2) But if he tries to run away from God, he can't.
a) Even with miraculous mobility, you can't give God the
slip.
b) His poetry is extraordinary - "If I rise on the wings
of the dawn..."
c) God can turn darkness into light to get the knowledge
he needs.
3) Many have tried to run away from God.
Adoniram Judson was taught the Christian faith from an early
age, which is not surprising because he was a preacher's kid.
In fact, his mother taught him to read when he was only three
years old so that he could read a chapter out of the Bible
as a surprise for his dad.
Adoniram was so smart he went to Brown University at age 16.
But he found his faith severely challenged there; even in
the late 1700s colleges were known for being anti-God.
He became friends with another student named Jacob Eames.
Eames was a deist, and his arguments and influence were so
persuasive that Judson had no faith left by the time he
graduated as valedictorian at age 19.
On his 20th birthday he told his parents that he had abandoned
the Christian faith.
I can imagine the torment his godly parents felt.
Adoniram joined a traveling theater group until he lost interest
in it.
One night, tired and hopeless, found himself in a small village
and got a room in the local inn.
He found it hard to sleep because a man in the next room kept
moaning all night.
The man sounded like he was deathly ill and Adoniram got to
thinking about his own death.
It made him very uncomfortable.
The next morning, before he left, he asked about the sick man.
They told him that the man had died in the night.
Adoniram asked who he was, and the innkeeper replied that he was
a young student named Jacob Eames.
The knowledge that his good friend's life had so quickly been
cut short paralyzed Adoniram with fear.
How did his friend come to die right next to him?
It was like a divine setup.
He started thinking about all those spiritual questions that
Eames's persuasiveness had closed.
After several months of spiritual and intellectual wrestling,
Adoniram Judson finally surrendered his life to God.
If you are familiar with the story of the rest of Adoniram's
life, you know that he became one of the first foreign
missionaries sent out from America.
He spent the rest of his life laboring to bring the Gospel to
Burma.
It was not easy; Judson lost two wives and seven children and
lived as a stranger in a strange land.
When he died, he had seen 8,000 people come to faith.
Today there are thousands of Baptist congregations in Burma
that survive as his legacy.
#34132
C. God doesn't want to oppress us, but redeem us.
1) After all his running, David admits that God's hand
is not meant to be heavy, but to guide. 139:10
2) God's hand holds him to keep him safe.
a) Does God hold you?
b) Do you feel he guides you and gives you purpose?
IV. God knows us because he made us.
A. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. 139:14
1) Modern medical science is light-years ahead of what the
ancient Jews knew about the human body.
a) We have sonograms and CAT scans and machines that can
image the processes of your body in real-time.
b) But the more we discover, the more we realize how
incredible the body is.
2) Anyone who has contemplated a little baby knows this.
a) And note that our creation begins in the womb.
b) This is why most Christians are opposed to abortion.
1> Even an unformed body (v. 16) has value to God.
B. It is supernatural more than biological.
1) There is, of course, a biological process involved.
2) But the essence of being human requires a miracle - it
requires God.
a) This is why I am not concerned that robots will take
over the world.
1> (Even if one of them did kill a German factory
worker last week.)
b) Machines can be given intelligence, but not a soul.
V. We have much to think about.
A. David's considers God himself.
1) God knows all of David's thoughts, but God's thoughts
far outweigh them.
2) David is probably thinking of all the incredible things
God has created and sustained.
3) It still grabs people's attention today.
Dr. John McIntyre was for many years the professor of
nuclear physics at Texas A&M University.
He converted to Christianity in a home Bible class when
he was a graduate student at Stanford.
John said that the thing which impressed him about the
Christian faith was the fact that the Bible was the same
kind of a cohesive system as nature.
He meant that the more you examine the Bible, the more
complex it appears, and the deeper and more unfathomable
are its thoughts.
It is the same with nature.
It appears rather simple on the surface, but, when you
examine it, it becomes more and more complex until it
staggers the mind with its complexity.
When John McIntyre found the Bible to be the same kind of
thing, perfectly in harmony with the revelation of
nature, he was powerfully impressed.
This made him listen to the Christian claims.
King David would have appreciated Dr. McIntyre's approach.
No matter how much you know, God is still more.
#64873
B. What does God think about you? 139:23
1) When he searches, what does he find?
a) David mentions the possibility of something offensive.
1> We all have sins we should ask God to deal with.
b) But you are more than your sins.
1> Perhaps there are positive things in you that
are buried and need to come out.
2> Maybe you have spiritual potential that you have
never developed.
2) Questions you should ask God.
a) What do you want to do through my life?
b) What potential do I have?
c) What can I become with God's help?
3) Ask these questions at all the critical points in life.
a) When you change jobs.
b) When you become a parent.
c) When you retire.
d) When your spouse dies. Sermon #27481
C. Do you know God as he wants to be known?
1) Have you found "the way everlasting"?
2) God promises to draw near to anyone who draws near to him.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
Kerux Sermon #27481, “How To Reach Your Full Potential For God,”
Dr. Charles Stanley, First Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia;
November 29, 2009, <http://www.preaching.com>.
#34132 “Look What Your Dime Has Done,” Betsy Childs, A Slice of Infinity:
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, February 6, 2007;
<http://www.gospelcom.net/slice/>. It is derived from a
sermon by John Piper called “How Few There Are Who Die So Hard!”
at <http://www.desiringgod.org>.
#64873 “Like Nature, The Bible Is Wonderfully Complex,” Rev. Ray Stedman,
Kerux Sermon #5101. Other material on Dr. McIntyre can be
found at “SEARCH: Scientists Who Serve God; American Scientific
Affiliation, 1991; <http://www.asa3.org/ASA/SEARCH/SEARCHMcIntyre3-91.pdf>;
and his obituary at <http://www.hillierfuneralhome.com/obituaries/John-Armin-McIntyre1402146625/#!/Obituary>.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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