Notes of a sermon preached on 8th September 2025 at Christ Church, New Catton (Norwich).

Text: Psalm 139:1-16

1. God knows me – completely, 1-6

V1 – ‘O Lord, you have searched me and you know me’ – though others may misunderstand and misrepresent me, you, O God, know me as I really am.  Though you might have been fully occupied with keeping the galaxies in their orbits, you are aware of my every thought, word and action.  You know me better than I know myself.

V5 – ‘You hem me in’ – I am beset, besieged, surrounded, by God!  At every turn, I come face to face with him!

How does that feel?  Spend a day in London, and you are caught on camera over 70 times.  How does it feel to be under the constant scrutiny of God’s all-seeing eye?

‘I think it would be rather awful if it was true [that God exists]. If there was a permanent, total, round-the-clock divine supervision and invigilation of everything you did, you would never have a waking or sleeping moment when you weren’t being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death …. It would be like living in North Korea.’’ (Hitchens)

But no: living under God’s gaze is not like living in North Korea: it’s like living in the household of the kind of loving Father Hitchens himself had always longed for.

‘Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden…’

2. God is with me – inescapably, 7-12

V7 – ‘Where can I go from your Spirit?’  Lord, you are not shut up in, or shut out of, any place.  No door can block your way; no lock can hold you back; no fence can keep you out.

V8 – no height, no depth.  Gagarin.

V9 – I might travel to the far east, or to the distant west.  But even if I wanted to escape (as Jonah did) it would be impossible.

V12 – No hiding place: you see me as clearly in the blackest night as you do in the brightest day.

How does it feel to know that you are never alone, that you cannot escape God?

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

(Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven’)

Jesus the Good Shepherd.

3. God made me – awesomely, 13-16

V13 – Before my mother first became aware of my existence in her womb, you were weaving together my tendons, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins.  When my body was smaller than my little finger, you saw its potential, mapped out its future, and gave it a purpose.

Again: how do you feel about that?

The good news is that the God who knows, completely – knows the worst about you as well as the best – also knows the remedy for your soul.  The God who is with you, inescapably, knows how guide you into eternal life.  The God who made you, awesomely, has himself become flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ.

‘Lord Jesus, I give you my heart and my soul.  I know that without God I’d never be whole.  Saviour, you opened all the right doors.  And I thank you, and praise you, from earth’s humble shores.  Take me, I’m yours.’