Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Now, have you ever made a deal with God based on bad news you heard? We do this all the time. Some of us will say, God, how could you let this happen to me? I've done an awful lot for you. Now I need you to do something for me. Or even worse, you'll say, God, I'll tell you what, if you do this for me, then I'll do something for you.
You see, just get me through this and then I'll do something for you. Like making a deal. You see, David's trying to do that because he doesn't like what's happening to him. And it's interesting to me that when David writes this out, it's almost like he comes under his own conviction. I can't do this with God.
You can't make that deal. You see, it's unfathomable. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. You see, when you and I ask why or what are you doing, we are questioning an infinite God with an extremely limited mind. What you're saying when you say that to God is you need to answer me.
I want to know why. I want to know what you're doing. God says you're not going to know. I mean, it's an amazing thing what God is able to do. His scrutiny can't. We cannot scrutinize what it is that God does.
Let me explain this in a much clearer way of this sort of greatness of God. Go with me to Psalm 139. Psalm 139. It's very likely could be my favorite psalm on this order.
Maybe it's yours, too. It's just an amazing psalm that David writes. And I give you the context because we'll see it at the end of the psalm. David's going through a hard time. David is king of Israel. Why is he king of Israel? He worked his way up the chain, right?
No. No, he's a shepherd. God said he's king of Israel through Samuel. He said, there's the king. So now he's king of Israel. Did he have a hard time with Saul?
Yeah, pretty hard. So Saul's out to kill him over and over again. Now David's king and he has enemies everywhere and they want him dead. So he's going through a hard time and he's trying to think this process through. So here's how it starts in these first six verses. He says, you know, I cannot even fathom your understanding of me.
It's very insightful. He said, oh, Lord, you have searched me and known me. That's a generic term. If I said, do you think God really knows you? Yeah. But what you're going to see is he really knows you. He says, you know, when I sit down and when I rise up. Well, that makes sense. God knows everything and he knows if I'm sitting or standing.
But watch. You understand my thought from afar. He says, you understand my thoughts. What thoughts? All your thoughts.
Unbelievable. There are seven billion people on the planet. At any moment, like right now. God knows all of our thoughts right now, simultaneously. You've never had a thought that God doesn't know. Not one said, I know every thought you have. You had thoughts that you don't even know. You see what I mean? You can't even remember thoughts.
But God has got them all. He says, you scrutinize my path and my lying down. He said, you are intimately acquainted with all my ways. You know, everything is going to happen in my life. We're going to see in a moment from the time I was conceived till today. God knew every single thing that was going to happen in every single day, every single hour, every single minute of my life.
Before there was one and mine and yours and everybody else's. You start getting an idea like, wait, he's not like us. He's not like us. You see, his thoughts are not like our thoughts. Well, then he goes on and says, even before there was a word on my mouth, behold, O Lord, you know it all.
He said, you have enclosed me behind him before you laid your hand upon me. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, let me just say this. You know why you're alive right now?
Because God has protected you. Satan would kill all of us. He'd kill every one of us. Remember Job's story when God and Satan were talking? God said, look at my servant Job. He's the most righteous man on earth. And Satan said, yeah, but that's because you build a hedge around him and you don't let me get at him. Remember, Jesus said to Peter, Peter, he desires to sift you like wheat, but I prayed for you.
He'd kill us all. He said, the reason you have life is because God has given it to you. To this moment, it is his gift to you. He goes on and he says, after he says that, he says, such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It's too high. I cannot attain it.
What is he saying? I can't understand it. I can't get my thoughts around a God who knows all my thoughts. And there are so many aspects of this. One of the things that most amazes me about myself and I'm sure you, too. God knows every single thought I have. And in spite of that, he loves me. I mean, it's just amazing because no one else knows my thoughts. Nobody knows all my thoughts. No one knows all yours. God does. You see, he knows every thought you have and your way, whatever you're going to do. Now, as humans, we don't think that way, do we?
How many of you, at least when you were young and probably now that you're older, do the same thing? I think I can do this because I think I can get away with it. No one will know.
I think I can. No one's going to know. Well, God knows your thoughts.
He even knew you thought that. You see, you don't get away with anything. The whole idea, you know, that's sort of a teenage kind of mantra.
Look, as long as my parents don't find out, I'll give it a shot. You know, that's the point. That's what you, but not with God. I know everything about you. Every thought you've ever had. That's the size of God. He said that such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
I can't even think this through. And then he moves on. He said, it's not only like that, but I can't escape God no matter what. I cannot escape the scrutiny of God. He said, where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you're there.
