God Is All Knowing

Good morning, church. Morning.

"Hey, welcome. Uh, my name is Jeffrey. I'm the lead pastor here, and I am excited to be actually together in person. I don't know what you felt Sunday, but it was like, uh, last Sunday it was like COVID PTSD. It was like, 'I'm not doing this again. Nope, not going to happen.'"

"And so, I just, it is fun to get to worship with you. And, and I love our church. Uh, I really do. I, we say a lot around here that, 'How many churches are in Abalene?'"

"One."

"I'm not sure we believe that. How many churches in Abalene?"

"One."

"Yes. And like, we mean that. We are friends with other. Pastor David and I both are friends with other church leaders in town. I was texting them this morning, just telling them I'm praying for them and for their churches. And, uh, and they are friends, not like acquaintances we see in Po. They are friends. And we, I mean, I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are far, far more than enough lost people to fill every church building in the big country. So, if we just all be who God called us to be, I, I think God is doing something unique and beautiful in the churches in the big country. And I love it, and I'm excited about it. And, and, uh, but I am, uh, I'm partial to our church, uh, for a lot of reasons."

I think what God does in our kids ministry is one of the most unique things. You just don't find that in many churches. I think what God does in our missions teams, like, that's awesome. The way, the way we get to partner with like 105 different ministry partner, that's super cool.

Uh, but one of the things that I love so much is the way we choose to practically love the big country. We say, "We love our city." Like, we mean we love our city. And this week we had a fun opportunity to be able to do that.

Uh, I don't know if you know this. Uh, it was cold this week. And I, if, uh, if there's, you know, Abalene's known for a few things. Uh, it's not known for its ability to handle ice. And we proved it. We were swell at not handling ice.

Uh, which is why, because I know some of you are like twitching right now because you opened your park news and you see no notes. Uh, so, guess what? Today you have to write in full sentences. Yeah, I didn't do the work for you. So, uh, you're going to have to do that because we had the offices shut down a few days this week.

But, um, we got to, we got to really practically love our city. We had an opportunity on Tuesday. Last Tuesday, we posted on Facebook, "Hey, if anyone needs faucet covers," because we had come into a bunch of faucet covers. "If anyone needs them for the outside of their house, let us know, and you can either come by the church and pick one up, or we'll, we'll drop one off to your house."

And, and we thought, you know, we get a handful of people. A few people would be like, "Yeah, can you bring me one?" That post was shared almost 300 times. It was seen by around 30,000 people, and we had a team of serve team and some of our staff that delivered faucet covers for exterior faucets to around 200 houses.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We had the opportunity, a serve team and our staff, to deliver to around 200 houses. Like, that's awesome! What a practical way to just love people. We didn't do it. It just was, we just wanted to care for people.

And the, what, what I loved, I sat there in the midst of like driving all over. I've lived here a long time, and I was in places in Abalene I'd never seen before. I was like, "Hey, this is, this exists. How cool is this?" But as I was driving around, I was just overwhelmed with gratitude for you because we got to do that without thinking. We, we had the idea. We're like, "All right, let's run with it." And we didn't have to think about like, "How are we going to buy these things? How are we going to, like, get them all? Like, how is this going to happen financially?" And we never had to think about it because of the way you are, because of how faithful you are week in and week out with your tithes and offerings. We got to go really practically love our city and just had the money to do it. And it's because of you. And so, I just, I, I was driving around so overwhelmed with gratitude for the way you're faithful.

And, uh, and I just, I love our church. I really do. And I loved, uh, I did not love being at home last week, outside of it. It is fun to like have a reset sometimes.

And we knew whenever the, the storm was coming in, uh, we, well, when they, the meteorologists, were saying it might come in, we started to make plans. So, my 14-year-old daughter, she said, "Hey, uh, dad, will you do Legos with me?" And, uh, and my, just, parents, if you have a 14-year-old child and they ever say, "Will you do blank with me?" the answer is yes. Like, you, you struggle to get them to speak to you sometimes. You want to play with, like, we want to do something fun together. Absolutely.

So, we went to Target and we bought some Legos, and then the, uh, then the storm hit. Like, it really hit, and they called it Thunders, which just, "Let's pause for a second. That's the coolest name for anything ever. You heard Thunders and you're like waiting for the back doors to open up and a wrestler to walk, 'Thunders!'" LIKE, YEAH. AND THEN IT HAPPENED AND YOU'RE LIKE, "THIS is less fun than it sounds."

