I love it!

stjohnstmarkchurchburyThursday, May 17, 2018

Bible Text: Psalm139 | Preacher: Gill Barnett | Series: Easter

How much do you love:

Chocolate
The smell of fresh baked bread
Having your feet done
Singing
Settling into your bed at the end of a busy day?

What’s on your favourite list?
I love it!
These are all things we’ve felt, touched, heard, seen – we could even try to put them into some sort of order – the best things in life top ten.  Mine would be…  “I love it!”

We often say that about things / experiences, I love it!  But when we say it about chocolate or bread or chiropody we don’t mean it in the same way as when we talk about family or friends, do we?

“I love you, Granddad” doesn’t have the same meaning as “I love Kit-Kat” – does it?  We even make a parody of it; remember the advert tag-line – “Daddy or chips?”

No, love for another person is almost indefinable.  How precious, how wonderful – and this is only a glimpse of the love that God has for us; the care He takes in creating every one of us.  He knows us intimately and loves us utterly.
You are precious
This psalm tells us that that not one of us is:

anonymous – God saw each one of us before we were even born. He knew what colour hair you would have, what colour eyes, how your ears would sit and your little toe be a bit wonky
alone – God was with us before birth, He is with us now and He will be with us on the other side of death, in glorious life eternal
an accident – whatever your parents or your history tells you, God designed you and God desires you

God says to you over and over again, “I love you.”  You are precious, you are wonderful – you are loved.
Psalm 139
You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!  How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand –
when I awake, I am still with you.