If I make my bed and chill, behold, you're there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay hold of me. And what he means by that is if I go to sea and I go as far east as you can.
He thought Spain. If I even go that far, there you are. No matter where I go, you're there. He said, if I say surely the darkness will overwhelm me and the light around me will be like night. Even in the darkness is not dark to you and the night is as is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are a light to you. I can't even escape God in sin. I can't even go into the you're going to be right there. You're going to know every single thing about me.
That's his point. Then he says this. For you formed me in my inward parts. You wove me in my mother's womb. So when did God get engaged with me? When I was conceived.
And it says he wove me in my mother's womb. It's amazing what we've done as a culture. Kill them all. You can kill them. If you don't want them, just kill them.
It's really sad when you think about it from that point of view. He said, I will give thanks to you. I love this verse. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. You and I are creatures of God. He used my parents. But he wove us.
We are fearfully. That means respectfully and wonderfully made. I am who I am because of God. You are who you are because of God. You are one of a kind. We are all snowflakes. Each one of us unique to ourselves. Got to the L.C.
to that. What an amazing thing. He said, my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. He said, your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were written all the days that were ordained for me. When as yet there was not one of them. I'm overwhelmed by that.
When I was conceived a long, long time ago. God said, I got his whole life right here. I know how long he'll be there and I know when I'll bring him home. It's amazing thought.
He's that involved. With me, then as you read on, he goes, How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.
He said, when I awake, I'm still with you. If we listed all the thoughts that God ever had about me. It would be infinite and innumerable. It'd be more than every grain of sand on all the beaches of the world. Just about me.
That doesn't include you or anyone else. He said, you've thought intimately every thought about me. You can just see what he's talking about when he gets to the greatness of God. And he ends up saying, Look, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Do you think about that very often? How fearful and how wonderful are you? Bear with me.
I want you to listen to this because it won't be easy for some of you, but I want you to listen. I want to tell you something about you. Here's what has been written every second, more than one hundred thousand chemical reactors take place in your brain. Now, I've got to be honest, sitting there looking at you. Some of you people don't look like there's that much going on.
All right. Every second, every second, one hundred thousand chemical reactions take place in your brain. It has 10 billion nerve cells to record what you see in here. That information comes to your brain through the miracle of the eye. Your eye has one hundred million receptor cells, rods and cones in each eye. Your retina also has four other layers of nerve cells. Altogether, the system makes the equivalent of 10 billion calculations a second before the image even gets to your optic nerve. Ten billion calculations before the image at your eye sees gets to your optic nerve. It even got to your brain yet.
Wow. Once it reaches your brain, the cerebral cortex has more than a dozen separate vision centers in which to process it. Your tear ducts supply a bacteria fighting fluid to protect your eyes from infection. The tears that fight the irritants, though, are different than the tears you have from sadness. These tears have 24 percent more proteins. The tears that keep your eyes from being infected are not the tears you cry.
They have less protein. It's amazing. That's not to mention the miracle of the ear and how it translates sound waves into meaningful speech and sounds or of touch, taste and smell. Part of your brain regulates voluntary matters such as muscle coordination and thought processes. Other parts of your brain control involuntary processes such as digestion, glandular secretions, the rate in which your heart beats, et cetera.
How did it accidentally happen that your body could speed up your heart rate to the proper speed to meet the increased oxygen demand when you exercise and then slow it down once that need is met? One square inch of your skin has about 625 sweat glands per square inch. It has 19 feet of blood vessels, 19 feet of blood vessels in one square inch of your skin. It has 19,000 sensory cells.
Working in coordination with your brain, it maintains your body temperature at a steady 98.6 under all weather conditions. Your stomach has 35 million glands which secrete the right amounts of juices to allow your body to digest food and convert it into stored energy for your muscles. To avoid digesting itself, your stomach produces a new lining every three days. Every three days. Your body is an efficient machine.
To ride a bicycle for an hour at 10 miles per hour requires only 350 calories, the energy equivalent of only three teaspoons of gasoline. But what the body uses much more. It has more than 200 bones. Each shape for its function connected intricately to one another through lubricated joints that cannot be perfectly duplicated even by modern science.
If you have an artificial joint, you probably know that. It says more than 500 muscles connect to these bones. Some obey willful commands and others perform their duty in response to unconscious commands from your brain. They all work together to keep us alive. Your heart muscle itself beats over 103,000 times every day, pumping your blood cells at a distance of 168 million miles. Out of your heart every day.
168 million miles. Coupled with that, your lungs automatically breathe the right amount of life-giving oxygen. About 438 cubic feet every day. Which just happens to be mixed in the exact right proportion of 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen from our atmosphere. Each of the other vital organs and glands in your body works in complex conjunction with the others that sustain your life.