And so we sat down, me and Berkeley, my oldest. We sat down, and she had a really cool Lego set that was like 800 pieces, and I had a little, like, 250 piece set, and we started an Avengers movie. Before the movie was over, Berkeley was done. Before the movie was over, Jeffrey wasn't. So, we started a second Avengers movie over the weekend, and, uh, and Jeffrey, um, still wasn't done. Started a third one over the course of four days. We watched, uh, 1, two, three, nine Avengers movies, which some were good, some weren't. I'll give you my list at another time. That doesn't matter here.

But, uh, like, I started and stopped building this F1 car, which I'm an F1 fan. I like McLaren 'cuz they're winners, and I like winners. And, uh, I started and stopped this car four times over the course of four days, and it still looks like this. "If AV guys, if you'll zoom in." Um, look at how many tires are on here. The answer is zero. Look at this piece dangling here. It's not supposed to dangle. It's missing here. Let me just show you. I'll show you the amount of pieces. It is missing this amount of pieces. It's these go on here, and they haven't been on there.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting next to my 14-year-old, and I like to tell her all the time, like, "I'm smarter than her, and I know everything better than her because I do, except Legos." So, I'm constantly having to lean into Berkeley and go, "Hey, I can't get this piece to work. Hey, I can't figure this part out. Hey, will you help me with this?" 'Cuz, like, this child got this for Christmas. This is Star Wars Destroyer. She got it Christmas morning. It's like 1,200 pieces. And she finished it before Christmas dinner. 4 days, 6 hours.

And I sat there this week, and I was beginning to pray through where we were going to go this week, and I kind of [snorts] knew, like, a general idea. And I kept seeing this dumb car on my kitchen table, and I kept getting more and more. I probably looked at it like 50 times, and I kept getting more and more frustrated. And finally, the Lord was like, "Hey, sometimes life is kind of like this, like, disordered. It's not, I mean, how have you glanced at the world lately? How would we say things are going? Not swell. I mean, things are difficult. Our, our world doesn't look the way that we think it should look. There's a, there's a lot of mess. There's a lot of chaos. There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot that doesn't feel like it's, if you look outside in at the world, it's easy to go, 'Man, things are really not right.' And then, what about for you? Like, how are you? If you look at these two things and you have a really neat and ordered thing right here that looks the way that it's supposed to, or this, how do you feel? Not the answer you give your coworker when they knock on the door and you're in the middle of a project and they're like, 'Hey, how you doing?' And you're like, 'Go away, Norma.' I don't know why I chose to use Norma in this, but I did it all three services. So, if your name's Norma, it's Pastor David beltway.org. Okay. You're like, 'I don't, I'm not going to talk to you about this.' Not the, not the sanitized version that we put on Instagram. Like, we, you know, you did it this week sledding with the kids. Everything's great. And then what no one knows is that one minute before that you're like, 'IF YOU DO THAT ONE MORE TIME,' like, not the cleaned up version that we like to tell people when they go, 'How are you? I'm great.' Like, really, really? How does life feel? Does it feel like the way that it's supposed to? Does it feel measured? Does it feel correct? Does it feel ordered? I think if, if, if many of us are honest, life feels a lot more like this than it does this."

Me and the Lord were having some, uh, discussions this week about areas of my life that I felt were a little too much like this. And I know that's not like the popular pastor thing to say, but I'm going, "God, I don't know if you see what's going on right here, but I could really like use this to not be this. This circumstance, this situation that I, that, that just keeps being there. I'm, I'm ready for this to be done, this issue that I keep dealing with. I just want this to be over."

And it's, it's so easy for us to settle for this kind of life because this is the kind of life I can do. Like, Jeffrey can do this amount of life. You can see it. I got to here. And we so often in our lives will settle for this when God's going, "Hey, what if, what if, humor me, I have something better?" Like, what if this does not have to be how life feels, but you can live this kind of life?

And it requires us to get to a truth that we sometimes can wrestle with. And it's this: God knows everything, and we can trust him. The hard part with us saying God knows everything is we're acknowledging that God knows everything. Therefore, I don't. And I don't know about you, I like knowing everything.

But we see this characteristic of God in Psalm 139. So, if you will, if you'll grab a Bible, we're going to look at what does it mean for God to know everything and how does that impact our life. We're going to spend the rest of the time in this text. So, I know we say it, Pastor David and I say it every week, "Open up your Bible to Psalm 139."

While you turn there, uh, I'm going to tell you a little bit why this passage of scripture means so much to me. Growing up, I had the opportunity to have an incredible [snorts] Bible teacher. His name is David Halliday, and he actually was my Bible teacher when I was a middle schooler in Levik, Texas. And then he has since moved to Abalene. He goes to our church. He is an incredible warrior in the kingdom of God. He is awesome. He lead. He helps serve in our food pantry. He helps serve in our benevolence ministry on our prayer teams. Like, he is an incredible man.

And I remember distinctly being in middle school, and he said, "Hey, we're going to memorize a chapter of the Bible for a test grade. Listen, a chapter of the Bible doesn't sound bad." And then they put "test grade" with it. You're like, "I don't know." And I remember reading this as a middle schooler, and it shaking me to my core about who God is and what that means in my life. That's this passage of scripture.

And at the time when it's written in the ancient near east, they, they had many, uh, little "G" gods. Gods that they had made and fashioned by their own. Like, these gods weren't personal. They didn't know them. They didn't walk in relationship with them. They were often regionally based, tied to a temple. And so they would go to these temples, and they would meet these gods. They would give sacrifices. But it was, it was nothing. It was cold, distant, no, no, no, no, no personal anything. And against that religious climate, against that religious backdrop, Psalm 139 is written, and it would have been radical. It would have been so different than that what they understood about what God could be like.

We see this in verse one: "Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know, when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it together. You hem me in behind and before. Lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it."

Within, within Psalm 139, we're going to get into two theological terms that we have to understand if we're going to understand who God is. And here's the truth: If you want to know who you are, hear me. You want to know who you are? If you want to know who you are, you got to know who God is. Those two things are connected. You will never fully know who you are, what you're called to be, God's destiny in your life, if we don't know who he is, which is why we're spending a few weeks talking about characteristics of God so that we get our eyes opened to who he is. And in Psalm 139, we get two characteristics of God. So, we're going to go theological for a second. It is these two:

"Omnisient. Say, 'Omnisient.'"

"Omnicious," which means God is all knowing.

"And omnipresent," which means God is everywhere.

This first one, God being omnisient, it's hard for us to wrap our minds around all knowing. Like, what does it really mean? And I read this this week, and I thought it was a beautiful way to illustrate all knowing: God knows instantly all matter, all thoughts, all [snorts] mysteries, all enigmas, all feelings, all desires, all secrets, every relationship, all thrones, all dominions, and all persons. He knows the motion, space and time, life and death, good and evil, heaven and hell, all things visible or invisible, all things in heaven and on earth. He knows every cause and why everything is the way that it is. He knows the fungus at the bottom of the ocean. He knows the deep sea creatures. God knows the ant that crawls in the forest. He knows our lifespan before birth. He knows what has happened and will happen at the same time. Since God does not sleep, he never misses anything. Before the past, God knew the future. That's pretty crazy.

So, we're going to spend a few minutes doing a, like, a 30,000 foot view. We could spend weeks talking about what does it mean for God to be omnisient, for him to be all knowing, but we're going to spend just a few minutes talking from the 30,000 foot view. What does, what does that look like? Here's what it means for God to know everything. Okay? Means God knows everything. Okay? You know what "everything" means? Everything. When it says God is all knowing, the word "all" matters there. It's not "God is knowing." "God is a being who know." No, it is "God is all knowing." You know what that means about our God? Like, this is crazy. You know what it means about our God? It means nothing has ever happened or will happen that God in heaven was like, "Whoa, look at that! Who could have seen that?" "Oh, I did." There's never any issue that came up that took God by surprise. There was never a time, a situation, a circumstance. There was never anything that God did not know: past, present, or future. That's crazy.

He knows that time your car wouldn't start in the McDonald's line. He knows that. Like, sometimes we are okay with God knowing the really big things in our life. Like, we, we want him to know, like, the, the war that's going on over here, the, the big giant issue in our life. He knows that last night when you were walking without your glasses, you stubbed your toe, and he knows what words you said.

"Like, think about that. THINK ABOUT THE MAGNITUDE OF WHAT IT MEANS FOR God to know everything."