Science can't quite explain this and certainly can't create it. Every cell in your body, every DNA molecule in your body has 200 billion pieces of information. Every DNA molecule in your body has 200 billion pieces of information. If you put this in a book and you made a book 500 pages long, this is one molecule of DNA, you'd have 4,000 books.
That's what's in one molecule of DNA. Guess who said this? Guess who wrote this?
Carl Sagan, the atheistic astronomer who said it all happened just by chance. It's amazing. I'd rather go with what David said. I am fearfully and wonderfully made by my creator.
Wow. As we go on in this song, verse 19, we see something happen. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, oh God.
Now you know why David wrote this song. God, these people are out to kill me. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, oh God. Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. For they speak against you wickedly, and your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, oh Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with an utmost hatred.
They have become my enemies. Now, there's a lot written about this that I think is missing the point. I think a lot of people write and say, wait, David's talking about hating the enemies of God. Jesus talked about loving your enemies. It's a little bit different thing here. I don't think that's exactly what David is doing.
He's not comparing it from that point of view. What is he saying to God? God, what are you doing in my life?
Why can't you help me? I'm loyal to you. I hate your enemies. People are enemies of you, they're my enemies. I've done this for you, God.
Why don't you do something for me? You see, why don't you remove these people who are out to kill me? Now, have you ever made a deal with God based on bad news you heard?
We do this all the time. You see, some of us will say, God, how could you let this happen to me? You see, how could you let this happen to me? I've done an awful lot for you. You see, now I need you to do something for me. Or even worse, you'll say, God, I'll tell you what, if you do this for me, then I'll do something for you.
You see, just get me through this and then I'll do something for you. Like making a deal. You see, David's trying to do that because he doesn't like what's happening to him. It's a terrible thing that's happening to him. And it's interesting to me that when David writes this out, it's almost like he comes under his own conviction. I can't do this with God.
You can't make that deal. You see, it's unfathomable. My best friend in seminary, for him, going through the four years of seminary was hard. He had a real difficulty with Greek and Hebrew. We all did to an extent. But he had a real difficulty with it.
I mean, we were praying for him to make it through Greek and Hebrew and he did. And so then he got his first church. Small Baptist church, independent Baptist church in the Green Hills of Vermont. Church had about 50 people when he got there. And he just poured himself into this community the next few years. He became a justice of the peace in the community. He became captain of their fire department.
You know, it's a little town. And the church grew from 50 to almost 200. Jim was doing just a great job. Had his daughters with him, his wife. And then he came home one day and he had a lump on his arm. He had to get it checked out. Six weeks later, he was dead.
Six weeks later, he was dead with cancer. Why, God? Why? Why? This guy said, why?
You see the same thing? I could tell you why. He's unfathomable.
He has this reason and he can't explain it to me. You see, that's the difference. Every time we run into a story like this, that's what we keep thinking. You hear some terrible thing and you go, why? Because we live under that idea, God, I know you're God. I know you're almighty and I know you're good.
So why didn't you do this? God says, because my thoughts aren't yours. My ways aren't yours. I can't even explain to you my sovereignty over everything, which will be, by the way, a topic for a future sermon when we talk about that. This first sermon, I have a very simple goal. I just want to tell you, God is unfathomable.
You won't fathom the day, tomorrow, or any time in your lifetime. He's God. He doesn't think like us.
He doesn't act like us. So asking him the question of why or what are you doing is pointless. You see, that's what God is saying.
And you say, well, why is it so pointless? Because God's not asking you and I'd understand. He never asked you and I'd understand him.
And he's not likely, according to the Bible, to ever answer your question. God's asking for something else. God's asking that you trust him. You see, do you trust me?
Remember what Job said? Even if he slays me, even if he slays me, I will trust him. Can you say that? Or do you ask why or what are you doing? Our God is unfathomable.
Let's pray. God, all of us struggle with this. When we have pain and suffering and it visits us, we ask why. When we see atrocities through culture, close by and far away, we ask why.
We keep asking why. And even though we know this is a cursed planet and we are sinful people and so many things happen on this that aren't righteous and aren't holy, we still ask you why. Father, I pray that the next time we have that question in our mind, that before it gets to our lips, we realize that you are unfathomable. We won't ever fully be able to scrutinize you, how you think and how you act, but we all have the capacity to trust you. And that's what I pray for for all of us, that when we see the consequences of the curse and sin, we don't ask why.
We trust in this great unfathomable God that we worship. In Christ's name, Amen. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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