The reason we can trust that this is the life he can give us is because he knows it all. He knows the future. Think about that. "Remember the former things, those of long ago: I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. [snorts] I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'"

We're a million beautiful things about God being omnisient. But one of them is this: A God who knows everything is a God we can trust with anything. A God who knows everything is one we can trust. How, how horrible would it be to have a God who doesn't know everything? Would we trust him? No. If I got an issue with my marriage, and I know that my God has a limited amount of knowledge, he's just, "I'll deal with this. I'll take care of this." A God who knows everything is a God who, it doesn't matter big, small, mediumsiz, whatever's going on in our world, we can trust him with anything.

It is only God's omniscience that brings stability into a world of uncertainty. Like, we're not going to understand everything that goes on in the world. That's just the reality of it. I, on my own, you, on your own, can build this life. Can it look kind of like it's supposed to? Yes. You, you could guess that this is a car if you follow F1. You might, like, know that it's an F1 car. Is it right, though? Is it done? Is it living the way that it's supposed to? Is it rolling around like it should? Is it right? No. I can do this on my own. On my own, I can, I can bring some clarity to some things in my life. Will I ever be able to do it without trusting an omnisient God? No, I know that I don't know. I know the areas my, my thought process is faulty. I know I don't know the future. I'd be awesome if so, but I don't. I, I know my own faults and weaknesses. And God's up in heaven going, "Hey, I don't got those." God being omnisient means he knows everything: past, present, and future.

And what's so crazy about an omnisient God is that he doesn't just know everything. He knows you. Yeah, he knows everything, which is true. And sometimes we can, we can not, we can believe he knows everything, but then also kind of not trust that God knows us. The, the beautiful thing is, our text goes on: "You know when I sit down, when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all together."

The psalmist writes, "You know when I sit down and when I rise." Listen, what time did you wake up this morning? Give me the second. Some of you have no idea. You hit snooze 15 times. It's a miracle you made it to second service. The psalmist says, "He knows when I rise. He knows when we lie down." So many of our homes have, like, the dad seat, and then we just kind of, you know, doze off. Most dads can't ever tell you what time they went to bed. They give you, like, a general time frame: "It was between 7 and midnight." Like, we don't always know. And he goes, "I do know. Before a word is on my tongue," the psalmist said. Think about that. Before anything was on my tongue, he knew it.

If there's a question on if God knows us, Psalm 139:2-4 says, "He knows everything about you: our character, our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams, the things we've told no one, the places in our heart that we feel like are so secret." He goes, "I know and I see it all." Hebrews says, "And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

Now, that feels, if we're honest, different than Psalm 139:2-4. Psalm 139:2-4 felt kind of comforting. When we read that passage in Hebrews, like, our palms sweat, we begin to go, [sighs] "So God's just up in heaven with his magnifying glass, like, 'I'm going to have to give account.'" And so he's just looking intensely at my life going, "When's he going to fail? When's, 'There he did?' Okay. When's he going to fail? When he go, 'There he did.' When's he going to make this? Say, 'There he did.'" And we can begin to view God as all- knowing, as if it's he's a "gotcha God." And when we believe God is a, a "gotcha God," a "catch you in your failure God," like, that's his goal. When we believe that, we, we miss out on his heart for us. We, we let our lives be dictated by our own fears and not by his character.

We'll fast forward a little bit to the end of our text. You want to know how God, he doesn't just know you. You want to know how he feels about you? "I praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it well." Does that sound like a "gotcha God?" That sounds like a God who goes, "You're incredible." Does that mean you don't have flaws? No. But I made you. I did this. The psalmist says, "I praise you. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works."

And we can struggle sometimes with, with God being all knowing. And it's not because of his knowledge. It's because of our perspective. Because we go, "Well, God, if you know all, then why does this happen?" You want me to be honest? Ask those questions. I got a list of things that when I get to heaven, if I care about them and God wants to listen to me, I got some things that I want to know. I've done more teenagers funerals than I ever would have imagined I would have done. I've watched people go through things, and I'm like, "God, what's going on? I've seen the dark." And the, the hard part is, is the world is just dark. And it's not, if you want to know the truth, it's not going to get better. It broke when sin entered the world with Adam and Eve. It will continue to break until the moment Jesus returns to set up his kingdom. It's going to keep getting worse. So, one of the reasons that we struggle so much with the idea that God knows all is because we can give a list of things that, "God, if you knew, then why? If you knew, then how?" And we can let our, uh, distrust of God begin to build in us because we don't see things the way, like, he does.

First Corinthians says it like this: "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Our limited perspective makes it hard to grasp a God who knows completely.

If I, if I was going to sit down and try to build this destroyer, first of all, with the instructions, still would never happen. But without the instructions, no instructions, pour out 12,000 Lego pieces on the floor, and I would start picking them up and putting them together, I could probably get conservatively 2% done, maybe five on a great day. Berkeley's done dozens and dozens of Lego sets. And I let her, "no instructions, you start building this destroyer." She might get 10% done. She's not going to get done any more than that because we didn't have the actual knowledge of what was needed to accomplish the end goal. He does. He does. He is omnisient. He knows all.

And when we get to that place that we're struggling with the difference in our perspective of how things are supposed to be going and what is actually going on, we have to remember that the God who knows everything is the same God who moved towards us. This is not a distant God. This is not like the other gods in the ancient near east. This is a God who looked at you and loved you enough that he moved to you. That makes no sense. He moved to us.

See, our text goes on: "Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to the heaven, you are there. If I make my bed and shield, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me in the light about me by night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the dark, the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you."

The God who knows everything is the same God who walks with us. The God who is omnisient is the same God who David goes, "I cannot get away from you. Everywhere I could go, you are there." And I think for you and I, it's even different than for David because of Jesus. Jesus came to this earth, and, and he tells the disciples, like, "It's better for you that I leave because when I go, I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit who's going to be with you all the time." You know who the Holy Spirit is? God Almighty. We, we get to in little old Podok Abalene, Texas, go into every situation and circumstance and carry with us the VERY PRESENCE OF ALMIGHTY GOD. That's crazy.

"Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?" And for us, because of Jesus, if you've said yes to Jesus, it looks like this: "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you've received from God? You are not your own."

So that time you're sitting down paying the bills and you're not sure about, like, how you're going to make ends meet, it's not just that he knows that's happening, it's that he's there with you. That time with your marriage whenever things, that's, are going on, it's not just that he knows it because he's omnisient. It's that he is omnipresent, everywhere. That, that thing you're dealing with with a family member, it's not just that he knows. It's that he is with us. If you've said yes to Jesus, that should give us the most unbelievable amount of hope. God knows everything, and we can trust him.

And it, it's not even just that he's all knowing. That's awesome. Omn, that's not just that he's omnisient. It's not just that he's omnipresent. That he is everywhere. It's that for some reason, God chooses to look at us and love us more than we can imagine. God's personal care for you is one of the most astonishing truths about who he is.

You see, our text, it, it goes on: "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in a secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 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 were none of them."

Yeah, he is omnisient. He knows it all. And he is omnipresent. He is everywhere. And then the psalmist ends this by going, "I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it well. A frame. It, it wasn't hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. Woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. Every day before me was planned. Before any of them came to, like, that is a beautiful way of God just knowing you and loving you and being with you."

I told you I love Psalm 139 because when we grasp it, it changes the way we worship. It changes the way we live authentically in his presence. It changes the way we rest, changes the way we trust. Because if I believe that God is all knowing, it should lead me to worship. And not just like worship. When we believe that God Almighty knows everything, that the lug nut fell off my car and the situation going on over here and the difficult anxious place. When we believe that God looks at us and knows everything, the response should be, "OH MY GOODNESS, GOD!" Like, "You are so worthy. How do you know all this? You're incredible. Holy, holy, holy are you. Your knowledge is incomprehensible."

Says it like this in Romans: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How uncarchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out!" Like, that is incredible.

God's omniscience should free us to live honestly. If we are fully known, which Psalm 139 says we are, then there is an opportunity for you and I to not live hidden. And we all are hardwired to live hidden. Like, my golden doodles are hardwired to live hidden. I come in the house and I've been gone, and there's something that they have done bad. I hit the door, and they are hiding from me. You don't train a toddler to hide their sin and their stuff. We don't have to be hidden. That when we're anxious, that we sweep it under a rug, that when our marriage is hard, we just don't talk about it with anyone. Definitely never tell anyone about your sin. No, we are hardwired to live hidden, but in hiddenness. You, you know what stays hidden? Hidden things. You know what grows in darkness? Hidden things.

And the freedom that comes with living an authentic life comes when we recognize he already knows it all and loved us anyway. Says it like this in Romans 5: "But God showed his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." While you and I still turned our backs on him. He's here offering, and we have our backs turned. While we were in that place, the father looked at you and me and said, "I love this being enough. I'll send my perfect son to die a brutal death and take on the sins of the world." And the son, Jesus, looked at us enough and said, "I, I love them enough. I will go to the cross," which we took communion at both campuses today. We remember the cross. The brutality of the cross that Jesus took on the sins of the world. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

The invitation of God's omniscience is to a life unhidden. Stay hidden. Live this. We cannot have this life staying hidden. And God's going, "I know it all anyway." Have you ever thought how crazy it is that we hide things from God? Like the sin that we committed, he was there. That fight with your wife, he was there. And he's going, "Hey, I just, I want you to trust my heart for you."

And Jesus describes it like this over in the sermon on the mount. He tells [snorts] a story. He's like, "Uh, you know, you know birds, right? You know birds, they fly, little flappy things, those things. You know birds. You ever seen a bird with a plow? You ever seen a bird planting seed, water in the ground? No. Okay. And birds eat, right? And if the father cares about them, how much more does he care about you?" And then he doubled down on the analogy, and he goes, "You know, fields too, right? Fields, like we in Texas, we know fields. We don't know trees. We know fields because, you know, fields, you, you know, fields get covered in liies. Did the field plant the liies? No. And God clothe those fields with liies. And if you clothe the liies of the field, why are you worried about things that you don't have to worry about? Therefore, don't be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows you need them all.'"

And when we let ourselves be unhidden, then God's omniscience allows us to rest and to trust. He knows our past. He knows our present. And he knows our future. "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." His omniscience means we can trust. Does that always mean we're going to understand? No. There's going to be times God says, "Go," or, "No." And we're like, "Are you sure, God?" But when we remember, "Oh, he knows all: past, present, and future." And then God will allow. God's omniscience replaces our fear with trust and rest. Replaces our anxiousness, things that he offers of himself. Even when we don't understand and when that's difficult. Even when things are dark.

Earlier in the book of Psalms, it says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." I've always wanted to rewrite this verse, which God hasn't said I could do, so I don't see that coming in the horizon. But it would be awesome to rewrite this verse 'cuz I want this verse to say, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will pull you out of that valley." Wouldn't that be awesome? It was like, "The valley shall be no more." That's not what it says. It says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," picture that, a valley, death surrounding it. Even though I walk through that, I am with you. I am omnipresent. And that knowledge of even in the dark times that he doesn't leave us alone allows us to rest.

There's still times that we'll wrestle with it. Still times that we'll have some questions. Still times going, "Hey, God, I, I'm believing you for this. This is kind of how it feels right now. But we don't have to know everything. Trust doesn't come from understanding everything. It comes from knowing the one who does. I don't have to understand everything." And the reality is, I'm not going to. I don't have to. I can trust the one who does. The omnisient one, the omnipresent one, the one who says, "I came that they may have life and have it in abundance." That, that being said, it's only through him. I cannot get this life. You cannot have this life outside of going to him, trusting the omnisient, omnipresent one with all that I am.

And I heard this this week, and it was such a crazy way to think about God being all knowing. There is a thing that's been taught in the church a lot over the years that God just, like, completely forgets our sin. Like, it was like, "You say yes to Jesus, God, I'm giving you my all," and then it's like, "totally forgot what 13-year-old Jeffrey did." That God's all knowing. He says he know, knows past, present, and future. Jeremiah says it like this: "N no longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sin no more."

Even in God's grace to us, [snorts] his characteristic of being omnisient is there. Doesn't say he forgets it. Says, "I'll remember it no more." A decision that he makes to not remember it. Okay, think about that. It's not that he just forgets it and poof, it's gone. "I," God said, "will remember them no more." He chooses to not remember our sin. Even in his grace, his omnition is there. And so we can go to the one who knows everything and trust. Not because of anything I can do, because this is what I can do. I can do no more. But because God says, [snorts] "You don't have to. It's not about you anyway." And we can trust the one who knows everything, even when we don't understand.

Let's pray. God, we thank you for who you are. God, I confess I still so often have no idea [music] why what is said in Romans 5 happened. That while I was still a sinner, you died for me. That makes [music] no sense. And I thank you that I don't have to understand. God, I thank you that you know everything about our life: the highs, the lows, the anxious place, the things to celebrate. You know it all. You know all of our flaws and still love us. You know our dreams, and they matter to you because we matter to you. You know the things that we're anxious about, and you say, "Hey, I'm, I got you. Trust me. You're an incredible, incredible father." It's in your name we pray. Amen.